Leap Motion 3D USB Controller

CreepingDeath

I performed a simple search of boards and can't believe there's no hits for "Leap Motion" controller, unless the boards search facility isn't great...

LeapMotion Link

It's only $69 on pre-order, and ye are probably many tens of thousands behind in the pre-order queue already.
I'd expect the same backlog as with the Raspberry pi.

I applied for the free developer kit, early access to the SDK and a free pre-production version of the device and they accepted today
Now there's 10,000 free units but already over 60,000 applied I believe.

Anyway, it's one to watch.

I love the idea of it being a sort of poor mans 3D scanner.
It scans a 4 foot squared area in front of the controller, and the later version of the SDK will give you direct access to depth buffer.

But the early versions detect the number of hands and fingers in the zone and the exact orientation of them. It's ultra accurate too, sub-millimetre.

Anyways, thought I'd raise awareness of it.

regards,
CD

Synode

That looks great

Sparks

That could make a nifty robotics sensor - usually the 3D scanner sensors would be several grand's worth, involve a laser and a few spinning mirrors and weigh several kg; I'd love to know if they're doing actual range sensing here or just doing the stereo camera trick (with 1/100mm accuracy, I'd be impressed if it was just stereo cameras).

Do you get back complete depth information for every pixel or is there some low-level stuff like edge detection and so forth going on?

CreepingDeath

Sparks wrote: »

I'd love to know if they're doing actual range sensing here or just doing the stereo camera trick (with 1/100mm accuracy, I'd be impressed if it was just stereo cameras).

I've just got access to the developers forum... hmmm... they're a bit sketchy about access to a 3D depth map now.

Theres hints that they're using the stereo camera trick, with infrared cameras and some "amazing math" in the software.

Our raw data is unlike anything used academically or commercially. In the video we did a point cloud conversion but you can see the top of the hand and the points seem to neither be spatially nor temporally coherent.

So maybe I was a bit premature about the "poor mans 3D scanner" remark...

But the SDK's main focus is to return a list of hands, fingers or pointable tools.
But hopefully they'll give us access to the unprocessed 3D depth map in the future... the SDK is still very much work in progress it seems.

CreepingDeath

Just as an alternative, I see the guys who make the Kinect, sell a PrimeSense sensor for $200 with a 640x480 VGA 3D depth buffer, if the Leap doesn't provide the depth buffer.

PrimeSense Link

The_B_Man

You wouldnt wanna be playin that in the nip! Your Angry Birds would be flying all over the place!

PrzemoF

CreepingDeath wrote: »

I performed a simple search of boards and can't believe there's no hits for "Leap Motion" controller, unless the boards search facility isn't great...

LeapMotion Link

I hope they open the specs to make a proper linux driver. Blender 3D + that toy could be something really amazing...

CreepingDeath

Woo hoo !

Just got my free pre-release developer kit, a free Leap Motion controller.

It's much smaller than I thought.
I heard "iPod" size being mentioned, but it's the size of a stick of chewing gum.

There's no access to the depth buffer / 3d point cloud at the moment, and while it's being strongly requested on their developer forums, it's unlikely in the short term and not on their product roadmap.

The scanning area seems smaller than I thought, and the input is a bit jumpy at times. But it is high resolution, I can write my name in the air and it is readable on the sample "Visualizer" test application.

Anyway, this is only a pre-production test unit and lower resolution & specification than the final product I believe.

Overheal

product showed up in my department notes for a nearing launch date. will be interesting to see

Tar.Aldarion

Looks cool, seen a promotion video for this years ago! Can't wait to see the final product. Isn't there something similar with wrist bands?

Overheal

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2013/03/09/leap-motion-sxsw/1975699/

AUSTIN, Texas — I'm slicing lemons and pineapples inside the popular Fruit Ninja game on an ordinary Hewlett-Packard PC. But instead of dragging my fingers along a touchscreen or using a mouse, I am wielding an ordinary chopstick as if it were a blade, out in the wide-open space in front of the computer. I could just have easily used a finger or another object.

I'm quite literally trying my hand at Leap Motion, the fascinating new motion controller peripheral for PC and Mac computers. Leap ultimately hopes to integrate its technology into computers and tablets. Consumers can get their own hands on, or more accurately above, the Leap Motion Controller that makes all this possible on May 13, when pre-orders ship. (Best Buy is also accepting pre-orders.) South by Southwest represents the first public showing of the technology.

As you hold one or both hands above the controller it senses and tracks your slightest movement or jitter, the company says. The controller can track hands that are about two feet above it or to the side, effectively creating an invisible virtual cone of detection.

FULL COVERAGE: The latest from SXSW

Leap Motion brings to mind the inevitable comparisons with Microsoft's Xbox Kinect. "Kinect was a great first step for this space and is great for playing games in the living room," Leap Motion CEO and co-founder Michael Buckwald says. But Buckwald claims 200 times the accuracy of Kinect, in part because the technology can track all 10 of your fingers, with no discernible latency. "It feels like the hand is in the computer," he says.

