Sony Depthsensing Solutions SA/NV, formerly known as SoftKinetic, is a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

company founded by Eric Krzeslo and Thibaud Remacle which develops

gesture recognition Gesture recognition is a topic in computer science and language technology with the goal of interpreting human gestures via mathematical algorithms. It is a subdiscipline of computer vision. Gestures can originate from any bodily motion or sta ...

hardware and software for real-time

range imaging Range imaging is the name for a collection of techniques that are used to produce a 2D image showing the distance to points in a scene from a specific point, normally associated with some type of sensor device. The resulting range image has pix ...

(3D) cameras (such as

time-of-flight camera A time-of-flight camera (ToF camera), also known as time-of-flight sensor (ToF sensor), is a range imaging camera system for measuring distances between the camera and the subject for each point of the image based on time-of-flight, the round tr ...

s). It was founded in July 2007. SoftKinetic provides gesture recognition solutions based on its technology to the interactive

digital entertainment Digital entertainment Industry includes, but is not restricted to, any combination of the following industries (that themselves have a considerable degree of overlap): *digital media *new media *video on demand *video games *interactive entertainmen ...

consumer electronics Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic (analog or digital) equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications and recreation. Usually r ...

, health & fitness, and

serious game A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to video games used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, he ...

industries. SoftKinetic technology has been applied to interactive

digital signage Digital signage is a segment of electronic signage. Digital displays use technologies such as LCD, LED, projection and e-paper to display digital images, video, web pages, weather data, restaurant menus, or text. They can be found in public ...

and

advergaming An advergame is a form of advertising in video games, in which the video game is developed by or in close collaboration with a corporate entity for purposes of advertising a brand-name product. While other video games may use in-game advertising (s ...

interactive television Interactive television is a form of media convergence, adding data services to traditional television technology. It has included on-demand delivery of content, online shopping, and viewer polls. Interactive TV is an example of how new information ...

, and

physical therapy Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is one of the allied health professions. It is provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through physical examination, diagnosis, management, prognosis, patient ...

. Originally centered on providing

software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific to ...

s and

middleware Middleware is a type of computer software that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement co ...

, SoftKinetic branched out into internal game and application development with the establishment of SoftKinetic Studios in September 2009. SoftKinetic then progressed into hardware, partnering with time-of-flight camera developer Optrima in September 2010, with the two companies merging into a reformed SoftKinetic by March 2011. SoftKinetic's gesture recognition software platform, named ''iisu'', can recognize and distinguish or isolate different scenic elements, can identify and track the body parts of a user, and can adapt the user's shape, posture, and movements to an existing physical model, and vice versa. iisu is compatible with all major real-time range imaging cameras, and the middleware guards developers against the particularities of the hardware. SoftKinetic's hardware, named ''DepthSense'' (formerly ''OptriCam''), is a line of 3D time-of-flight imagers based on patented CMOS sensor and time-of-flight (TOF) technologies. Based on Current Assisted Photonic Demodulation (CAPD), the company's patented CMOS pixel technology, DepthSense hardware products range from sensors to consumer and professional 3D cameras. SoftKinetic Studios has collaborated on numerous gesture recognition-based projects for various platforms such as PC, consoles, set-top boxes, arcade, and interactive digital signage; with companies such as Orange Vallée and

Fuel Industries Fuel Industries was a Canadian online interactive and marketing agency. Founded in 1999 by Mike Burns, Jeff Doiron, Dave Ozipko and Brian Nesbitt, Fuel Industries employed over 150 people and had offices in Los Angeles and Seattle. Fuel Industrie ...

. On October 8, 2015, Sony Corporation announced the acquisition of the company. In December 2017, Softkinetic was renamed to Sony Depthsensing Solutions.

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