GPU based Kinect point cloud visualizer

December 21, 2010

I created a plugin for TouchDesigner to visualize Kinect point clouds on the GPU.

I used the OpenNI SDK to get the pointcloud image in real world coordinates inside of TouchDesigner. Then I ran it through a GLSL shader to map the data from a perspective space to real world coordinates. For the demo I held up a 12″ record sleeve and inside TouchDesigner I overlayed a 12 unit circle to show how closely the virtual objects match up to the scan data. The rendering was done with a GLSL shader and performed at over 60fps.