Leap Motion

ShaolinDreams

ShaolinDreams

ShaolinDreams

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Hi chaps,

Have anyone of you guys heard about the 'Leap Motion' motion controller? I heard about it recently and i thought i would share with people that are unaware of said device.

It's a very small device that you put under your computer screen, using 2 infra-red cameras and some sorcery it can plot your hand perfectly on the screen.

51vfv9.jpg

https://www.leapmotion.com/

From the demos of the prototypes it looked like it just worked as they said. It also works on Macs and Windows, If it works with Windows 8 flawlessly i see it being a major success and that's not to mention all the other possibilities a new input device like this could offer. No need for expensive touchscreens :D

At around $80 i'm definitely interested in such an inventive device. It's out in May but you can pre-order now. I think it's worth holding out till launch but if it's as got as they say im sure they won't be able to make them fast enough :p

Only concern it how far will it integrate with existing software or will be just be limited to it's own app store, even if that's the case it won't be long till someones hacked it anyway :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYgsAMKLu7s

What do you guys think about this new motion controller?
 
I have seen this (Back when the original funding was being asked for). It's a neat little idea and does seem to do everything really well - Good price too.

The problem I find with these motion controllers is the amount of time you'd need to hold your arms up for. Have you ever tried to hold your arms out straight for anymore than 10mins? It hurts - And I'm not exactly unfit.

I can't really see any practical use but it's certainly a nice gimmick to show people. To me there is a good reason the keyboard and mouse have stuck around for so long.
 
BuToNz said:
I have seen this (Back when the original funding was being asked for). It's a neat little idea and does seem to do everything really well - Good price too.

The problem I find with these motion controllers is the amount of time you'd need to hold your arms up for. Have you ever tried to hold your arms out straight for anymore than 10mins? It hurts - And I'm not exactly unfit.

I can't really see any practical use but it's certainly a nice gimmick to show people. To me there is a good reason the keyboard and mouse have stuck around for so long.
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I dont think it would be your sole input device as you say who wants to hold their arms up all the time, but using it in conjunction with your mouse is where i see it. The main features i would use it for would be Google Earth (if possible) Art and simple Windows 8 navigation at $80 i'll have some of that. It would be a gimmick if their aren't practical applications for it, but just the Art side alone could open up loads of new creative possibilities.
 
ShaolinDreams said:
I dont think it would be your sole input device as you say who wants to hold their arms up all the time, but using it in conjunction with your mouse is where i see it. The main features i would use it for would be Google Earth (if possible) Art and simple Windows 8 navigation at $80 i'll have some of that. It would be a gimmick if their aren't practical applications for it, but just the Art side alone could open up loads of new creative possibilities.
Click to expand...

Fair enough if you can see a use for it but even though it looks very accurate it will be nothing close to a good tablet for art. I think where I could see it working for myself would be if it supports head tracking. Would be fantastic for my racing sims and select other games - I'd like to see something done in this respect. But navigation no thanks - Mouse and Keyboard has worked fine for me over the last 15 years don't see that changing for another 15.

Specifically can you name how you'd be more productive with the Leap Motion vs a conventional input method? Not being funny just genuinely intrigued how people would use this in a practical sense.
 
And nothing close to the price of a good graphics tablet. I'm not trying to say it will take over the mouse but work in addition to it. Just an example you could swipe shortcuts with your left hand while controlling the mouse with your right.. so no need to move mouse away from work area. He mention its 10 point 3D input something you cant do with a mouse, So for modelling it could be fantastic, sculpting with your hands rather than a mouse or pen would be much more productive.

I'm new to all this myself so if i can come up with some ideas image what could be the possibilities once the inventive people around the world get their hands on it.

Whether it's a massive hit or not you can't deny there is a lot of potential there.

If i was Microsoft i would be jumping all over this especially after they complaining that manufacturers werent releasing enough touchscreen monitors to coincide with the launch of Windows 8.
 
ShaolinDreams said:
*SNIP*
Whether it's a massive hit or not you can't deny there is a lot of potential there.
Click to expand...

Good points and from your standpoint I can see why it would appeal.

