We have talked about the coolness and the hacking possibilities offered by Microsoft's Kinect before. First we heard from its original creators in 2008 (the rest is history, it got sold to Redmond), then we saw Kinect and displaying stuff on OS X and also somehow hooked up to a computer and an iPad with. Now, thanks to the Mac App Store, we have a free 3D viewer for Kinect. When connected to a Mac via USB, the app can visualize tridimensional images of the depth data, and map RGB values onto this depth image. You can zoom, rotate and, of course, take a good screenshot with your Mac to show to your friends on Twitter.

• Kinect Viewer Download

Use Skeleton Viewer for Kinect V1 Skeletal Data. If you do an acquisition with a Kinect ® for Windows ® and get skeletal data, you can view the skeleton joints in this viewer. This example function displays one RGB image with skeleton joint locations overlaid on the image. The Kinect needs its own power source which is independent from the USB connection to work on a computer. The latest Xbox360 can power the Kinect directly but the older Xbox requires an adapter for that purpose. Therefore, the Kinect which is bundled with the Xbox360 doesn't include an adapter whereas the Kinect which is sold separately does.

Kinect 3D Viewer for Mac is free and available.

When I get to the part where Raw Kinect Viewer opens in step 6 (of complete installation directions) it opens fine and shows the depth and color images side by side. The problem I have is when I grab the depth image using the mouse, it will only rotate on the cross hair pivot point, it won’t drag to the middle of the screen. Is there a key that I need to press or hold so that it moves the image instead of only pivoting?

Kinect Viewer Download

I have watched the install video as well and it looks like a small menu pops up right before the image is grabbed, but I cannot tell what it is and nothing is mentioned about doing anything. Any suggestions would be appreciated.