PrimeSense is a fabless semiconductor company. Our technology empowers consumer electronic devices, such as TVs, set-top boxes, living-room PCs and more with natural interaction capabilities.
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The PrimeSensor Technology PrimeSense is a fabless semiconductor company. Our technology empowers consumer electronic devices, such as TVs, set-top boxes, living-room PCs and more with natural interaction capabilities.
Our product, the PrimeSensor, contains the Reference Design and the NITE middleware.
The PrimeSensor Reference Design is a low-cost, plug and play, USB-powered device that can either sit on top of or next to a teleVision screen or a monitor, or be integrated into them. The Reference Design generates realtime depth, color and audio data of the living room scene. It works in all room lighting conditions (whether in complete darkness or in a fully lit room). It does not require the user to wear or hold anything, does not require calibration and does not require computational resources from the host’s processor.
The PrimeSensor design includes an advanced visual data processing middleware optimized for mass-market CE products called NITE™. NITE provides the algorithmic framework for the development of rich natural interaction applications. The NITE SDK is built to match GUI design and development on one hand, and games development on the other, by providing a fully documented API and framework.
PrimeSense’s product portfolio contains the PrimeSensor Reference Design, PrimeSense SoC, which acts as the backend SoC for the entire system, as well as a 3D data generation unit, optical element and NITE processing middleware.
The PrimeSense SoC contains a highly parallel computational logic designed by PrimeSense that calculates the depth value of every pixel, based on the signal from a standard CMOS sensor. In addition, the PrimeSense SoC contains interfaces for a color CMOS sensor, integrated ADCs, USB with integrated USB PHY and a controller for running the firmware, thus providing flexible and upgradable system control. NITE translates raw visual data, such as depth and color, into meaningful application commands.
Chip The PrimeSensor is built around PrimeSense’s PS1080 system on a chip (SoC). The PS1080 SoC houses extremely parallel computational logic, which receives a Light Coding™ infrared pattern as an input, and produces a VGA-size depth image of the scene.
The PS1080 SoC is a multi-sense system, providing a synchronized depth image, color image and audio stream. The PS1080 includes a USB 2.0 PHY, whose USB 2.0 interface is used to pass all data to the host. The PS1080 makes no assumptions about the host device CPU – all depth acquisition algorithms run on the PS1080, with only a minimal USB communication layer running on the host. This feature provides depth acquisition capabilities even to computationally limited host devices.
The PS1080 is PrimeSense’s second chip generation, and is already produced in mass-market quantities.
Reference Design
The PrimeSensor is an end-to-end solution that enables a computer to perceive the world in three-dimensions and to translate these perceptions into a synchronized depth image, in the same way that humans do. The solution includes a sensor component, which observes the scene (users and their surroundings), and a perception component, or brain, which comprehends the user interaction within these surroundings.
The PrimeSensor Reference Design is the sensor component of the solution.
Key Benefits
Thin host natural interface
Mass consumer market product price point
Mass production proven solution
Simple and clean application layer APIs
Support a unique end-to-end solution – no need for the application layer to have depth processing capabilities
Highlights
A large VGA-sized depth image
Multiple sensing capabilities: depth image, color (RGB) image and audio stream
Standard off-the-shelf components
A unique Registration mechanism matches every depth image pixel to its true color image pixel
A low-power embedded device – USB powered
IEC 60825-1 Class 1 laser product
Deliverables
Reference Design 1.08 Evaluation Kit PrimeSensor Gesture API demo Application demo (media center, casual games, web browsing, text entry)
Reference Design 1.08 Schematics Full BOM list Datasheets PCB layout Mechanical design Acquisition firmware (PS1080 firmware) Host driver Device Development Kit (DDK)
Manufacturing Reference design knowledge transfer from PrimeSense to customer, enabling customer to build own sensor, or Customer engages with PrimeSense’s ODM to procure assembled units
World-class support Hardware and software support teams Close support during hardware and software design and initialization phases On-site training
Method of operation
PrimeSense technology for acquiring the depth image is based on Light Coding™. Light Coding works by coding the scene volume with near-IR light. The IR Light Coding is iNVISible to the human eye. The solution then utilizes a standard off-the-shelf CMOS image sensor to read the coded light back from the scene. PrimeSense’s SoC chip is connected to the CMOS image sensor, and executes a sophisticated parallel computational algorithm to decipher the received light coding and produce a depth image of the scene. The solution is immune to ambient light.