The problem is it will never be precise enough for serious 3D modelling, there is already an input tool which allows more precision for sculpting (The Phantom Haptic for instance). As you say sculpting with your hands instead of a pen might sound more natural but in reality most artists actually use a lot of tools so holding something physical makes more sense.

Another instance would be photo work. Sure you could use it to rotate and drag around certain objects etc. but could it or even you provide accurate enough input to get the desired results?

I am keen to see what does come of this, but I do think it will most likely fall flat on it's face like the Kinect did due to lack of support or innovation on the software side. (Sure the Kinect sold loads but other than dance games are people actively still using them?)

So my point is - It's not filling a gap in the market so it has to be replacing something. What is that something? What benefit does it offer? What will it enable us to do which we can't already?
 
I think you are being a bit cynical here. It's not replacing anything it's a new way to interact with your computer without physically touching anything. It appears to works very well, it's pretty affordable and is compatible with Windows 7 or 8 or Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion so i dont see it falling flat on its face unless no one adopts it, something we'll have to wait and see.
 
Given that you can't use this several feet away from your PC, it seems more fitted to those people who are scared of germs, negating the need to ever touch their screen!
 
Lets hope so...my online tracking says it will arrive with me on Wednesday. Guess I can wait a few more days after ordering it over a year ago.

I also hear that they did a deal with HP so it will be integrated into their laptop range...that should be pretty cool!
 
Has anyone received theirs, the go-live date was supposed to have been today (22nd) ?

Engadget have a video review available which is short and sweet, available HERE

It looks like although you pay $87.98 (including shipping) the cost of the apps to use with it are not cheap, ranging from 99p-£99, with limited native OS Support ?? So is the only way to operate it via paid apps only (with a few free apps) ?
 
Missed the FedEx truck this morning but it is being redelivered tomorrow so I should have a chance to give it a test then. Really looking forward to seeing what this can do. The hardware by all accounts is very good, it's just going to take a while for the software to prove its worth.
 
Back before Kinect came along I build a user hand motion sensor as input device for my honours project. It worked OK - but it was hard to find uses for it where it really excelled.

Natural it was not. The learning curve was quite steep and that wasn't caused by a system accuracy issue (though I had plenty of those too, it wasn't a professionally built product!) - the problem was people are inconsistent with their movements. Repeating the same theoretical one a bunch of times resulted in large differences in actual location, so the inaccuracy was on the user side making interpretation very difficult.

This got better with practice - I measured the 'learn-ability' as one of the success metrics of my project but this trended towards still pretty variable (the testing was short though so pretty rough, error margins were HUGE) - which wasn't much of a surprise really. Look at someone painting something small, or a dentist or whatever. They all rest their hand against a reference point before trying precise movements, mid-air is a tougher ask.

That said, I'd have thought if you only care about the digits relative to each other not absolute this could be a good tool for e.g. sign-language to text or something? Not a mainstream use for sure but still handy. I'm sure people will find many better uses as time goes on too if only because they want to look futuristic!
 
I think the danger with a lot of new technologies is that people always relate them to existing interface devices. As anyone with half a brain can see, a touch interface for a desktop is almost completely useless for work.

This device will never replace a mouse because it doesn't replicate or excel at representing movement in a 2d plane. We have developed mice that are crazy sensitive but at the end of the day you are mapping a 2d input to a 2d environment on the screen which works. When you have 4 axis being captured you are going to be using part of that to emulate clicks etc which are a binary operation. Click or no click. The movement of a hand is dealing in subtleties of movement which doesn't translate so well.

I see this being used for games and other uses that don't require pin point precision or do require more analogue motion.
 
It's a fair point fez - one of the stumbling blocks to people using my system well was that they would use it as a mouse replacement and not use the multi-dimensional aspect (there was only rotation added to a mouse in mine, no depth as single camera and hence only a single degree of rotation at that... even then most users didn't manage it!)

As these sorts of devices become more common people may start seeing them as themselves, different to a mouse and learn to use them more appropriately. That said, I know plenty of people who still can't use a mouse well after years so maybe it'll take a while for mainstream users to be any good with these things!
 
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