Notes on OpenKinect after reading through their wiki.
- openkinect/libfreenect is a low-level library to simply get access to the device without having to care about about USB protocol and the like.
Not quite as low-level as a driver, but also not too much higher than such.
- While they have planned an 'analysis' library for higher-level stuff like gesture recognition this, and also a nice set of links under their 'Research' section they also make clear that nothing of that is implemented.
- For testing they have a nice setup with the 'record' utility and the 'fakenect' library, which simply replays recorded material. While their set of public recordings is small, it is non-empty, allowing initial development to work without an actual device. Making having one of lesser importance.