Support

Check the sensor section of the download page.

You can find all the instructions to use your Structure Sensor with Skanect in this page.

Unfortunately, we have chosen not to support the Kinect for Xbox One (Kinect V2), as during our tests, the resulting 3D scans did not meet our standards for quality.

You can find a complete list of supported devices on our download page: https://skanect.occipital.com/download/#sensors 

Please ensure there are no “blank spaces” before or after the email and key when you enter them. Typically a blank space will generate a bad license key error message. 

If you still receive an error message let us know by emailing us skanect@occipital.com

Each sensor has its pro and cons. If you are an occasional user on a budget, and do not plan to scan for commercial applications, then Kinect for Xbox is the cheapest alternative. Kinect for Windows has better driver support, can be used for commercial applications and has a growing list of additional features (gain control, near mode, etc.). If you don’t need a motor and would like a device without an external power supply, then the Asus Xtion Pro Live or Primesense Carmine 08 is a good alternative. For close range applications (35cm – 2 meters), the Primesense Carmine 09 is the best choice, with lower minimal distance and more precision. For wireless mobility and high-quality color texturing, we recommend using the new Structure Sensor using Uplink in conjunction with an Apple iPad.

Since Skanect 1.5, you need to install the full Microsoft Kinect SDK, the latest link is provided in our download page. OpenNI drivers for Xbox Kinect may interfere, so it is recommended to uninstall them first.

In general, any NVidia graphics card with more than 1Gb or memory and compatible with CUDA 2.0 should work. However, to ensure a good framerate, the GTX serie is highly recommended, both for laptop and desktop configurations.

We develop Skanect using an Asus laptop with a GTX 560M, an Alienware laptop with a GTX 580M, and an Alienware X51 desktop with a GTX 660.

Make sure you have the latest NVidia drivers for your graphics card. If it does not solve the issue, please send us your log file (Settings / Open log file).

If you are using the GPU reconstruction, then the following tricks can help:

• Avoid flat walls and empty regions during the scan. Make sure you include part of the floor or some furniture to keep the tracking precise and stable.
• When scanning small objects, using a turntable and keeping the camera fixed is usually better.
• Also, if the object to be scanned is small or has few geometry, you can help the tracking by adding other objects around it. You will be able to crop the object of interest afterwards.

Also, make sure you move slowly and smoothly during the scan. Big gaps between frames can lead to tracking failure. If your FPS is too low (e.g. < 10 FPS), then you should probably consider getting a better graphics card.

We have defined a number of presets that we have found to work best for different kind of scenes. Currently you can choose between 5 different scanning modes:

• Body: This is the ideal setup to scan the bust of a person, with a bounding box of more of less 1x1x1m. You can increase the bounding box size to scan the whole body. It also performs well for mid-sized furniture.
• Object: This mode is best for smaller objects, with a default bounding box of 0.6×0.6×0.6m. It can capture finer details, at the risk of loosing camera tracking more easily.
• Room: This mode is designed to capture a 360º small room. The initial sensor position will be it the center of the bounding box.
• Half Room: This mode is better for scanning only a part of a room, with an initial sensor position near the back of the bounding box.

In the Prepare->New scan menu, you can specify a config file. This is aimed at advanced users who want to configure Skanect is a more precise way. It follows the .ini file format, and it can be used to adjust the initial camera height, for example to start a full body scan with the face of the subject. Here is an example of config.ini file that sets the initial position at 80% of the bounding box height:


[BoundingBox]
center-y-as-height-percent = 0.8


This can be combined with the Height x 2 option for the Aspect Ratio setting. You can also specify the bounding box size, here is an example that also sets an optimized size for a full body scan:


[BoundingBox]
center-y-as-height-percent = 0.8
size-x = 1.2 ; x is the width in meters
size-y = 2.2 ; y is the height in meters
size-z = 1.2 ; z is the depth in meters


If you need even more control on the bounding box, be sure to check this FAQ entry.

Note: if you just want to adjust the bounding box size and initial camera height, please see this simpler FAQ entry instead.

In the Prepare->New scan menu, you can specify a config file. This is aimed at advanced users who want to configure Skanect is a more precise way. It follows the .ini file format, and it can be used to specify an arbitrary bounding box size, orientation, and initial position. The best way to document it is through a sample config.ini file:


[BoundingBox]
;; Size of the bounding box, in meters
size-x = 2.5
size-y = 2.5
size-z = 4.5

;; An initial rotation of the bounding box can also be specified, in degrees.
;; The rotation is around the bounding box center.
rx = 0
ry = 0
rz = 0


Here we are defining a large bounding box for a corridor-like room, centering the initial position horizontally and vertically, and starting outside of the room. Below is a graphics showing the coordinate system conventions and explaining the various parameters.