D: All Things Digital Conferences
The 3D sensor itself is a pretty incredible piece of equipment providing detailed 3D information about the environment similar to very expensive laser range finding systems but at a tiny fraction of the cost,. Depth cameras provide you with a point cloud of the surface of objects that is fairly insensitive to various lighting conditions allowing you to do things that are simply impossible with a normal camera.
— Microsoft researcher Johnny Chung Lee on Project Natal, Microsoft’s controllerless game controller