Kinect as a 3D scanner?

I have an unused Kinect laying around from a dead 360. I swear I had seen something somewhere about using it as a 3D scanner. I did some digging and I see some stuff put out by Microsoft in their SDK as well as a couple pay apps on the net.

Just curious if anyone has tried using it on a PC and what sorts of results they had? Worth my time in trying to make it go for a source for 3D prints?

I recently had a barbee scanned for me and the detail is great. The kids have a bunch of figures for their Infiniti pad (xbox). Was curious if those could be scanned and printed as novelties for them. Or even scanning the kids themselves. It would be cool to scan them now and then every couple years as they grow and mature. I think it might make a cool thing to have for them in the future.

I've used a kinect and reconstruct.me to create busts of the kids, which turned out well (their grandmother has them in pride of place on her dresser). I don't know about capturing the fine detail you'd find on figurines, though.

I did the exact same thing as 3dkarma over Christmas last year and created some tree ornaments for the grandmas with my son's face. I mistakenly got a new Kinect (for the XBox One), but that didn't work with any scanning software I could find at the time. So I used a XBox 360 Kinect with a PC connector (just a USB converter) with reconstruct.me, and it turned out pretty well. I couldn't get the high resolution and detail I really wanted, but it was good enough to recognize him. I really don't think it would be able to scan a smaller object (chess piece) with much detail.

As you already own 360 Kinect you may as well get it connected

Download the SDK and see how it works for you:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/kinectforwindows/

Then if you like it I would recommend you use Skanect as the software for scanning (FREE only has low res):

http://skanect.occipital.com/

I do have one but I don't plan on getting an Xbox One so I want to leave the Kinect on the 360 (granddaughters use it a lot). I was looking at getting a cheap used one because I would have to lop off the cord end to supply it with 12v poer and a standard USB connector so it could be used on a PC.

I was just curious if anyone had direct experience with it.

Anyway, I picked up a Kinect for $30. Lopped off the cord and soldered a USB connector to it and a molex plug so I caould use an old PC power supply. I did install the SDK and the library.

Thats when I found out, apparently I need a newer video card I guess. I have DirectX 11 installed but it keeps griping that I need a DirectX 11 video card and won't scan or buld a mesh. I can run the other demos where it does tracking and I see the depth/color images so I know the Kinect is connected and working. I am not going to buy a video card just for this. It would be better to spend the money and build a line laser scaner which would be more accurate.

So I guess the experiment ends. If I have to buy a $400 video card to get a marginal scanner out of a Kinect, I am not doing that. I don't need a scanner that bad, I just wanted it as a curiosity more than anything. I kept the Kinect connector. I can solder it back on and have it as a backup for the one in the living room.

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