Quote:
Originally Posted by davidthefat
Exactly, its wasted money, it only costs about $57 actually manufacture one, which has teh motors, cameras, mics and the casing and ect, which is unneeded. Thats what I meant about over priced. All you need is the cameras, so I am just making my own system
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The BOM number being thrown around from TechInsights is an estimate based only on the cost of components. It does not include manufacturing costs, recoup on R&D, retail margins, and any other costs. These types of costs will be included in any COTS solution.
The Kinect works very differently than a pair of cameras set up for stereo vision. It uses an IR projector to illuminate the scene with a dot pattern, the reflections are then observed using an IR Camera. The data from the sensor is then fed into a chip made by a company called PrimeSense that processes that data into the depth image.
I also wanted to address something you posted in the other thread about the Kinect, suggesting that similar things have been around in robotics for a while. I am not aware of any prior solutions that provided depth information with no processing at this resolution (in all 3 dimensions) for anywhere near the $150 price point. If you do know of such a device I would love a link to further info.