Xbox 360 Kinect Skeleton Tracking on Modern Linux

Intro

I wanted to get skeleton tracking working with the Xbox 360 Kinect on Linux, so that I could send joint tracking data to Pure Data in the form of OSC.

I came across this repository which helped me a lot, but I still had to solve a number of problems to get it working. So this repository's README is an attempt to better document how to make this old hardware and software work on modern Linux.

I'm using Arch Linux, but you should be able to follow the process regardless of the distribution you have installed. Be aware, however, that some packages won't have exactly the same name and that the directories for some libraries may be different.

Adapting the proprietary Kinect plug

You'll have to make your own cable or buy an adapter to connect the Xbox 360 Kinect to your computer.

Source: user DriverMSG on elektroda.com forums.

Dependencies

There are many packages that you may want to check you have installed before starting this process.

git
python2 - from the AUR
libusb
freeglut
jdk17-openjdk - other distributions and/or versions of the Java JDK should work in a similar way, although I haven't tested them
gcc-5 - from archive.org or the AUR, I'll explain why such an old version later
doxygen
graphviz
mono

These last three are optional and compilation without them should be possible.

Guide

Create a folder to store all the resources you'll need and then clone the OpenNI repository.

mkdir kinect
cd kinect
git clone https://github.com/OpenNI/OpenNI.git

Now you're supposed to run the RedistMaker script, but I couldn't get it to work without some workarounds. Firstly, the script will not run with python 3, so I installed python 2 from the AUR and then called the Redist_OpenNi.py script directly.

yay python2
python2 Redist_OpenNi.py

Even so, I couldn't get the binaries to compile with a modern version of gcc, so I installed an old Arch Linux gcc-5 package that I found on archive.org, which is also available on the AUR. To use this old version of gcc, I followed the instructions on this page to simply create a symlink from its binaries to /usr/local/bin/gcc and /usr/local/bin/g++.

ln -s $(which gcc-5) /usr/local/bin/gcc
ln -s $(which g++-5) /usr/local/bin/g++
hash -r

One more symbolic link was needed for the compiler to work: from /usr/lib/libmpfr.so.6 to /usr/lib/libmpfr.so.4. Apparently, this has to do with the fact that libmpfr.so.4 is no longer supplied with the x86_64 version of gcc (from what I could gather, but don't quote me on that).

ln -s /usr/lib/libmpfr.so.6 /usr/lib/libmpfr.so.4

You should now finally be able to run the script. Setting up this old version of the compiler will also be useful for building the next necessary components.

python2 Redist_OpenNi.py

After that, run the install.sh script that was placed in the newly created Redist directory.

cd ../Redist/OpenNI-Bin-Dev-Linux-x64-v1.5.7.10
./install.sh

Now you'll need a patched version of the "PrimeSense Sensor Module for OpenNI" drivers. The original guide suggests cloning avin2's repository, but I got it to work with avilleret's fork, which added a missing definition. Note that I wanted to build the drivers myself, but you should be able to use the tarballs that are included in the Bin folder.

cd ../../../../../ # back to the main folder
git clone https://github.com/avilleret/SensorKinect.git
cd SensorKinect/Platform/Linux/CreateRedist
./RedistMaker

Now I've came across yet another error: apparently the libXnDDK.so library was missing. The only way I could get the drivers to compile was to manually copy this file from the pre-compiled tarball to /usr/lib.

cd ../../../Bin
tar -xf SensorKinect093-Bin-Linux-x64-v5.1.2.1.tar.bz2 -C . --strip-components=2 Sensor-Bin-Linux-x64-v5.1.2.1/Lib/libXnDDK.so # extract only libXnDDK.so to the current directory
cp libXnDDK.so /usr/lib/
cd ../Platform/Linux/CreateRedist
./RedistMaker

Now install the drivers using the install.sh script.

cd ../Redist/Sensor-Bin-Linux-x64-v5.1.2.1
./install.sh

Next, you will need NiTE, "an SDK for joint tracking with the Microsoft Kinect". With NiTE, it should be as simple as cloning the github repository of a cached version of the software - since PrimeSense was bought by Apple in 2013 - and install it using the install.sh script.

cd ../../../../../ # back to the main folder
git clone https://github.com/arnaud-ramey/NITE-Bin-Dev-Linux-v1.5.2.23.git
cd NITE-Bin-Dev-Linux-v1.5.2.23/x64
./install.sh

That said, if you've got this far without any of the scripts and compilers returning errors, you should have a working skeleton tracker with the Xbox 360 Kinect on Linux. I suggest you try it with the Sample-Players example application supplied with NiTE. If you have encountered problems, please refer to the troubleshooting section.

cd Samples/Bin/x64-Release
./Sample-Players

Cleaning up

You may want to erase the gcc, g++ and libmpfr.so.4 symbolic links.

rm /usr/local/bin/gcc /usr/local/bin/g++ /usr/lib/libmpfr.so.4
hash -r

OSCeleton

If you're interested in easily obtaining skeleton tracking data via OSC, I suggest you try OSCeleton. The developer hasn't provided binaries for this one, so you'll have to compile it yourself, which will probably involve uncommenting the #include <unistd.h> line in the liblo-0.26-modified/examples/example_server.c file. I couldn't compile it without this small adjustment. Note that here I was already using a modern version of gcc.

cd ../../../../../ # back to the main folder
git clone https://github.com/Sensebloom/OSCeleton.git
cd OSCeleton
sed -i 's|//||g' liblo-0.26-modified/examples/example_server.c # delete all occurrences of the pattern "//" in that file
make
./osceleton

Refer to the OSCeleton repository for more information.

Troubleshooting

Auto-suspend

If the OpenNI or NiTE sample applications are reporting that the Kinect is not connected, power management software such as tlp may be automatically suspending the device. lsusb is supposed to report three different Kinect-related devices: audio, motor and camera. If you're only seeing one of these listed consistently, you want to create a file like /etc/tlp.d/01-kinect.conf and add the three device IDs to a USB_DENYLIST rule, like this:

USB_DENYLIST="045e:02c2 045e:02ad 045e:02ae"

Keep in mind that these IDs may be different for your specific model. I found mine by running lsusb until all three appeared. You can then run the following command to reload tlp's USB auto-suspension settings:

tlp usb

Failed to set USB interface

If the OpenNI or NiTE sample apps are returning an InitFromXml failed: Failed to set USB interface! error, try removing the gspca_kinect kernel module.

modprobe -r gspca_kinect

References

License

pingarelho/Kinect-Skeleton-Tracking-on-Linux

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