Technical Overview The PrimeSensor is built around PrimeSense’s PS1080 SoC. The PS1080 controls the IR light source in order to project the scene with an IR Light Coding image. The IR projector is a Class 1 safe light source, and is compliant with the IEC 60825-1 standard. A standard CMOS image sensor, receives the projected IR light and transfers the IR Light Coding image to the PS1080. The PS1080 processes the IR image and produces an accurate per-frame depth image of the scene.
The PrimeSensor includes two optional sensory input capabilities: color (RGB) image and audio (the PrimeSensor has two microphones and an interface to four external digital audio sources).
To produce more accurate sensory information, the PrimeSensor performs a process called Registration. The Registration process’s resulting images are pixel-aligned,which means that every pixel in the color image is aligned to a pixel in the depth image.
All sensory information (depth image, color image and audio) is transferred to the host via a USB2.0 interface, with complete timing alignment.
Block Diagram
NITE Middleware The PrimeSensor is an end-to-end solution that enables a computer to perceive the world in three-dimensions and to translate these perceptions into a synchronized depth image, in the same way that humans do. The solution includes a sensor component, which observes the scene (users and their surroundings), and a perception component, or brain, which comprehends the user interaction within these surroundings.
The PrimeSensor NITE Middleware is the perception component of the solution.
Natural Interaction Middleware NITE (PrimeSense's Natural Interface Middleware) focuses on enabling natural interaction in the living room using two key applications: Control by Gesture and Games for All.
NITE employs a unique approach to ensure efficient visual data processing, making it the obvious choice for platforms with a low processing and memory budget. The NITE engine contains the algorithmic infrastructure for user identification, features detection and gestures recognition, as well as the control framework that manages the tagging of users in the scene and the acquisition and release of control between users. Coupled with the PrimeSensor Reference Design, NITE offers unprecedented performance in terms of richness, robustness, detection rate and execution efficiency.
Tailor-made for the PrimeSensor™, guaranteeing phenomenal performance
Standardized APIs that are open to all developers in the PrimeSensor Experience Partners Program
Supports the rapid development of rich Control-by-Gesture applications
Deliverables
NITE 1.1 software package: Windows / Linux support Full documentation Comprehensive samples Demo package for reference Thin host-optimized algorithms Tested and approved gestures and UI controls Full-body games’ algorithms
Reference Design 1.08 Development Unit: Fully functional, assembled reference design unit Depth image and audio outputs USB powered Windows / Linux drivers
World-class support World-wide support program Close support during application development On-site training World-class expertise in Control-by-Gesture and gaming applications
Control By Gesture Control-By-Gesture stands for the ability of users to naturally and intuitively control living room consumer electronics with their bare hands. NITE provides the entire needed infrastructure for applications developers to freely design rich and innovative Control By-Gesture applications without being burdened with the intense algorithmic challenges of processing the raw depth and image data. NITE contains the framework for allowing users to grab control and release control and detect gestures and movements. While in control, gestures performed by other users are ignored providing the controlling user an interruption free experience. NITE then processes gestures performed by the controlling user and allow the developer to instantiate a variety of controls and detectors that corresponds to such gestures:
Gestures detectors such push, click, circle, wave and more
Controls such as a slider, a touch point, a trackpad and so on
The application developer gets from NITE a rich gesture user interface tool box that contains the above mentioned controls, detectors and framework from which he can easily assemble new control paradigms, attach fancy graphics and connect to a wide range of applications.
Games for All Games for All refers to the new line of living room video games that are active, physical, social and appeal to a mass market audience. Combined with the PrimeSensor Reference Design, NITE offers the ultimate platform for enabling simple, active, social games in everyone's living room.
NITE implements a set of game controls that enable the development of full-body games over thin platforms. Game developers are now free to focus on game ideas, graphical creativity and user experience, without being burdened by the hard-core development of depth and image processing software.
NITE supports multiple users, and is designed for a wide range of game segments, such as platform, racing, boxing, skate/snow board and many more. All game controls support at least two users playing together, either in a collaborative mode or in a competitive mode. The NITE framework also offers a set of developer tools for customizing game controls and adding new functionality – all without having to write a single line of depth processing code.
Framework NITE offers a comprehensive framework with a rich set of standard, well-documented APIs. Developing over the NITE framework ensures forward compatibility with and portability to future versions of the PrimeSensor Reference Design and NITE.
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