As with Kinect, Leap Motion's most immediate impact is likely to be in the game arena. But "we're equally passionate about the non-gaming applications," Buckwald says. In one early work-in-progress demonstration of the technology, I was able to strum a harp. Another demo shows off the ability to mold virtual clay with your hands.

In still another I placed a hand in front of a computer screen showing schools of fish. The fish swam to my hand. If I methodically moved my hand the fish appeared to follow. But when I made a sudden more violent motion, they scampered off.

The system will cost $79.99 and consist of the controller and cords that connect to the USB port on a PC or Mac. Leap Motion says it has already received hundreds of thousands of pre-orders.

Consumers will be able to exploit Leap's technology in a couple of ways. In the first instance you'll be able to scroll, click, zoom and control the computer's operating system through Leap Motion. "That has some unique advantages in that unlike a touchscreen, Leap does not have to be one-to-one," Buckwald says. "You can move your fingers a small amount and not have to cover the whole screen," Buckwald says.

But Leap Motion can also work with existing apps such as Fruit Ninja that have been modified or fresh apps built from the ground up. The company plans to distribute titles through an app store called Airspace, with about half the apps likely to be free. "The goal is definitely quality over quantity," Buckwald says, perhaps on the order of 100 to 200 apps around launch.

In one of the announced titles, the Sugar Rush driving game from Disney, you'll be able to steer by placing your hands on the virtual wheel. Leap Motion has also announced The Painter Freestyle app from Corel and The Weather Channel app.

But professional content tools for developers will also be made available. Autodesk plans to use Leap Motion with its AutocCAD and Maya software. About 50,000 developers have applied for Leap's developer program; about 12,000 controllers have been sent to developers so far.

"The space in the middle we're passionate about is content creation." Buckwald says. He sees an opportunity to help regular people who don't have professional training to use Leap to edit video or audio, or mold clay on a virtual pottery wheel, things that "go to people's natural desire to create, build and explore." Leap Motion might also provide tools to help people interact with Facebook.

The inside of the Leap Motion Controller contains off-the-shelf video sensors and LEDs but Buckwald says "the secret sauce is more in the software than the hardware. Our innovation is not in the silicon. " The company says that any fairly recent PC or Mac should work Leap Motion.

The speed in which Leap Motion can detect movement is one of the critical elements in creating realism. Leap Motion Vice President of Product Marketing Michael Zagorsek says, "It's not simply just a technology that detects space, it is incredibly precise and quick. Psychologically when you interact with something and there's a delay, you're constantly reminded that the computer is doing something, you're not doing it… A lack of any noticeable delay makes me part of the experience here."

What Leap Motion hopes to accomplish is to make the user interface disappear altogether. "I'm not clicking on something to do something else, I'm not touching something to do something else. There is no interface, it's just me represented here," says Zagorsek.

CEO Buckwald says universities and companies have been trying to perfect this sort of thing for 20 to 30 years. "It's not necessarily the idea that is novel, but executing is very hard."

Stay tuned for my own hands-on review, closer to launch.

Email: ebaig@usatoday.com. Follow@edbaig on Twitter.

But wait for it...

I'm slicing lemons and pineapples inside the popular Fruit Ninja game on an ordinary Hewlett-Packard PC. But instead of dragging my fingers along a touchscreen or using a mouse, I am wielding an ordinary chopstick as if it were a blade, out in the wide-open space in front of the computer. I could just have easily used a finger or another object.

I'm quite literally trying my hand at Leap Motion,

...

Stay tuned for my own hands-on review, closer to launch.

Im intrigued by the Leapmotion but worried about the fact that 1) the tech demo video shown is even itself not entirely accurate of the concept and 2) even though the reviewer has allegedly used the device he isn't speaking of it, even in the enthusiastic beta-tester sense? That concerns me.

CreepingDeath

Well I've got bored with my pre-production Leap motion controller.

I had expected it to be a poor mans 3D scanner.
But effectively as a developer, you just get a list of hands, fingers, tools and the orientation of each.

80% of my development ideas were for 3D scanning.

So I'll be holding off on anything until the software development kit supports that.

The version I had was a bit jittery and buggy, although that's expected from a development model.
The range of detection was smaller than I thought, so I was limited to about the size of the 21" screen in front of me.

It was accurate though, in the demo calibration/visualization application, I could write my signature in the air in smallish letters and it was readable on the screen.

I think it'll have some good applications and interesting games, but it'll always be a novelty item to me, in the same league as a usb joystick.
You only plug it in for certain applications.

Skerries

got this this morning

I wanted to reach out to update you on the status of our ship date. After a lot of consideration, we’ve decided to push back the date and will now be shipping units to pre-order customers on July 22nd.

This is not a decision we take lightly. There are hundreds of thousands of people in over 150 countries who have pre-ordered Leap Motion controllers, some as long as a year ago. These people are part of our community and there is nothing more important to us than getting them devices as quickly as possible.

We’ve made a lot of progress. When we first started taking orders back in May we were twelve (very tired) people in a basement. Now we are eighty (although still tired and possibly still in a basement). We’ve manufactured over six hundred thousand devices and delivered twelve thousand to amazing developers who are building applications that let people do things that just wouldn’t have been possible before.

