OpenKinect/libfreenect

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_license

Adoption not part of the score

3826 stars · 1175 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

libfreenect is a userspace driver and library for the original Microsoft Xbox Kinect sensor, providing access to RGB and depth images, motor control, accelerometer, LED, and audio. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows and includes optional Python wrappers and OpenGL-based examples.

Use cases

• capture rgb and depth images from a kinect sensor
• control kinect motor tilt and read accelerometer data
• use kinect depth camera for 3d scanning or robotics
• access kinect audio stream from linux or windows
• prototype computer vision with a kinect in python

When to choose

• you have the original Xbox Kinect (model 1414) and need cross-platform userspace access
• you need low-level control of RGB, depth, motor, LED, accelerometer, or audio
• you want a C library with Python bindings and no vendor SDK dependency

When to avoid

• you have a Kinect v2 (Xbox One) - use libfreenect2 instead
• you need Azure Kinect or newer Microsoft depth camera support
• you need maintained, actively developed drivers - the project is in maintenance mode

Facets

library · maturity maintenance

computer-vision image-processing audio-processing sdk graphics computer-vision hardware robotics cross-platform windows cpp python cross-platform kinect depth-camera libusb hardware-driver 3d-scanning userspace-driver linux macos

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="OpenKinect/libfreenect")