As the title says, it's just a small program that takes kinect skeleton data from the OpenNI framework and spits out the coordinates of the skeleton's joints via OSC messages. These can can then be used on your language / framework of choice.

Note: this version of OSCeleton is heavily modified compared to the original (Sensebloom/OSCeleton). When MIDAS_ENABLED is set to 1, default options are customized for the Midas Framework. This is different than the original OSCeleton configuration! Set to 0 to obtain the original default behavior or add -xo as a commandline option.

Get avin's hacked Primesense PSDK driver for kinect: https://github.com/avin2/SensorKinect Folow his instructions for installing the OpenNI framwork, the driver, and the NITE middleware.

Then you can run one of the precompiled binaries in the "bin" directory or compile your own:

on Linux or Mac OSX: make

NOTE FOR MAC USERS: You must run OSCeleton from the terminal or it will not run correctly.

on windows: use the VC++ express .sln file.

If you run the executable without any arguments, it will send the OSC messages in the Midas format to localhost on port 7110. To learn about the OSC message format, continue reading below. You can also check out the original processing examples at https://github.com/Sensebloom/OSCeleton-examples but don't forget to add the -xo commandline option to use the original format!

Address pattern: "/new_user"
Type tag: "i"
i: A numeric ID attributed to the new user.

Address pattern: "/calib_start"
Type tag: "i"
i: ID of the user whose calibration process started.

Address pattern: "/new_skel"
Type tag: "i"
i: ID of the user whose skeleton is detected.

Address pattern: "/calib_fail"
Type tag: "i"
i: ID of the user whose calibration failed.

Address pattern: "/lost_user"
Type tag: "i"
i: The ID of the lost user. (This ID will be free for reuse from now on)

The default OSC message format is tailored towards the Midas-Mudra framework. The messages will have the following format:

Address pattern: "/joint"
Type tag: "siiffffd"
s: Joint name, check out the full list of joints below.
i: The ID of the sensor
i: The ID of the user.
f: X coordinate of joint in real world coordinates (centimers)
f: Y coordinate of joint in real world coordinates (centimers)
f: Z coordinate of joint in real world coordinates (centimers)
f: confidence value in interval [0.0, 1.0]
d: timestamp in milliseconds since Unix epoch

The default OSC message format is tailored towards the Midas-Mudra framework. The messages will have the following format:

Address pattern: "/hand"
Type tag: "iiffffd"
i: The ID of the sensor
i: The ID of the hand.
f: X coordinate of joint in real world coordinates (centimers)
f: Y coordinate of joint in real world coordinates (centimers)
f: Z coordinate of joint in real world coordinates (centimers)
f: confidence value in interval [0.0, 1.0] # Not supported by NITE (yet), currently set to 1
d: timestamp in milliseconds since Unix epoch

To enable the original OSCeleton message format, use -xo:

Address pattern: "/joint"
Type tag: "sifff"
s: Joint name, check out the full list of joints below.
i: The ID of the user.
f: X coordinate of joint in interval [0.0, 1.0]
f: Y coordinate of joint in interval [0.0, 1.0]
f: Z coordinate of joint in interval [0.0, 7.0]
f: Z coordinate of joint in interval [0.0, 7.0]

Address pattern: "/hand"
Type tag: "iffff"
i: The ID of the hand.
f: X coordinate of joint in real world coordinates (centimers)
f: Y coordinate of joint in real world coordinates (centimers)
f: Z coordinate of joint in real world coordinates (centimers)
f: confidence value in interval [0.0, 1.0] # Not supported by NITE (yet), currently set to 1

To send OSC messages compatible with the awesome animata skeletal animation software use the "-k" option. The messages will have the following format:

Address pattern: "/joint"
Type tag: "sff"
s: joint name concatenated with user id (ex: "l_shoulder0")
f: X coordinate of joint in interval [0.0, 1.0]
f: Y coordinate of joint in interval [0.0, 1.0]

In this mode new_user, new_skel and lost_user messages will not be sent.

You can enable a message format that is more friendly to Quartz composer with the "-q" option. The messages will have the following format:

Address pattern: "/joint/name/id"
Type tag: "fff"
f: X coordinate of joint in interval [0.0, 1.0]
f: Y coordinate of joint in interval [0.0, 1.0]
f: Z coordinate of joint in interval [0.0, 7.0]

Example (left knee of user 3): /joint/l_knee/3 0.08823146 0.5761504 0.44253197

• head
• neck
• torso
• r_collar #not supported by NITE (yet)
• r_shoulder
• r_elbow
• r_wrist #not supported by NITE (yet)
• r_hand
• r_finger #not supported by NITE (yet)
• l_collar #not supported by NITE (yet)
• l_shoulder
• l_elbow
• l_wrist #not supported by NITE (yet)
• l_hand
• l_finger #not supported by NITE (yet)
• r_hip
• r_knee
• r_ankle
• r_foot
• l_hip
• l_knee
• l_ankle
• l_foot

This option outputs the X,Y & Z data as "raw" kinect values

This option outputs the joint rotation data.

Address pattern: "/orient"
Type tag: "sifffffffff"
s: Joint name, check out the full list of joints below.
i: The ID of the user.
f f f: X axis orientation data
f f f : Y axis orientation data
f f f : Z axis orientation data

or if in Quartz Composer mode:

Address pattern: "/joint/name/id"
Type tag: "fffffffff"
f f f: X axis orientation data
f f f : Y axis orientation data
f f f : Z axis orientation data

Example (torso of user 4): /orient/torso/4 0.938792 -0.0774589 0.335662 0.0649184 0.996714 0.0484401 -0.338311 -0.0236846 0.940736

Runs the program with a number of options enabled by default: -xr -xt -p -w -r

Runs the program with the default options for the Midas-Mudra framework (with video).

Runs the program with the default options for the Midas-Mudra framework (no visualisation).

discussion, come join the fun in our google group!

To use the KinectSDK in combination with OSC messages, download OSCeleton-KinectSDK

Have fun!