These developers have given us great feedback that we’ve used to make huge improvements to the stability and polish of the product. We’re really proud of Leap Motion as both a company and a product.

The reality is we very likely could have hit the original ship date. But it wouldn’t have left time for comprehensive testing. This will come in the form of a beta test that will start in June. We will give the 12k developers who currently have Leap Motion controllers access to the feature complete product including OS interaction (today developers only have access to the SDK). We will also invite some people who are not developers to join the beta test.

Ultimately, the only way we felt 100% confident we could deliver a truly magical product that would do justice to this new form of interaction, was to push the date so we would have more time for a larger, more diverse beta test.

I really appreciate your patience. I know it’s been a long wait. Everyone at Leap Motion is working tirelessly to make sure that the wait is worth it. Thanks so much for your help and support.

David and I will be participating in an open video Q&A using Google Hangout tomorrow at 11:30am Pacific time. To join our hangout, please visit our Google+ page. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact our support team at support@leapmotion.com or my personal email (buckwald@leapmotion.com). As always, we will not charge pre-order customer’s credit cards until the devices have actually shipped.

Thanks again.

Michael Buckwald

PrzemoF

I just understood that leap motion is a SOFTWARE product. There is some hardware involved, but it a standard off-the-shelf electronics. So I don't expect to see any open source drivers or access to raw data - simply leap motion developers have no interest in making any progress in those directions as that's not their goal. They have some patented software solution that they will try to sell.

Link to some hardware details: http://www.cypress.com/?rID=74083

CreepingDeath

I just logged into the Leap Motion developers forum ( restricted to people who got pre-release developer access ) and saw this post in response to the tonnes of people begging for some form of a 3d point cloud/access to the depth buffer.

Thanks for the feedback. We're now working towards providing lower level data in a future release

That was posted 29 days ago.

They only mention "lower level data", so I'm not sure what form that would take yet, but it's promising that they're finally doing something.

PrzemoF wrote: »

I just understood that leap motion is a SOFTWARE product.

It's a hardware device, using two IR cameras I believe.
You couldn't say that a mouse is software either.

ChRoMe

Skerries wrote: »

got this this morning

I wanted to reach out to update you on the status of our ship date. After a lot of consideration, we’ve decided to push back the date and will now be shipping units to pre-order customers on July 22nd.

This is not a decision we take lightly. There are hundreds of thousands of people in over 150 countries who have pre-ordered Leap Motion controllers, some as long as a year ago. These people are part of our community and there is nothing more important to us than getting them devices as quickly as possible.

We’ve made a lot of progress. When we first started taking orders back in May we were twelve (very tired) people in a basement. Now we are eighty (although still tired and possibly still in a basement). We’ve manufactured over six hundred thousand devices and delivered twelve thousand to amazing developers who are building applications that let people do things that just wouldn’t have been possible before.

These developers have given us great feedback that we’ve used to make huge improvements to the stability and polish of the product. We’re really proud of Leap Motion as both a company and a product.

The reality is we very likely could have hit the original ship date. But it wouldn’t have left time for comprehensive testing. This will come in the form of a beta test that will start in June. We will give the 12k developers who currently have Leap Motion controllers access to the feature complete product including OS interaction (today developers only have access to the SDK). We will also invite some people who are not developers to join the beta test.

Ultimately, the only way we felt 100% confident we could deliver a truly magical product that would do justice to this new form of interaction, was to push the date so we would have more time for a larger, more diverse beta test.

I really appreciate your patience. I know it’s been a long wait. Everyone at Leap Motion is working tirelessly to make sure that the wait is worth it. Thanks so much for your help and support.

David and I will be participating in an open video Q&A using Google Hangout tomorrow at 11:30am Pacific time. To join our hangout, please visit our Google+ page. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact our support team at support@leapmotion.com or my personal email (buckwald@leapmotion.com). As always, we will not charge pre-order customer’s credit cards until the devices have actually shipped.

Thanks again.

Michael Buckwald

Shipping is hard.

I'd make the same decisions if I were in your position.

PrzemoF

CreepingDeath wrote: »

[..]It's a hardware device, using two IR cameras I believe.
You couldn't say that a mouse is software either.

True, it's a hardware as well, but that wasn't my point. The Leap Team is not designing/making any hardware. They took some existing stuff (that cyprus controller + 2 cameras) and they created software that makes it work as a 3D motion sensor.

If someone developed a magic software that converts mouse into a telepathic receiver it would be a software product even if you still had only a pure hardware mouse on your desk in front of you.

Anyway, I hope I'm all wrong and there will be an open source linux driver + access to raw data + 3D points cloud as well

P.S. CreepingDeath, if the image->3d points conversion is done in the cyprus controller than I'd say it's hardware. If the controller is only feeding PC with images from those 2 cameras and the rest is done in the windows/osx/linux driver - it's software. I'm not sure which is closer to the way leap motion works.

Arbie

Has anyone done any development with this since? I just got one (€50 in Argos) and have some app ideas.

CreepingDeath

Nah... I thought it was like a poor mans 3D scanner, but it's not really.
I've actually put mine up for sale in a gadget clearout here a few days ago : adverts gadget clearout