| drkohler said: You see variable specs because 99.99% of the people who write about it do not have the slightest idea of how the depth camera operates. Kinect has two 640*480 CCD chips (one RGB and one for depth resolution) and an infrared random speckle projector. Due to the physics and math behind the depth finding principle, the minimum speckle size is 2 by 2 pixels. The depth camera therefore gives a 2D resolution of 320*240 to the XBox. |
Here is a patent filed by PrimeSense(the creator of the depth sensing tech in Kinect) that a technique for creating a 3D map, and is most likely being used in Kinect.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20100118123.pdf
It uses a transparency comprised of a fixed pattern that is illuminated onto the play space by a projector. The processor then takes the captured image of the illuminated play space, and creates a 3D map. The 3D map is created by calculating offsets from the captured image and a reference image.
EDIT: That is most certainly what they are using:
