OpenKinect/libfreenect2

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_license

Adoption not part of the score

2245 stars · 791 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

libfreenect2 is an open-source C++ driver library for the Kinect for Windows v2 depth camera. It handles RGB, IR, and depth image transfer over USB 3.0, plus RGB-to-depth registration and GPU-accelerated depth processing via OpenGL, OpenCL, CUDA, or Vulkan.

Use cases

• access kinect v2 depth and color streams in my c++ application
• register rgb and depth images from a kinect for windows v2
• capture ir and depth data for robotics or 3d scanning research
• run kinect v2 on linux without the official microsoft sdk
• do gpu-accelerated depth processing with cuda or opencl from a kinect

When to choose

• you have a Kinect for Windows v2 and need a cross-platform open-source driver
• you need raw RGB/IR/depth streams with registration for computer vision or robotics research
• you want GPU-accelerated depth packet processing without the Microsoft SDK

When to avoid

• you have a Kinect v1 or Xbox 360 sensor (use libfreenect instead)
• you need firmware updates or newer Azure Kinect devices
• you only have USB 2.0 ports or problematic USB controllers

Facets

library · maturity maintenance

computer-vision image-processing sdk graphics computer-vision hardware robotics image-processing windows cpp kinect depth-camera rgb-d usb3-driver libfreenect2 linux macos

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markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="OpenKinect/libfreenect2")