Kinect v4 (aka Kinect for Azure)

You can find all the details of this new sensor at Microsoft’s official product page:

The details below were from before it was officially announced and archived here:

As some of you may have heard Microsoft (actually Alex Kipman (the man behind Kinect1/2/HoloLens) himself) recently (May 7th 2017) announced their plans for the future of Kinect through the following article:

Introducing Project Kinect for Azure

Some of the details of Kinect v4 (v1 = XBox 360, v2 = XBox One, v3 = embedded in HoloLens)

Time of Flight technology (like v2 & v3)

depth resolution of 1024 x 1024

Highest Figure of Merit (highest modulation frequency and modulation contrast resulting in low power consumption with overall system power of 225-950mw)

Automatic per pixel gain selection enabling large dynamic range allowing near and far objects to be captured cleanly

Global shutter allowing for improved performance in sunlight

Multiphase depth calculation method enables robust accuracy even in the presence of chip, laser and power supply variation

Low peak current operation even at high frequency lowers the cost of modules

>6 meter range (with <1cm error at 4 meters), uses <1W power (thanks to Tim Field)

Minimum range is 20cm (in lower power mode) with 1-2mm error for distances <1m (thanks to Tim Field)

You can find the signup page for dev-kit here: https://developer.microsoft.com/perception

Here are the first images showing data (again to Tim Field)



Kinect v4 prototype ‘in the wild’ at CVPR2018 by Karl Sanford





At one of the Microsoft Research talks at CVPR2018, by Sean Kuno

Some (highly technical) specs (page 16) in ISSCC2018 PDF

https://www.bioee.ee.columbia.edu/mediawiki/images/2/2b/ISSCC2018-99_DemoSessions.pdf

Microsoft’s (highly technical) paper from ISSCC2018 )note that PDF download is not free)

“1Mpixel 65nm BSI 320MHz Demodulated TOF Image Sensor with 3.5μm Global Shutter Pixels and Analog Binning” – ISSCC 2018 / SESSION 5 / IMAGE SENSORS / 5.8

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel7/8304413/8310156/08310200.pdf

Microsoft’s CVPR18 presentation showing of the prototype for Kinect v4 aka Kinect for Azure (as well as HoloLens research mode).

(presentation starts at 35:40, sensor footage at 39:45)



Close up view of both the short and long range modes of the prototype:



Interview by ZDNet with one of the technical people behind the new sensor:

https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/how-microsoft-is-making-its-most-sensitive-hololens-depth-sensor-yet/