TEL AVIV, Israel, Dec. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- OpenNI®(http://openni.org), an industry-led organization formed to certify and promote the compatibility and interoperability of Natural Interaction (NI) devices, middleware and applications, announced today the launch of OpenNI 2.0 SDK with a new community-driven website, featuring many new middleware partners.

OpenNI 2.0 provides an improved SDK to OpenNI 1.0, the most commonly used Natural Interaction SDK, making it easier and simpler for even more developers from any market to use OpenNI to develop computer vision middleware and enabling a new range of applications and use cases. Unlike any other developer platform before, the new OpenNI 2.0 SDK opens up many possibilities, extends the standard and brings 3D sensing development to a widespread community of developers coming from any market such as robotics, retail, digital signage, gaming, entertainment and more.

The new OpenNI website provides a home base for developers with a unique platform to provide developers with the marketing tools to showcase, share and promote middleware and applications with other developers and with customers, all with the final goal to promote the 3D sensing ecosystem, generating new business opportunities.

From day one, the new OpenNI.org website features 3D Middleware libraries enabling great new functionalities developed by leading 3^rd party OpenNI partners. Some examples include 3D scanning and reconstruction, facial tracking, hand skeleton, scene segmentation, measurement tools, 3D animations and many more.

OpenNI middleware partners that are already featured in OpenNI 2.0 website include 3D3 Solutions, Artec, Ayotle, Covii, Faceshift, Forth-ICS, GlobalSensing, Intelli-Vision, Intempora, MotionNexus, SigmaRD, Tiptep, University of Southern California, Volumental.

"During the past year we listened to the community, and together with the OpenNI community we designed a simpler, clearer, better product that will encourage developers, R&D departments, and others to better develop and share middleware and applications," said Aviad Maizels, President of PrimeSense, one of OpenNI founders. "With over 100k monthly downloads of the SDK, OpenNI has become the standard framework for development of 3D sensing. It will now become the most natural and popular place to share these developments."

About OpenNI  

OpenNI is the largest 3D sensing development framework and community. The open source SDK is the recognized standard for developing computer vision middleware and 3D solutions. The OpenNI community provides developers with a full range of software tools along with a vivid ecosystem platform for effective collaboration and promotion.

The OpenNI consortium was established in November 2010 as a not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to promote and standardize the compatibility and interoperability of Natural Interaction (NI), devices, applications and middleware. For additional information, please visit http://www.openni.org or contact  info@openni.org.

SOURCE OpenNI