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3D Glove Input Device
Elyjah writes: "A company called Essential Reality is devloping a 3D Glove input device. They have several demo movies you can watch (if you have Quicktime). The movies show the glove being displayed by runway models (this is amusing), being used in several FPS games, being used as an interface to a a 3D graphics development tool (this looks really cool), and being used with a music application. While truely usable devices like this are probably several years off, it is fun to see what is being worked on."
How many have been affordable to the consumer?
There was the powerglove.
The VPL glove was around $10,000.
The screenshots of some of the prototypes look like they have all four fingers and the thumb (The PowerGlove used only the first three and lumped your pinky with the middle finger next to it...).
Seems they're using some sort of IR based position system instead of the ultrasound pingers from the specifications (Sounds like the positioning system may double as the link back to the computer for wireless operation.).
Sounds like they've finally re-worked the PowerGlove (Which AGE had been saying for years now that they'd DO this...) with modern position tech (I'll bet they're still using the flexion sensor technology that they developed for the PowerGlove- which was impressive then and is still serviciable now (it'd make it a heck of a lot cheaper to make).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The PowerGlove needs a specialized interface (I've got two- but I've not gotten around to it yet...), supported a small position space range because of the ultrasonic positioning system, only 6DOF directly in front of the display, and only 3 fingers and your thumb.
This is something most likely using the flexion sensor tech from the original glove, with USB support, a larger space (True 6DOF remains to be seen) and higher resolution for the positioning space.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Try looking here for that...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
They're not using fiber optics that I can tell (if the claims of the site are correct...)- no infringement with VPL possible.
They're using a technology that the parent company, one Abrams-Gentile Entertainment, developed and patented for their purposes. The company, AGE, worked with Mattel to develop the PowerGlove- so no infringement with Mattel possible since Mattel licensed it from AGE.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
This is a link to the text entry in the USPTO's database for the sensor tech used in the PowerGlove. AGE owns that tech and appears to be a licensee of VPL for the idea patent.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
(no one's tried to hack this for the Linux ... yet).
:-)
r s/ linux-powerglove.README
/ linux-powerglove.tgz
I do believe you're wrong...
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/hardware/drive
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/hardware/drivers
http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/~cph/menelli.html
These links are the README, driver files, and schematic for the Menelli box interface (Which looks a LOT like the one mentioned in your links) for the PowerGlove...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
This is not exactly a new thing. It was being demonstratedat Siggraph last year (Late July) so it has been around for almost a year now. Don't know why it is taking so long to develop though. The interface is all USB and I offered to write Linux drivers for it last year. The sales and technical people seemed extremely interested at that prospect (and also for Java3D) but they never got back to me :(
Life is complete only for brief intervals in between toys or projects -- John Dalton
Am I the only one who caught this line in their first movie?
:)
"By tracking your hand movements, the P5 simplifies work for everyone, including animators, architects, and web servers."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but where is a 3D environment used on web servers? Plus, in the context they use, it sounds like "web servers" is a job. It's like saying "simplifies work for waiters, teachers, managers, and banana".
My BS alarm is going off on full alert.
Actually OJ's hands were/are in the 4D glove, unfortunately the jury only has pseudo-3D perception (two 2D eyeballs in parallax), thus they only saw a small part of the 4D object (3D timeslice during trial) not the part where he was wearing them while killing Ron & Nicole....
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
Want to know more about homebrew VR (and in turn, hooking up the Powerglove, and building your own glove device) than you can stand?
Click here...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
AGE is the parent of Essential Reality, and is a licensee of the VPL idea of a glove input device - and thus no violations have occurred because Essential Reality is in essence AGE, correct?
If that is correct, then it answers my question...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
How did they get around the VPL/Mattell patents?
For those that don't know, VPL made the VPL DataGlove, back in the early 90's. They also worked with Mattel to create the Nintendo PowerGlove. Unfortunately, their patent on using a glove-type input device kinda locked everything up - very few ways around the patent have ever been found. Most alternative glove input methods have been either klunky (one is a very intricate mechanical waldo like device that is fitted to the hand and uses hall-effect sensors to gauge the angle of the joints - very accurrate, but also hard to put on and take off, and expensive - not that the VPL DataGlove was cheap), or focused on other methods (such as detecting fingers touching together, rather than finger angles).
The only thing I can figure is that they either bought the patent rights, or are licensing them. Either way, I would much rather see a glove based on the fiber optic technology of VPL, rather than the flexible stress sensors the PowerGlove uses (and it does look like that is what they are using)...
