This article is more than 1 year old

Open source 3D sensing libraries kiboshed, maybe by Apple

Effort led by Cupertino acquisition PrimeSense pulls the plug

The OpenNI project, which provides middleware libraries and applications for 3D sensing, is closing in April.

The project – its name is a contraction of Open Natural Interaction – was led by PrimeSense, whose technology was the basis for Microsoft's Kinect motion sensor. PrimeSense was acquired by Apple in November 2013.

That would seem to lay the decision to kill off the OpenNI's community Website on the front lawn of Cupertino.

OpenNI says its technology has 100,000 active developers; its most high-profile win would seem to be the Asus Xtion Pro.

Since the OpenNI work was published as open source, it can still be distributed, and as I Programmer notes the files will also be available on GitHub. It's also feasible that other backers of the project will revive it in some form.

There are claims on the OpenNI forums that with all PrimeSense staff now integrated into Apple, there are no staff now allocated to working on the project. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like