Face v2 FAQ

• Kinect for Windows v2 sensor, or Kinect for Xbox One with the separately available USB 3.0 / power adapter
• Windows 8 / 8.1 / 10 / 11 (the USB stack of Windows 7 and older cannot handle the bandwidth of the v2 sensor and is not supported)
• USB 3.0 port, Intel and Renesas chipsets only (other brands may or may not work)
• DirectX 11 capable GPU (even old ones like an Intel HD4000 or GeForce 610M work)
• 4 GB or more RAM
• Dual core i5/i7 CPU around 3 GHz or faster (slower works but may drop frames)
• 1280x1024 screen (1920x1080 or higher recommended)

The sensor dates from 2013 and Microsoft ended Kinect production in 2017, so new units are no longer sold. Second-hand sensors are usually easy to find on eBay and similar marketplaces. The Kinect for Xbox One and Kinect for Windows v2 are functionally identical; for PC use the Xbox One version needs the separately sold “Kinect Adapter for Windows” (also second-hand only these days). Specs, and how it compares to sensors still sold new: depth sensor comparison.

No. Those first-generation sensors are covered by Brekel Face v1.

No, Face v2 is built around the Kinect v2 sensor and its SDK. For face tracking with other hardware, look at Brekel Body v3, which includes face tracking from its supported sensors or from an HMC.

Yes, Face v2 happily co-exists with the other Brekel apps. It can even run at the same time as Body v2, sharing data from the same sensor.

No. The three sensor technologies use slightly different infrared light frequencies for their depth measurements and can be used together.

These are the chipsets officially supported by the Microsoft drivers; they are proven to handle the high bandwidth requirements robustly. Other brands may work, or may be unstable.

The Microsoft drivers convert the raw infrared stream on the GPU to ensure real-time performance, using DirectX 11 DirectCompute code.

No. Besides the bandwidth requirements, there is a Microsoft driver/SDK limitation that prevents access to more than one Kinect v2 sensor per machine, even with extra USB 3.0 cards installed. There is no way around this.

Partially. All Brekel apps have a Record Triggering feature that syncs recording between multiple apps on one or more machines, so you can record from several sensors simultaneously. Face v2 does not calibrate or fuse that data into a single result though. Brekel Body v3 does face tracking from multiple sensors.

The v2 sensor measures depth on a different principle with about 3 times the fidelity. Face v2 tracks 20 animation units (v1 tracks 11), including eye blinks and left/right asymmetric shapes, and tracking works from further away from the sensor. Up to 6 people can be tracked simultaneously, and the wider lenses see a bigger area.

It tracks eye blinks (left and right eyelids separately), but not gaze direction. Experiments showed that with this sensor’s data and resolution, gaze tracking is not stable enough over the same range of motion that face tracking works for.

A face can be tracked between roughly 0.5 and 4.5 meters from the sensor.

The software requires Windows. It has been confirmed to work under Boot Camp on Intel Macs. Virtual machines usually do not work since they lack DirectX 11 and full USB 3.0 support, and Apple Silicon Macs have no Boot Camp.

Yes, see updates and upgrades in the shop.