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Leap Motion Goes Mobile

49 points by SkarredGhost 10y ago

sequence7 10y ago
Seems like this story should really be linking to the Leap Motion blog with the announcement. http://blog.leapmotion.com/mobile-platform/ http://blog.leapmotion.com/mobile-platform/
- sctb 10y ago
  Thanks, we've updated the link from https://skarredghost.wordpress.com/2016/12/05/leap-motion-goes-mobile/ https://skarredghost.wordpress.com/2016/12/05/leap-motion-go....
bruxis 10y ago
This is legit cool, especially after seeing the new Oculus touch come out (also cool, but requires so much external gear that I'd be hard pressed to buy). Only downside I see is in regards to not having something physical to grip/grab for many games. Would this work with a fake gun controller in a shooting game, for example? I doubt it could track my trigger finger when obscured.
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  If you're actually holding a gun anyway, you might as well use that as a device, it'll definitely have better latency and accuracy.
fillskills 10y ago
This could be something really awesome. There is a lot of space for a new method of interaction with software that is independent of voice and touchscreen. Specially with AR and VR. If done right, this could be as big of a game changer. Possibly as big as the Scroll Wheel or Touch screen. Here is an older but related TED video that speaks to some interesting use cases: https://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology https://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potent...
throwaway98237 10y ago
The original Leap Motion was awesome. But there was no adoption of it. It would have been great to see it included in laptops, for instance. Just my opinion, this is because, well, the same reason there are all sorts of arbitrary names for command line switches. The people that could build this already have something that works for them, so why spend time building out a whole new interface for other folks, average folks. Same reason why OSS has been great for programmers, not so great for consumers. Majority of the effort has gone to tooling and platforms, not to the non-technical user side of things.
- shinratdr 10y ago
  > It would have been great to see it included in laptops, for instance. It was included in laptops. It was terrible and useless. A classic example of potentially great technology with very poor implementation and application.
- munchbunny 10y ago
  I was one of the pre-orderers for the original Leap Motion. I played around with making apps for it within the first few weeks. It was pretty bad. I was fighting the API the whole time because its post-processed palm and finger positioning data was noisy and and error-prone, and it didn't have a raw mode. The API would frequently lose track of individual fingers. You also couldn't do any hand gestures that involved your palm pointing horizontally instead of up/down because it would lose track of your occluded fingers. It also had issues tracking fingers when you held them together (as if you were going to karate-chop something). It's just too many quirks to deal with if you're trying to do hand position and gesture input. Maybe it's improved since then, but after one day back around the initial launch I basically gave up on the tech for hand tracking, deciding that it was just not a good approach.
  - throwaway98237 10y ago
    I bought 5 I was so excited. I ended up selling 4 after realizing that they were gonna require more time than I'd expected. I need to go back and see if they've since improved their platform.
pbreit 10y ago
I was so bullish on Leap Motion after seeing an early demo in 2011 but it seems like they still haven't really figured out what to do with the tech which is a shame. The demos are still neat but fatigue after 4 or 5. Then you start to think about how horrific a general purpose input method it actually is. I think I would have left the consumer market Kinect & Wii and focused on commercial applications.
- leapmotion_alex 10y ago
  Have you tried it in VR?
serge2k 10y ago
I completely confused this with magic leap and was surprised. This sounds pretty neat.
harperlee 10y ago
So my brother gifted me a Leap Motion last year. I tried it for some time but it is not really very useful, and tracking is not that great. It seems that the new version of the software, Orion (https://developer.leapmotion.com/get-started https://developer.leapmotion.com/get-started), made things better. But it has been in beta, and Windows-only, since at least last February... and the list of "known issues" doesn't seem to shorten over the months. The gadget is now again in its box, where it has been for some time now. It's sad to see that they pivoted into VR based interaction, completely abandoned their current users in the process, and are now only working on the new VR version.
- ENGNR 10y ago
  I used Orion inside an Oculus and it was reeeaally pretty cool to have hands in there with full finger tracking. Eg conjuring cubes from finger tips and bouncing them away in the demo. I can see it being a better UI for many games / apps than the controllers
- leapmotion_alex 10y ago
  The known issues don't entirely disappear, but their relative impact does shrink. And Orion is largely retro-compatible with desktop mode.
  - harperlee 10y ago
    ...but I have a Mac, and thus I'm stuck with the pre-orion software. On the other hand, the "known issues" section is Orion-specific, not a previous version list that Orion improves upon.
apoorvaj 10y ago
I played around with an early devkit of the Leap Motion when it first came out. At the time, there were quite a few issues with the technology. - The company was being overly secretive about the tech behind the hardware, and as a result was exposing very little useful stuff in the API. - There is something inherently dissatisfying about waving your hands in thin air to control something. The lack of any haptic feedback and no way to ascertain the vision frustum of the device made it very uncomfortable to use. - Like a lot of startups, Leap Motion wanted to become a platform instead of being a hardware company. This made using it a total pain, having to go through their app store to accomplish even basic tasks. This also leads to a rather disingenuous customer-company relationship, as the company is not interested in just selling you their hardware, but also wants to control the way you use the hardware. The entire thing would be far more appealing and hackable if they opened up their API and allowed the developer to access the raw data - depthmaps, point clouds, motion vectors - whatever's available internally. Sadly, this does not seem to be happening.
- leapmotion_alex 10y ago
  Four years is a long time. Our API is quite open, and we provided public access to the raw image data back in early 2014. As for our App Store and App Home, sure, we built out a curated app ecosystem. Developers have always been free to publish on other platforms with no licensing fees, and we've actually built out a Developer Gallery (shortly to be just "Gallery") where downloading just the executables or jumping to Steam is the norm.

