Temporal Denoising of Kinect Depth Data

The release of the Microsoft Kinect has attracted the attention of researchers in a variety of computer science domains. Even though this device is still relatively new, its recent applications have shown some promising results in terms of replacing current conventional methods like the stereo-camera for robotics navigation, multi-camera system for motion detection and laser scanner for 3D reconstruction. While most work around the Kinect is on how to take full advantage of its capabilities, so far only a few studies have been carried out on the limitations of this device and fewer that provide solutions to enhance the precision of its measurements. In this paper, we review and analyse current work in this area, and present and evaluate a temporal denoising algorithm to reduce the instability of the depth measurements provided by the Kinect over different distances.