The first 3-D motion using your hands for virtual reality is born. One of the complaints about Oculus Rift has always been that it is difficult to manipulate a mouse with the headset on, making doing anything in a virtual environment rather difficult.
Oculus Rift and Leap Motion technology have come together and birthed a product that promises to solve that problem. Introducing Leap Motion For Virtual Reality. This marriage has created a baby that will eventually grow up and become the future of virtual reality.
On the blog “Motherboard,” there is an excellent article and video of the interface (obviously it is in it’s very early infancy) that gives a hands-on (pun intended) experience with the Leap motion-enabled Oculus Rift headset.
This new headset will give you hepatic feedback — which “virtually approximates the feelings or sensations of movement, vibration, and other tactile forces we take for granted in our three-dimensional reality,” states the author of this article on Motherboard.
As with any technological infant, it has to learn to crawl, walk, and grow, refining it’s skills and abilities as it goes along. But this is the first foray into a world of virtual interaction in any virtual environment. I can’t help but think that this is the direction they will be going in the Second Life 2.
According to the website for Leap Motion, this device enables you to interact with objects using your RL hands without using any gloves or wearable sensors. Can you imagine being able to actually “touch” things in world? Imagine being able to hold your lover’s hand, cuddle your virtual child, fight in a battle by wielding a sword with your own hand, or picking up a glass and drinking from it? The possibilities are endless.
Here’s a video from the Leap Motion website:
In summary, the article on Motherboard states, “Looking forward, as cameras and sensors for tech like Leap Motion improve, along with with virtual GUIs and environments, the sense of control will improve, and we’ll all take a big step towards living in the old Metaverse. All it should take is some creatively ambitious developers using this technology to make it happen.”
We live in exciting times!
I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers, ZoHa Islands Social Media Manager