Is procedural mesh component here to stay ?

I have been using procedural mesh component which has been added since UE 4.8. It is much more flexible and has better utility functions compare to custom mesh component. But it is tagged as an experimental feature which means that in future might get removed. I wanted to ask about the probability of it getting removed and additionally express how important is it if it stay ( e.g. when you wanna use Kinect in your program)

How do you use it with Kinect?

Well, I read the depth data, perform the coordination mapping ( coordination mapping is now a bottle neck but I am resolving the case now ) and afterward make a dynamic plane mesh from the depth data which changes when kinect depth data changes. Later I am painting the mesh according to my project.
The issue is that I want to be sure it is not going to be removed in later releases (e.g. UE4.9)

Hi plangton, did you have any luck in this effort? Streaming kinect depth data to a mesh?

Hi,
yes i managed to make it working but it is slow. to have something in realtime you need to use materials. read the kinect depth data in another thread and cache as a texture. Then in materials u can use “World Position Offset” to reshape your mesh to match kinect. note since kinect gives data in 30 fps if u don’t use a background thread u will force your app to run in 30 fps too


I remind u that Kinect depth is distorted and u would need to undistort it. the Z is in meters. but the x and y are in Kinect camera UV. you would need to convert that. but u can easily find formulas for it. again u are better off doing that conversion in a material function too ( although it is not expensive, it is not cheap either )

mind sharing the blueprint? i have a depth video texture that im trying to drive a procedural mesh /offset with, i can manage the distort and normalization but not sure how to use the offset… isnt world position offset world-aligned only