Programming with Kinect on Ubuntu Linux

Question

First time asking a question here so please bear with me if I'm not entirely coherent.

I've been attempting to learn how to use the OpenNI, libfreenect, and SensorKinect libraries to create some code for the kinect. However, the issue I'm running into is that I cannot seem to get the kinect setup properly so that I may actually test code and understand how everything works. The issue that has been the most problematic has been when I try to compile I receive a plethora of undefined reference errors and the compiler quits.

/tmp/ccnXAyOZ.o: In function `main':
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x9a): undefined reference to `xnEnumerationErrorsAllocate'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0xb6): undefined reference to `xnGetStatusString'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0xfa): undefined reference to `xnInitFromXmlFileEx'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x12a): undefined reference to `xnEnumerationErrorsToString'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x148): undefined reference to `xnEnumerationErrorsFree'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x169): undefined reference to `xnGetStatusString'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x18a): undefined reference to `xnEnumerationErrorsFree'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x1a4): undefined reference to `xnEnumerationErrorsFree'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x1bf): undefined reference to `xnFindExistingRefNodeByType'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x1db): undefined reference to `xnGetStatusString'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x202): undefined reference to `xnAllocateDepthMetaData'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x227): undefined reference to `xnWaitOneUpdateAll'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x243): undefined reference to `xnGetStatusString'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x273): undefined reference to `xnGetDepthMetaData'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x2fe): undefined reference to `xnOSWasKeyboardHit'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x31a): undefined reference to `xnFreeDepthMetaData'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x329): undefined reference to `xnProductionNodeRelease'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x338): undefined reference to `xnProductionNodeRelease'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text+0x347): undefined reference to `xnContextRelease'
/tmp/ccnXAyOZ.o: In function `xn::NodeWrapper::SetHandle(XnInternalNodeData*)':
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text._ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData[_ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData]+0x39): undefined reference to `xnGetRefContextFromNodeHandle'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text._ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData[_ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData]+0x54): undefined reference to `xnContextUnregisterFromShutdown'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text._ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData[_ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData]+0x60): undefined reference to `xnContextRelease'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text._ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData[_ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData]+0x6f): undefined reference to `xnProductionNodeRelease'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text._ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData[_ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData]+0x82): undefined reference to `xnProductionNodeAddRef'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text._ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData[_ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData]+0x91): undefined reference to `xnGetRefContextFromNodeHandle'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text._ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData[_ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData]+0xb2): undefined reference to `xnContextRegisterForShutdown'
KinectDraw.cpp:(.text._ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData[_ZN2xn11NodeWrapper9SetHandleEP18XnInternalNodeData]+0xc1): undefined reference to `xnContextRelease'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

The command being that receives the error is g++ KinectDraw.cpp -I /usr/include/ni -I ~/KinectLibs/OpenNI/Include. I have used https://www.kdab.com/setting-up-kinect-for-programming-in-linux-part-1/ to setup the kinect. If anyone has any insight into my issue or even just a good place to start reading to figure it out I would be very appreciative. Thank you for your time and assistance!

UPDATE: Thanks to lxrec's comment, I'm fairly certain that she/he and my initial assumption were correct in that I am not linking the libraries correctly. I haven't found any documentation for Linux implementations of code that include the directories used in compiling so if anyone has insight into this I would be appreciative.

UPDATE: So I've still yet to resolve the issue (I cannot figure out how to compile the code), however thinking that my installation of OpenNI or libfreenect was bad I have resinstalled them. That however did not solve my problem. Thank you to anyone who can provide insight!

UPDATE: Below is the code that I'm having issues compiling. I haven't even tried to add anything into it yet...

#include <XnCppWrapper.h>
#include <XnStatusCodes.h>
#include <XnOS.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <XnOpenNI.h>
#include <iostream>

using namespace xn;
using namespace std;

int main()
{
    cout<<"This is a test\n";
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

OpenNI source-code should include the libs files (.so files) in its lib directory ($SOURCE_DIR/Platform/Linux/Redist/OpenNI-Bin-Dev-Linux-x64-v1.5.7.10-$YOUR_VERSION/lib). All of these files (for me there 5 files: libnimCodecs.so, libnimMockNodes.so, libnimRecorder.so, libOpenNI.jni.so and libOpenNI.so) are being copied to /usr/lib after you run the install.sh (please follow the OpenNI build/installation instructions)

Your example code needs a -lOpenNI arg to complete the compile process. So you should compile your code like this: g++ your_code.cpp -I/usr/include/ni -lOpenNI

This might already an old question, hopefully your prob are already solved, and this answer can help someone next time.