Depth camera/OpenNI doesn't work with silicon

[Woland]

@juriaan said:

Like we described in our KB article, we are not planning on adding M1 support for the OpenNI Camera actor. Mainly because the company that made the OpenNI binaries / SDK is out of business for quite some time.. Trying to rewrite openNI for MacOS M1 is not feasible for us.

This is essentially true, but to clarify further, the OpenNI actors rely on code/one or more libraries that do not belong to us, meaning it is not possible for us to update the existing version to be M1-compatible. In order to get a version working on the M1 natively, we'd have to completely recreate them from scratch. Furthermore, since the theoretical brand-new M1-native OpenNI actors would be coded from scratch, they would behave slightly differently than the existing OpenNI actors for Windows and Intel Macs. Thus, in order to guarantee consistency across multiple platforms (since our users often need to move/remount projects on different types of computers), we'd then also make brand-new versions of the Windows and Intel Mac OpenNI plugins. Since we don't have the resources to re-write the OpenNI for three flavors of computer from scratch, it is not possible for us to provide an M1-compatible version. For these reasons we cannot provide an M1 native version of the OpenNI plugins. There are, however, three methods of working around the limitation of the OpenNI plugins not being M1-compatible when running Isadora in native mode:

1. Running the OpenNI plugins on a Windows computer
2. Running the OpenNI plugins on an Intel Mac
3. Running the OpenNI plugins in Rosetta Mode on an M1 Mac (as described on the TroikaTronix Add-Ons Page for the OpenNI plugins)

[Vidasonik]

@juriaan Hi unfortunately running Rosetta makes no difference. That was the first thing I did! I just cannot use my new Mac with Isadora. Cheers, David

[mark]

@vidasonik said:

I just cannot use my new Mac with Isadora. Cheers, David

Do you mean you can't use Isadora at all with the M1, or just that you cannot it use it when the OpenNI Tracker plugin is installed on in the Isadora Plugins folder?

Please let me know what you mean by this sentence.

If you cannot open Isadora at all, then I would want to try to get on your M1 machine remotely so I can see if I can sort out the problem.

Isadora works fine on the M1 for lots and lots of users. If you indeed mean that you cannot open Isadora at all, then it must be something particular to your system.

Best Wishes,
Mark

[Woland]

@vidasonik

What version of Isadora 3 are you trying to run on the M1? You should use the latest version (3.2.1) from the downloads page. Isadora 3.2 and 3.1.1 are also supported on M1 machines, but versions 3.0.8f12 and older are not supported with Apple Silicon machines.

Best wishes,

Woland

[DusX]

@Vidasonik
Which type o camera are you trying to us with the OpenNI tracker?

[Vidasonik]

@dusx I'm running 3.2.1 of course. I use an Orbbec. Thanks, David

[Vidasonik]

@mark Hi Mark I can use Isadora - that's fine. But the depth camera/OpenNI won't work which is central to my projects. Thanks, David

[DusX]

I am sure you have dealt with this already, but it may be worth outlining once again for any other users who find this thread, the Kinect One (v2) and Orbbec Astra need a masquerade.txt file to be copied into the plugins folder.
This is outlined in the openni-tracker-troubleshooter

@Vidasonik since there is a known issue with Realsense on M1 machines running Monterey, I just did another quick test of my Orbbec Astra on my Moneterey M1 Mac mini, with Isadora 3.2 and the latest openNi (in Rosetta mode, and after copying the masqerade.txt file) and the camera is connected and running without issue.

[Vidasonik]

@dusx ok very strange! I'll try again ...

[Vidasonik]

@dusx I think I have the latest OpenNI but it still says 'BETA'??

[Woland]

@vidasonik said:

I think I have the latest OpenNI but it still says 'BETA'??

Correct. Eventually we'll get around to removing that from the end of the name 

[Vidasonik]

@woland Good news! Actually today the depth camera worked with my new Mac!! The red light came on. I tracked my body using the Difference actor. However I have not yet managed to activate the skeleton tracker that converts movements of body parts to visual effects ...

[Chickenroll]

Hi @dusx, you mentioned, "there is a known issue withRealsense on M1 machines running Monterey". I am one of the people who suffer from this issue. Do you know will there be any updates on that? I really wanted to use my D455, but I don't know where I can get more updated information about it. Please let me know if you do. 

Thank you