The Leap Motion was designed to be placed on a desk, but it was a relatively simple matter to mount it onto the front of an HMD such as the Oculus Rift and modify the software to account for the motions of the user’s head.The Leap Motion’s sensors can map space out to about a meter, which comfortably covers the reach of most users who are not orangutans. It provides a cheap way to add motion tracking of hands directly into the virtual world in real time. Virtual Reality might well be the killer application that the Leap Motion has been waiting for. One research team compared the Leap Motion to professional tracking systems and, although it cannot yet replace them, indicated that the device might well represent a revolution in gesture-based computer control. Professional evaluation of the system has however been positive. It doesn’t help that a controller that represents a new paradigm for computer interfaces will likely have little or no software support, making it hard to get users onboard with the system. Most reviewers seem to think of the Leap Motion as a way to clumsily turn a computer monitor into a touchscreen. There have however been a dearth of applications for the device and certainly no killer application yet. How Well Does It Work?įor its price and simplicity the Leap Motion works outstandingly well. The details of which are closely guarded by the company. Most of what makes the Leap Motion work is in the software as a product of sophisticated mathematics. That’s about all we know when it comes down to under-the-hood facts. The two cameras then compare these two streams of 2D images and calculate their 3D positions to within just a few millimetres. The emitters bathe objects in infrared light which then reflects back into the two cameras at 300 frames per second. Basically it consists of two IR (infrared) cameras and three IR emitters. In terms of hardware the Leap Motion isn’t all that remarkable. The Leap Motion is a pretty unassuming little box that wouldn’t look out of place among external hard drives and usb mobile data modems. The device can do this by creating an almost 1-to-1 map of all physical objects (such as your hands) within the volume of space the sensors can see. Perhaps a 3D CAD drawing or some virtual clay meant for sculpting into a 3D model. By placing the Leap Motion in front of your computer monitor you can reach “into” the monitor and interact with something. The Leap Motion was intended to be an interface between the physical world and the digital one. The device is not explicitly meant for embodied virtual reality applications, but virtual reality developers quickly saw the potential of the technology. In a nutshell, the Leap Motion is a sensor bar that can scan objects within a particular volume in real time to an incredibly high degree of accuracy. This is where a device such as the Leap Motion comes in. For vehicle or aircraft simulations you might use a joystick or steering wheel system for feeling of authenticity, but none of these input methods feel as natural as simply reaching out with your hand and manipulating an object. The most common way to interact with virtual reality for consumers today is with the common gamepad or a keyboard and mouse combination. You can see and hear everything, but you can’t interact with anything. If you did try to touch them however, you would realize that in this virtual world you are nothing more than a ghost. We really feel as if we are standing in that imaginary space, looking at events and objects that seem so real that you can reach out and touch them. Head mounted display technology has become pretty adept at immersing us as observers in virtual worlds.
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