Kinect installation in Ubuntu 14.10

Recently, I’ve struggled to install the Kinect drivers to my Ubuntu 14.10. There is not too many documentation and existing ones are a bit obsolete. Until 2013, PrimeSense company had developed open source libraries(OpenNI, NITE) for Kinect. In 2013, Apple bought  PrimeSense and despite OpenNI is still open source, NITE2 is no more available for developers which is used for applications such as skeleton, hands, object, gesture tracking. Without NITE, just with libraries OpenNI1.5, SensorKinect and libfreenect you can just control utilites like depth view, LED light and camera motor. I will also explain the installation of PyOpenNI library which allows to control Kinect from Python.

This post will help you the installation of libfreenect, OpenNI1.5, SensorKinect, and PyOpenNI. Although these recipe works fine for me I do not guarantee it works in your system. Here you can get NITE1.5.

Create a new directory under ‘home’

mkdir ~/kinect
cd ~/kinect


Get dependencies

sudo apt-get install git-core cmake python-dev python-numpy freeglut3-dev pkg-config build-essential libxmu-dev libxi-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libgtk2.0-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev doxygen mono-complete graphviz

Create a ‘library’ directory

mkdir ~/kinect/lib
cd ~/kinect/lib


Get git repositories

git clone https://github.com/OpenKinect/libfreenect
git clone https://github.com/OpenNI/OpenNI
git clone https://github.com/avin2/SensorKinect
git clone https://github.com/jmendeth/PyOpenNI.git

Update

sudo apt-get update

libfreenect

cd ~/kinect/lib/libfreenect
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig /usr/local/lib64/
sudo chmod a+rw /dev/bus/usb//


OpenNI-1.5.4.0

cd ~/kinect/lib/OpenNI
git checkout Unstable-1.5.4.0
cd Platform/Linux/CreateRedist/
sudo ./RedistMaker
cd ../Redist/OpenNI-Bin-Dev-Linux-x64-v1.5.4.0
sudo ./install.sh


SensorKinect

cd ~/kinect/SensorKinect/Platform/Linux/CreateRedist
./RedistMaker


If ./RedistMaker fails and Redist directory could not be created try to make this change in RedistMaker file in any text editor.

(line 70): make -j$(calc-jobs_number) -C ../Build
–> make -j1 -C ../Build

In line 70, change ‘-j$(calc-jobs_number)’ to ‘1’

Then

cd ../Redist/Sensor-Bin-Linux-x64-v5.1.2.1/
sudo ./install.sh


NITE1.5.2.21

cd ~/kinect/lib/NITE-Bin-Dev-Linux-x64-v1.5.2.21
chmod a+x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh


PyOpenNI

cd ~/kinect/lib/PyOpenNI/
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make


Copy it your python version library.

sudo cp ./lib/openni.so /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/
nano ~/kinect/lib/OpenNI_1.5.4.0/Data/SamplesConfig.xml


enter licences: <License vendor=”PrimeSense” key=”0KOIk2JeIBYClPWVnMoRKn5cdY4=”/>

cd /usr/etc/primesense/Features_1_5_2/


Give privilige to Data folder for skeleton tracking. Write your Ubuntu <username> to corresponding part.

sudo chown -R <username>:<username> Data/


At this point rebooting is required.

Testing

cd ~/kinect/lib/OpenNI/Platform/Linux/Bin/x64-Release/
./Sample-NiSimpleViewer
./Sample-NiSimpleSkeleton