Same hand translational control and finger tracking device

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Edward_1990
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2014 10:35 pm

Same hand translational control and finger tracking device

Post by Edward_1990 »

Hi there,

I've posted this on r/oculus but it didn't get such a good reception, so I thought I might just check here before I give up on this idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdcRL5YPe9I

Friend and I came up with a possible input scheme for a VR headset. It's clumsiness is due to its low build quality, but at this stage, polish wasn't important, just a demonstration would suffice.

The idea for this controller originated from noticing that the current leading VR input devices (STEM, PrioVR, ControlVR), do not allow for simultaneous finger tracking and avatar translational motion. ControlVR and possibly PrioVR alleviate this problem somewhat by including a separate controller. However, removing this controller from a holster every time it is desired to move, and replacing it when interacting with the environment (through finger tracking) is very clumsy, and would get tedious extremely quickly.

Finger Tracking is not implemented here (mainly because I don't know how, nor do I know if it's possible in Unity), but something very similar to this controller could be added to existing glove (such as ControlVR) or optical finger trackers, for possibly very little cost. Movement does not interfere with interacting with the environment, because it is assumed that interaction occurs when the tip of the thumb touches the tips of the fingers (no one really grips things between the tip of the thumb and the middle of the index finger).

Another nice feature of this controller is that through utilizing the middle, ring, and index fingers, simultaneous movement in the z-axis (up or down) and in one of the other axes (right / left, forward / backwards) is possible. The master hand (in this case, RH), is not used at all. Therefore, if this glove had finger tracking, the player would be able to move in all axes, while maintaining full finger tracking in both hands, simultaneously.

While it looks like you won't win any UT2004 matches with this controller, it was primarily designed with VR in mind, so if anything, it would be suited for slow reflex movement. We don't need Xbox, pistol grip, or rifle controllers for the Metaverse, just good finger tracking and the ability to move around with very little effort.
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