If anyone wants more info on glove devices, etc for VR and such (PowerGlove interfacing to PC, etc), check out my website...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Until that's done, this doesn't seem much more impressive than Nintendo's Powerglove (which was cool, but didn't really do wonders for the game playing experience IMHO).
For more on various glove interfaces, see this page
Yeah, I was wondering where the reviewer was when I had my powerglove hooked up to my PC.
I'm sure you can still find the schematics for attaching one to a parallel port.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
The video shows web browsing with the data glove,
probably not the best use of it, but when the glove supposedly types keywords into the search
form only gibberish comes out. I can only assume
that this is an actual video of glove use and that
using it for keyboard input is impossible.. unless
there is an absolute spatial positioning device in
the glove. It just looks like it pans a mouse
horizontally and you can't actually type on a keyboard that is bigger than the glove.
The piano demonstration is also useless, since it
only shows the glove accurately hitting keys within the width of the glove. Now if they had a glove on each hand (amazing idea it is) and were actually playing a piano with sound coming out realistically I'd be impressed.
The 3d modelling demo which looks kind of neat,
unfortunately is hard to follow since the most interesting part (modelling the shapes of the body and head parts) is completely obscured by the opaque glove, which doesn't seem to be doing a lot of work. One wonders if the parts were not mostly pre-created. (Though the tail creation segment is interesting). I would be more interested in the glove being able to accurately direct a modeling or music playing session than in requiring full haptic feedback (which probably would be too expensive for this product I expect). That is probably going to be reserved for phantom-like systems which can handle one or two fingers of full force feedback I'd guess.
Finally The AXE is demoed. I know the guys who did it, and it is really cool software. But you don't finger a trumpet's keys to play the trumpet (and it looks more like a clarinet but anyway..) Their system uses mouse, joystick, keyboard, or any kind of MIDI input, they even made a gesture sensor which was apparently pretty cool. The idea with their system is that you cannot make a misstep because all kinds of agents make sure your input is constrained to something which matches the melody; it is the ultimate air guitar and so a silly way to try and demonstrate a glove, which in this case is just being used as a mouse.
Where's the beef? Well, looks like they spent a little bit of money on the video sequences. Not a ton, but some. I'd like to know for example how accurate the thing is at pointing at discreet locations in three space from a given point, or if there are any actual applications for which the glove would be satisfactory and superior to a mouse or joystick. Something which uses gestures like the open hand to scroll down a page, but for music creation, might be fun.
How many glove interfaces have there been over the years? At least a dozen. Aside from the Nintendo Power Glove, does anyone really remember them? Were they really all that useful? Honestly, unless such a device had some sort of tactile-feedback, it would still be pretty pointless.
What we really need is to skip this silly stuff and find a way to plug a computer RIGHT INTO MY BRAIN! Imagine just plugging a wire into the back of your head, and having all nervous input and output to the hands redirected toward a computer, which would send back the appropriate sensations! That would impress me. Yet another glove that does little more than the one I used to play Ridge Racer when I was eight is nothing special.
This sort of thing has been out for a while. The Nintendo Powerglove works quit well and you can still find the specs for hooking it up to a PC :)
Question reality.
MacWorld has an article up here. It goes over the glove being used in Mac OS X, and other novel ideas...
How Jaded Are You?
This has already been done.
This was a great idea IN 1987!
I had a powerglove and it sucked. Mike Tyson was no easier to beat with or without the glove.
And what really pissed me off was that you had to have some book for it, which I lost of course. If this has no book, i'm set.
"whoa, dude"
--- "Just because you can....aw shit do it."
Oh, I see. Post Comment.
Finally a 3-D glove! I've had such a tough time fitting my hands into the 2-D variety...
I think that a real breakthrough for this sort of device would be a haptic output. When you touch a virtual object, you should be able to feel it.
With some cleverly placed muscle wires (these wires lengthen and contract according to the voltage applied), the glove could provide resistance when you touch a virtual object.
Acutally, if there were different muscle wires in each finger of the glove, and a 3-d tracking system were employed, then the user could feel a large "object" as their hand moves through the air. (i.e. a bump in the surface is felt by whichever finger happens to be at it's cooridnates).
A "virtual typing" application could be useful. A keyboard might be less stressful and infinitely more configurable if you didn't have to physically touch any keys.