SoftKinectic DS325 finger-tracking Kinect competitor shows-up

SoftKinetic first demonstrated a Kinect-like, DepthSense 311 unit, back at CES. Whilst the hardware itself functions in a fundamentally different manner from the Kinect, using the concept of Time-of-Flight, the overall functionality didn't significantly stand out, though the firm had it's impressive, iisu SDK development kit in place that made the product quite attractive. This time around however, it's all about the hardware, as the firm announces the DepthSense 325.

SoftKinetic DepthSense 325

At half the cost of the 311, the 325 is available for pre-order at $249 with worldwide shipping included. The hardware has been shrunk down to pocket size, adding serious portability, and, the image sensor has been upgraded to an unspecified HD resolution. The device features dual-microphones and of course a depth sensor and is capable of functioning from as little as 10cm away, with finger-tracking possible at 60fps.

Unimpressed? Take a look at the following YouTube video for a preview of the SDK and the exceptional speed and performance of the sensor.

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Hmm, just like leapmotion then ?

http://hexus.net/tech/news/peripherals/39725-the-leap-motion-controller/

Looks like the competition for close-range kinect style devices is hotting up !

I need more information about the leapmotion product before I consider a preorder ,complete lack of details on the website. Not even sure it uses a depth sensor perhaps just a camera and an integrated board.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/25/leap-motion-gesture-control-technology-hands-on/

Does that help?(sorry to post a competing site!).

I was hooked on the idea of leap motion the fact it can be mounted in numerous places and it seems very good, the price is also a deciding factor at like £60 its a bargain :D.

Hicks12
http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/25/leap-motion-gesture-control-technology-hands-on/

Does that help?(sorry to post a competing site!).

I was hooked on the idea of leap motion the fact it can be mounted in numerous places and it seems very good, the price is also a deciding factor at like £60 its a bargain :D.

Thanks, had a feeling it used only image sensors at that price, it's clearly using infrared light to highlight detail night-vision style and then performing some 2D image processing but the matching the results across several sensors to obtain an idea of depth - that's the bit where all the magic will be I guess, would love to have a play.

I had a look at the video for the Softkinectic and is it just me or did it seem fairly laggy on input, for $250 it seems a bit overpriced. The leap is relatively cheap tech but with some magic in the actual processing of that, like you rightly say :D. The leap looks pretty good, yes in that hands on you see him use a mouse a few times (not 100% sure why) but i assume its probably due to improvements needed in the win7 environment. With windows 8 it certainly will be a great experience and since they have atleast another 6 months of dev work then im confident they will pump out a solid unit with good support, the main advantage is the backwards compatibility so anything with touch input support is usable :).

The price is merely whats got me interested, yes i can grab a kinect secondhand for maybe a similar price but it doesnt work the way i want it… im not fussed about it seeing how my face is looking or body i simply will be using it for the hand gestures so a simple design works best from what i can see. Obviously this could be false praise and i get given a shoddy unit, but time will tell and i cant wait to write up my hands on opinion :D.

(end result though im happy others are in this market as we need strong competition to innovate the gesture/handsfree market :))

SoftKinectic DS325 finger-tracking Kinect competitor shows-up

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