49 points by SkarredGhost 10y ago

Seems like this story should really be linking to the Leap Motion blog with the announcement. http://blog.leapmotion.com/mobile-platform/ http://blog.leapmotion.com/mobile-platform/

sctb 10y ago
Thanks, we've updated the link from https://skarredghost.wordpress.com/2016/12/05/leap-motion-goes-mobile/ https://skarredghost.wordpress.com/2016/12/05/leap-motion-go....

bruxis 10y ago

This is legit cool, especially after seeing the new Oculus touch come out (also cool, but requires so much external gear that I'd be hard pressed to buy). Only downside I see is in regards to not having something physical to grip/grab for many games. Would this work with a fake gun controller in a shooting game, for example? I doubt it could track my trigger finger when obscured.

brokenmachine 10y ago
If you're actually holding a gun anyway, you might as well use that as a device, it'll definitely have better latency and accuracy.

fillskills 10y ago

This could be something really awesome. There is a lot of space for a new method of interaction with software that is independent of voice and touchscreen. Specially with AR and VR. If done right, this could be as big of a game changer. Possibly as big as the Scroll Wheel or Touch screen. Here is an older but related TED video that speaks to some interesting use cases: https://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology https://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potent...

throwaway98237 10y ago

The original Leap Motion was awesome. But there was no adoption of it. It would have been great to see it included in laptops, for instance. Just my opinion, this is because, well, the same reason there are all sorts of arbitrary names for command line switches. The people that could build this already have something that works for them, so why spend time building out a whole new interface for other folks, average folks. Same reason why OSS has been great for programmers, not so great for consumers. Majority of the effort has gone to tooling and platforms, not to the non-technical user side of things.

shinratdr 10y ago
> It would have been great to see it included in laptops, for instance. It was included in laptops. It was terrible and useless. A classic example of potentially great technology with very poor implementation and application.
munchbunny 10y ago
I was one of the pre-orderers for the original Leap Motion. I played around with making apps for it within the first few weeks. It was pretty bad. I was fighting the API the whole time because its post-processed palm and finger positioning data was noisy and and error-prone, and it didn't have a raw mode. The API would frequently lose track of individual fingers. You also couldn't do any hand gestures that involved your palm pointing horizontally instead of up/down because it would lose track of your occluded fingers. It also had issues tracking fingers when you held them together (as if you were going to karate-chop something). It's just too many quirks to deal with if you're trying to do hand position and gesture input. Maybe it's improved since then, but after one day back around the initial launch I basically gave up on the tech for hand tracking, deciding that it was just not a good approach.
- throwaway98237 10y ago
  I bought 5 I was so excited. I ended up selling 4 after realizing that they were gonna require more time than I'd expected. I need to go back and see if they've since improved their platform.

pbreit 10y ago

I was so bullish on Leap Motion after seeing an early demo in 2011 but it seems like they still haven't really figured out what to do with the tech which is a shame. The demos are still neat but fatigue after 4 or 5. Then you start to think about how horrific a general purpose input method it actually is. I think I would have left the consumer market Kinect & Wii and focused on commercial applications.

leapmotion_alex 10y ago
Have you tried it in VR?

serge2k 10y ago

I completely confused this with magic leap and was surprised. This sounds pretty neat.

harperlee 10y ago

So my brother gifted me a Leap Motion last year. I tried it for some time but it is not really very useful, and tracking is not that great. It seems that the new version of the software, Orion (https://developer.leapmotion.com/get-started https://developer.leapmotion.com/get-started), made things better. But it has been in beta, and Windows-only, since at least last February... and the list of "known issues" doesn't seem to shorten over the months. The gadget is now again in its box, where it has been for some time now. It's sad to see that they pivoted into VR based interaction, completely abandoned their current users in the process, and are now only working on the new VR version.

ENGNR 10y ago
I used Orion inside an Oculus and it was reeeaally pretty cool to have hands in there with full finger tracking. Eg conjuring cubes from finger tips and bouncing them away in the demo. I can see it being a better UI for many games / apps than the controllers
leapmotion_alex 10y ago
The known issues don't entirely disappear, but their relative impact does shrink. And Orion is largely retro-compatible with desktop mode.
- harperlee 10y ago
  ...but I have a Mac, and thus I'm stuck with the pre-orion software. On the other hand, the "known issues" section is Orion-specific, not a previous version list that Orion improves upon.

apoorvaj 10y ago

I played around with an early devkit of the Leap Motion when it first came out. At the time, there were quite a few issues with the technology. - The company was being overly secretive about the tech behind the hardware, and as a result was exposing very little useful stuff in the API. - There is something inherently dissatisfying about waving your hands in thin air to control something. The lack of any haptic feedback and no way to ascertain the vision frustum of the device made it very uncomfortable to use. - Like a lot of startups, Leap Motion wanted to become a platform instead of being a hardware company. This made using it a total pain, having to go through their app store to accomplish even basic tasks. This also leads to a rather disingenuous customer-company relationship, as the company is not interested in just selling you their hardware, but also wants to control the way you use the hardware. The entire thing would be far more appealing and hackable if they opened up their API and allowed the developer to access the raw data - depthmaps, point clouds, motion vectors - whatever's available internally. Sadly, this does not seem to be happening.

leapmotion_alex 10y ago
Four years is a long time. Our API is quite open, and we provided public access to the raw image data back in early 2014. As for our App Store and App Home, sure, we built out a curated app ecosystem. Developers have always been free to publish on other platforms with no licensing fees, and we've actually built out a Developer Gallery (shortly to be just "Gallery") where downloading just the executables or jumping to Steam is the norm.