handtracking
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Leap Motion wants picking up VR objects to feel believable
Virtual reality is more immersive when you can pick up objects with your bare hands, rather than a controller or a pair of wand-style remotes. Leap Motion is one of the frontrunners in this area, having pivoted its candy bar motion-tracking sensor from desktop accessory to VR headset companion. To raise interest in the product -- which you still have to attach manually to an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive -- it's developed a new piece of software called the "Interaction Engine." Available as an add-on for Unity, it promises a more realistic experience while interacting with make-believe objects.
Microsoft's hand-tracking magic may lead to gamepad-free VR
The next Xbox One S console doesn't even have a Kinect port, showing that even Microsoft doesn't care about the depth sensor for gaming. However, it may yet make a comeback in VR. Microsoft researchers have made hand- and finger-tracking much more accurate using the Kinect, which may eventually make it a more attractive option than a controller for VR games. "We're getting to the point that the accuracy is such that the user can start to feel like the avatar hand is their real hand," says Microsoft UK researcher Jamie Shotton.
Kinect for Windows can track individual finger movements
Microsoft's new Kinect sensor is a lot of things, but absurdly accurate isn't one of them. To that end, Redmond' Research division is showing off some recent advancements its made with Handpose -- a way to fully track finger movement with its do-all gizmo in a variety of conditions. The video we've embedded below shows off the $150 PC peripheral analyzing and capturing intricate finger and hand movements seemingly pretty easily both from close-range and further back. Changes in lighting don't affect the fidelity either, as the tracking is all performed by the Kinect's depth sensor, not its camera. As Kotaku notes, however, this looks very much like something that'll be used for applications outside of gaming, rather than as a boost for your Dance Central skills. We'd like to imagine that its extra accuracy would probably come in handy in the operating room.
Microsoft Research crafts wrist-worn device that tracks hand gestures in 3D space (video)
A team led by researchers at Microsoft's UK-based R&D lab has crafted a system that tracks the full 3D pose of a user's hand without the need for a pesky glove. Dubbed Digits, the Kinect-inspired rig latches onto a user's wrist and utilizes a diffuse infrared light, IR laser, camera and inertial measurement unit to track fingertips and just five key points of a hand. Leveraging a pair of mathematical models developed in-house after studying the mechanics of the human hand, the group uses the captured data to extrapolate the position of a user's paw. The team envisions the solution as a supplement to touch-based interfaces, a method for eyes-free control of mobile devices and as a gaming controller that could work in conjunction with Kinect or similar systems. In its current state, the device is composed of off-the-shelf parts and needs to be tethered to a laptop, but the ultimate goal is to create a mobile, self contained unit the size of a wrist watch. Hit the break to catch a video of the setup in action or tap the second source link below for more details in the group's academic paper.
Qualcomm demos touch-free gesture control for tablets powered by Snapdragon (video)
Tablets are for touching -- that much is understood. But Qualcomm's making it so your fingers will be mostly optional, thanks to the Kinect-like powers of its Snapdragon CPU. To highlight this, the company's uploaded a couple of videos to its YouTube channel that showcase two practical use case scenarios for the gesture tech: gaming and cooking. Using the device's front-facing camera, users will one day soon be able to control onscreen avatars, page forward and back through recipes, setup profiles and even wake their slates all with simple hand or head movements. Alright, so tactile-free navigation of this sort isn't exactly new, but it does up open up the tablet category to a whole new world of innovation. Head past the break to peek the demos in action.
