It’s been about a year since we first got our hands on the Leap Motion Controller, the infrared input device that sits on your desk and tracks the movements and gestures of your hands. At the time, we were both impressed and frustrated: the device seemed to have so much potential, but everything about the software and early app integration seemed designed to annoy rather than energize. It came like this close to to be great without actually crossing that threshold.
Over the past year, however, I’ve come to rely on the Leap quite a bit – not as a game controller, but as a way to run scripts with gestures, using BetterTouchTool. Wave my hand in one direction and all the Hue lights in the house go out. Wave my hand one more time and my computer screen locks and turns off. I even have a gesture that simply sends a “spacebar” command to the active application, allowing me to scroll through web pages and pause or resume video by swiping a few fingers at the screen in a crowd-pleasing gesture that never fails to make a statement. “Wow!” from observers. It’s cool and it works reliably well.
And Leap has not been idle in the past year. Work continues on API and software updates for the existing Leap Motion Controller (as well as the company’s successor device, codenamed “Dragonfly”). In a blog post this morning, Leap co-founder David Holz discussed the company’s latest enhancement to its existing product: a small mounting device that, when combined with a software update, allows the Leap to function as a full-fledged virtual reality. controller.
The Leap VR Developer Mount is a small set of brackets that stick to the front of a VR headset, such as an Oculus Rift DK1 or DK2. The cradle allows you to attach a Leap Motion Controller that looks out from the headset and projects the infrared sensor field in front of the wearer. New additions to the SDK enable the sensor to function in a new “top-down” tracking mode, which optimizes the Leap sensors to function in this new orientation (rather than looking up from the desktop with the hands of move the user over it).
Once attached and powered on, the Leap can recognize your hands, including the position and condition of all ten fingers and whether your hands are palm up or down. It effectively gives you VR gloves – without having to put gloves on. The Leap’s field of view is also wider than the Rift’s, so it can map your hands anywhere in the Rift’s visual space. If you can see your hands in real life, you can see them in any app written with support for the new functionality.
In addition, the Leap gains the ability to send not only hand tracking information, but actual raw sensor data, meaning that instead of just tracking your two hands, you can see the infrared LED-illuminated image being picked up by the Leap sensor. Of course, it’s up to the developers to make use of this new feature in apps – if nothing else, it gives you a limited “x-ray” view, allowing you to see the world outside your VR headset without having to remove the headset. take out.
How well does it work in practice? My Oculus Rift DK2 should be shipping soon (gaming editor Kyle Orland has his – curse him and his early order already), and I’ll have a hands-on update as soon as I get it.
All new functionality is available starting today by signing up for and downloading the V2 Beta version of Leap’s SDK. The mount itself costs $19.99 at the Leap Motion store.