Ultraleap Improves Two-handed Interactions

Ultraleap, the company behind the Leap Motion hand-tracking controller, has released a Developer Preview of its hand-tracking engine Gemini. By many accounts, Ultraleap’s latest software overhaul dramatically increases the ability of the company’s camera modules to do more precise and stable two-handed interactions. Gemini is now available in Developer Preview for Windows 10 and is designed to work with all existent Leap Motion controllers as well as Ultraleap’s more recent Stereo IR 170 camera module.

In comparison to Orion (V4), its Gemini (V5) engine is said to offer better smoothness, pose fidelity, and robustness. It also improves hand initialization and brings significantly better performance with two-hand interactions. Not only are both hands more accurately tracked, but occlusion appears to be much less of an issue too, as fingers interlock and move in front of each other with comparative ease. Ultraleap is set to integrate Gemini into a number of XR headsets, including Varjo VR-3 and XR-3 headsets, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 5G reference design, which makes use of Ultraleap hardware.

More information:

https://www.roadtovr.com/ultraleap-v5-gemini-developer-preview/

HaptX True-Contact Haptic Gloves

HaptX, the San Luis Obispo, CA-based company focused on bringing realistic haptic technology to VR, has released its HaptX Gloves DK2, advanced haptic feedback gloves featuring true-contact haptic technology. Each glove features more than 130 points of tactile feedback, promising far more realistic interactions than those offered by standard vibration and force feedback haptics. This tactile feedback physically displaces your skin up to 2mm, simulating the feeling of touching real objects.

The patented microfluidic skin consists of hundreds of tiny air channels and bubble-like pneumatic actuators, embedded in a flexible silicone-based smart textile. When a user hand touches a virtual object, the SDK determines the contact force and object surface geometry and turns this into a picture of exactly how your skin would be deformed at each of 133 points of contact per glove as if the virtual object were a real object touching their skin.

More information:

https://vrscout.com/news/haptx-true-contact-haptic-gloves-vr/

LIV Supports Full-body Avatars

Liv has supported streaming with avatars for some time. However, finding a unique avatar for yourself was no simple task. Now, Liv has partnered with avatar maker ReadyPlayerMe to make it as simple as can be. ReadyPlayerMe allows you to build a free full-body avatar (optionally based on a photo of yourself) in mere minutes. You can use the avatar as the character in select Liv-supported VR games, allowing stream viewers to see your movements in third person.

Avatars from ReadyPlayMe are moderately customizable, and easy enough to get something you’re happy with relatively quickly, though we hope to see more customization options in the future (like height, build, and more control over outfits). You can make your own ReadyPlayMe avatar to import to Liv right here. If you want to download your avatar for some other use, you can make one here and download it at the end of the process as a .GLB file for use in other applications.

More information:

https://www.roadtovr.com/liv-vr-streaming-avatar-readyplayerme/