

Leap Motion sets a course for VR - StavrosK
https://community.leapmotion.com/t/leap-motion-sets-a-course-for-vr/1642

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mostly_harmless
I've used the leap motion, and so far the accuracy is nowhere near what they
show in the video. simply forming the index finger and thumb into an O-shape
was enough for them to disappear from existence.

If this is an active demo of their next generation software, I'm very
impressed with the improvements, but I suspect its a mock-up.

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StavrosK
Nope, it's not a mockup, that's what the new SDK looks like. They really
improved it.

Source: I have a Leap.

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rraval
For a hacknight back in April, I tried mapping my arm into a 3D pointing
device that recognized a recoil wrist gesture as firing a gun. Sound effects
like "pew pew pew" were optional but heavily encouraged.

I initially tried the Leap Motion mounted on the Oculus Rift. As this blog
notes, the top-down recognition was iffy at best but things really went to
shit the moment the sensor was moved. I was unable to get even gun orientation
working in the 6 hours or so that I tried, so maybe the new SDK + sensors can
fix that.

I did end up building my demo, but with a alpha Thalmic Myo instead of the
Leap. Video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lihaqf3COw8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lihaqf3COw8)

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endergen
Shark Punch is an example compelling game design using this type of tech.
Hahaha. [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/03/10/shark-punch-
oculu...](http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/03/10/shark-punch-oculus-rift-
trailer/)

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botreats
They had a hacky demo of this at the Leap booth at Unite in Seattle last week.
The Leap Motion was taped to the front of the Oculus, and you could (sort of)
interact with a floating sphere. It's a neat idea, but the tech has a long way
to go if that demo was anything to go by.

I am excited for the advancement of input relating to VR though.

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sleepybrett
Given that the dk2 uses IR LEDs as markers to augment it's gyro/accelerometer
for position tracking (by imaging them with a webcam pointed at the user). The
leap dumping IR out of the front of the visor is going to be problematic, a
combination of washing out the DK2 tracking camera and messing with the
tracking algorithm by adding extra points.

Though maybe the frequency of the IR LEDs is different enough...

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aidenn0
For IR LEDs you have not only the wavelength of light, you also have a
repitition rate. Typically you modulate the IR LED with a square-wave in the
10s of kHz; this lets you have a much higher instantaneous power with a much
lower average power. If done right, it also means that 2 IRs with a
sufficiently different clock-rate will interfere with each other less.

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Aerospark
I've been a developing with leap for a while now and have been waiting for
something like this to come out for me to justify buying an oculus.

Anyone know if Oculus or Leap developers are making any decent profit these
days?

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endergen
Oculus has sold like 100K headsets at most. They raised 75M in funding then
got bought for $2B. Definitely not profitable if you consider money invested
to profit made.

Another metric might be burn rate to income. 100000 units x $350 = $35M, so
maybe to this point they haven't spend that $35M. Something feels off about
this. Oh right, cost of devices. So it's burn rate to profit. 100000 units x
$50 = $5M. They may have spent less than $5M so far, but I'd be surprised.

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seanflyon
I think "Oculus or Leap developers" was referring to developers making
software that uses Oculus or Leap, not the companies producing the hardware. I
also assume that the answer must be no (for now) since the install base is
still quite small.

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wittekm
I don't think I've ever heard of a /hardware/ company pivoting like this.
Pretty cool.

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wildpeaks
It's not really a pivot: it's still tracking hand gestures and it's even
validating one of the ways the device was used by customers, which is great
because natural interactions are one of the big upcoming battlefields of VR.

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daenz
This is a killer peripheral for Oculus.

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XorNot
Sadly no one's figured out how to adapt the DK1 mount to fit neatly on a DK2.
I have a very nice holder printed off of Thingiverse, but it's a little tricky
figuring out how exactly to get it onto the Oculus.

I really hope Oculus actually add some mounting threads or something to the
front of the visor for this type of thing in the CV1.

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sleepybrett
Because of the IR marker LEDs I'd be hesitant to strap a leap on there
considering it's dumping IR light out of it to illuminate your hands.

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XorNot
The sync cable should mitigate that. I haven't heard of people having problems
when they try it.

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VikingCoder
The field of view makes me nervous. But wow, I hope they pull this off.

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TehCorwiz
Yeah, my first thought was "Does it work if you're not looking at your hands?"
Not a deal breaker though. I could see this combined with some hand mounted
sensors to track out-of-view gross movement and just augment with the fine
movement when in view.

EDIT: found this in the article: "It possesses greater-than-HD image
resolution, color and infrared imagery, and a significantly larger field of
view."

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DanAndersen
I imagine that without haptic feedback, so far it makes more sense to be
looking at your hands while you're using them in VR. But I had the same
thoughts -- would it be better to have a setup where the Leap Motion is on a
pendant or something so it's mounted on your chest?

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TehCorwiz
Even given that is has a wider than visual FOV I think you're onto something.
The Oculus DK2 already has an IR camera for tracking the rift in three space.
Why wouldn't they partner to extend the Leap functionality using the existing
camera?

Edit: Spelling

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mariusz79
They will be bought by FB in less than a year..

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swalsh
I will bet you $100 to the charity of the winners selection, that they won't.

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pbreit
Cool, but still pretty useless. I'd like to see leap tackle a useful
situation, perhaps commercial. I can think of dozens off the top of my head
and none involve a consumer controlling a PC interface for which we already
have multiple superior options.

