About the LEAP Motion controller

"kojack" wrote:

I was figuring an 8 cubic feet space was around 2 feet out and all around from the source (to the front, or above the sensor).

That's 16.75 cubic feet.

Anyway I thought it would be an interesting method to look into... Apparently you do not... lol.

I didn't say it wasn't interesting, it's just that you don't need "crazy long arms" to go past the leap's scan range.
Actually it might have longer range than 20 inches, but only in the horizontal and distance axes, the vertical is shorter. I've heard it's a half ellipsoid, not a half sphere. But I couldn't find any hard facts yet.

I registered to become a leap developer back in december. I'm still waiting for them to approve me.

I'd like to try sticking it to the front of a rift like sebbi suggested, but not for arm tracking. Instead pipe the depth view straight through so you have a freaky z buffer vision. :)

Maybe with some kind of solid backing like body armour (but cheaper) you could get the leap on your chest without it moving with every breath.

Wow my math Was off! I Was just kidding about my last Comment, you actually made good points and now I view the prospects of this tech differently.

I've been fiddling aroud with Kinect for Windows for the past year or so, and I'm fairly convinced it's the best system to pair with the Rift for motion tracking. After all, it's designed to work as a full body game interface on the XBox, and the Windows version adds a 'near mode' for desk range activity. Anyway I don't believe the Leap is capable of tracking more than hands internally, even if you figured out a way to extend it's range to your arms or what have you. From what I've heard the raw data is even preprocessed and not exposed for developers to access, so a pretty closed system even on the app side.

On the other hand, while the promised finger tracking seems to have been cut from the upcoming second gen Kinect for XBox, I'm praying they'll add that to the Windows version at least. At that point it would cover most of the same hand/gesture functionality as the Leap, with maybe less precision and obviously not as portable.

The biggest question I'm wondering about though (and I'm guessing Microsoft & Sony are too) is safety. If you've ever seen anyone kick over a chair playing Dance Central you know what I mean, and that's staring at a fixed TV instead of having a virtual world strapped to their face. It's probably just as well that the Rift doesn't yet support lateral motion in the developer model, and also is tethered to a PC with a video cable. Eventually the next step will be full range motion though, and these issues might be tougher to work out than the hardware itself.

"retron23" wrote:
If you've ever seen anyone kick over a chair playing Dance Central you know what I mean, and that's staring at a fixed TV instead of having a virtual world strapped to their face.

Ah, but now instead of a cluttered media room or living room, you just need a padded room. :)

"retron23" wrote:
I've been fiddling aroud with Kinect for Windows for the past year or so, and I'm fairly convinced it's the best system to pair with the Rift for motion tracking. After all, it's designed to work as a full body game interface on the XBox, and the Windows version adds a 'near mode' for desk range activity. Anyway I don't believe the Leap is capable of tracking more than hands internally, even if you figured out a way to extend it's range to your arms or what have you. From what I've heard the raw data is even preprocessed and not exposed for developers to access, so a pretty closed system even on the app side.

On the other hand, while the promised finger tracking seems to have been cut from the upcoming second gen Kinect for XBox, I'm praying they'll add that to the Windows version at least. At that point it would cover most of the same hand/gesture functionality as the Leap, with maybe less precision and obviously not as portable.

The biggest question I'm wondering about though (and I'm guessing Microsoft & Sony are too) is safety. If you've ever seen anyone kick over a chair playing Dance Central you know what I mean, and that's staring at a fixed TV instead of having a virtual world strapped to their face. It's probably just as well that the Rift doesn't yet support lateral motion in the developer model, and also is tethered to a PC with a video cable. Eventually the next step will be full range motion though, and these issues might be tougher to work out than the hardware itself.

My my my... Just the man I want to talk to. So I have seen some videos of the Kinect being used with a head mounted display and the Hydra RAZOR and it looked awesome! I was really surprised that the latency didn't look that bad as there was a video feed of the guy wearing the HMD and you could match up his movements in the embedded video with the feed from the HMD. It looked very cool. The guy looks down and you can see his torso and legs walking as well as his arms and hands. This just seemed to be the low res video feed from the Kinect camera rendered into the scene. But it showed a lot of promise (especially for the much higher res Kinect 2). The guy then uses the RAZOR to handle a Portal gun in the game... It's all very cool. Anyway do you see the latency issues with the Kinect an obstacle to high to overcome or could it really be used with the RIFT (please say yes!).

Interesting, I'd like to see that video. As for latency I think that's one of the highest priority improvements for the Kinect 2, but we'll know for sure pretty soon I guess. Anyway it shouldn't be much different than using Kinect on a regular screen, if you discount the Rift's own latency. The issue for the Rift is that head movement latency is instantly sensed and can ruin the immersion effect and even cause nausea. But body tracking latency is really more of a game interface problem, and plus it just looks bad.

I think 8 foot is an exaggeration. I can barely get 2 feet range out of my leap.

8 cubic feet... so, 2x2x2, for example... which would match your experience. ;)

"retron23" wrote:
Interesting, I'd like to see that video. As for latency I think that's one of the highest priority improvements for the Kinect 2, but we'll know for sure pretty soon I guess. Anyway it shouldn't be much different than using Kinect on a regular screen, if you discount the Rift's own latency. The issue for the Rift is that head movement latency is instantly sensed and can ruin the immersion effect and even cause nausea. But body tracking latency is really more of a game interface problem, and plus it just looks bad.

Here is a link to a sit that has the video and talks about it. http://www.oculusriftreview.com/2013/04 ... -rift-demo . Check it out it's pretty cool stuff!

"atavener" wrote:

"kojack" wrote:

Maybe with some kind of solid backing like body armour (but cheaper) you could get the leap on your chest without it moving with every breath.

Just to clarify, my main point was you need to "locate the LEAP sensor" to know where the things it senses are at, and if it moves, you need a way to read it's movement -- so, motion tracking again. :) And one should also be wary of a chain of inaccuracies building up (chains of sensors dependent on each other, rather than sensor fusion with redundant sensors).

If the Leap was attached to the bottom of the Rift, couldn't we use the Rift's orientation data to locate the Leap? Or is that what you mean by chain of sensors?

"jordonp" wrote:

If the Leap was attached to the bottom of the Rift, couldn't we use the Rift's orientation data to locate the Leap? Or is that what you mean by chain of sensors?

You could do that, but yes, that's exactly what I mean by a chain. The error and latency of the LEAP would become dependent on the error and latency of the Rift (albeit low, it's more than zero). Maybe it will be good enough, but it's better if you can avoid such a series of dependent sensors.