Hand-tracking glove company Manus VR has been experimenting with the HTC Vive for quite a while now. In December 2015 VRFocus reported on unveiling its first tests with the head-mounted display (HMD), and in March the company announced it would be fully supporting the headset. Today sees the release of brand new footage detailing its work on full-arm tracking.
As the video below shows, Manus VR has attached the HTC Vive’s positional-tracked controllers to the users arms giving fully tracked arm movements including bending elbows.
In a blog posting the company explains: “By strapping the vive controllers to the arm, and using the position of the headset, Manus VR is able to generate a highly accurate model of the arms, in addition to hands and fingers.”
“It displays the arms and elbow joint at exactly the position of the actual arms, with very little digital guesswork or latency. Most VR games at this moment use ‘floating hands’, which has now become the standard for most games. However, there are situations where rendering the arms could be of use to a game designer. For instance having an in-game UI attached to the arm (think Pip-Boy, or Apple Watch) , or a boxing game where the player has to defend oneself with their arms. It will be interesting to see what developers will be able to do with this new feature for the Manus gloves.”
Stijn Stumpel, Lead Designer of Manus VR ( the guy in the video) said: “It feels extremely immersive to see your full arms transformed in VR. It adds an extra layer to the feeling of body presence.”
When Manus VR releases its software development kit (SDK) in June 2016, the feature will be part of the software. The company is also looking to experiment with this feature on the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR, this will likely happen when Oculus Touch and PlayStation VR launch.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Manus VR, reporting back any further announcements.
