Is it possible to develop for the Kinect sensor without having an Xbox 360?

Is it possible to develop for the Kinect sensor without having an Xbox 360?

We would like to use the Kinect to develop an augmented reality application, but we're not su开发者_如何学Cre if we need to get an Xbox for this. Do we have to, or can we develop using other platforms?

Yes, there are other APIs for interacting with the Kinect.

Microsoft has released it's beta API: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/kinectsdk/ The caveat with Microsofts' API is that it cannot be licensed for commercial use. It's also a beta, so functionality is not locked, and there may be bugs.

OpenKinect is an open-source alternative, but it requires a little more work to get up and running: http://openkinect.org/wiki/Main_Page

Yes ! it is very much possible to develop applications and devices on Kinect without the XBOX. Particular instances are in robotics (http://turtlebot.com/) and 3D printing (http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2011/05/26/3d-printing-with-kinect/). You should be able to get your project done using OpenNI drivers (http://www.openni.org/).