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New "Power Glove" for the PC
friedmud writes "I just saw an interesting technology demo over at Essential Reality. It is of a "glove-like" device that allows you to interact with your computer. In particular the demo(which is very viewable using the CrossOver plugin) having to do with 3D Studio Max was just incredible (almost too incredible - but hey, we'll have to see) - they put together a model of a mouse in seconds by "molding" it using the "glove". It looks like the SDK is out, and the product is supposed to ship soon. News blurbs can be found at: PCWorld, Yahoo"
#1 application of this thing i'd say would be in dooooommm..... forget the BFG, i'm using my fist! ;)
ohhh yeah
my blog
I believe thas has been posted before.
That demo looks totally fake. It looks like they recorded a video of someone playing Quake, Half-Life, and modeling in 3DS Max with a mouse, then superimposed that picture of someone acting out the movements. I would be very surprised if those on-screen movements were actually made with the glove in real-time. Besides, with no tactile feedback, I imagine it would be pretty hard to "grasp" objects.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Watching the demo of it in use, I was especially impressed with the 3DSMax portion of it. Its a common saying in the industry that trying to model something on a computer is like trying to sculpt clay with boxing gloves on. This could change that old axiom. From the looks of it, this thing would be far easier to use than any of the LogiCad3D devices
Currently, most models are first carved out of clay, then scanned into a computer using a progressive laser and manipulated digitally. A product like this, that actually lets you accurately manipulate 3D space without having to break work flow and check your positioning in relation to axes, could do wonders for the modeling industry.
In my opinion, if its as easy to use as it looked in the demo, this thing will sell like crazy.
The Nintendo/Mattel PowerGlove
Sourceforge project to create Linux drivers
Can someone try to mirror the video(s) before their server melts?
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A glove interacting with a computer has quite a long way to go before it will be able to compete with the humble wad of clay.
The kinds of tools available to a sculptor, the tactile feedback of the medium is far, far superior to a single glove acting on air and the artist looking at a computer screen.
The glove has it's uses: it is not a replacement for a 3D capture device, however.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
it looks a little clunky, but the CyberGlove with its four levels (prices) has force AND tactile feedback. Immersion also has an SDK for use with it... the demo (RM format) has a great example of how it works
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Does anyone remember the original Power Glove for the NES? I'd guess you would.
Now, does anyone know what happened to it? Most people don't. But Mattel got sued for patent violation. Turns out they used the same technology in their $75 PowerGlove that the makers of the $10,000 DataGlove owned.
A lot of people have been wiring these things up for use with General PCs for regular use
There's a sourceforge project to write some Linux drivers, but they are in the 'planning' phase. There are some other drivers here (readme). Scroll down until you get to 'powerglove.tgz'
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
What if it were not intended to replace clay, but use a combination of clay and the gloves to bypass the scanning step? The sculptor could put on the gloves, start working with some standard lump of clay, initialize the glove tracking program, and manipulate the 3D model with the gloves as their actual hands manipulate the real clay model. When the real-world sculpture is finished, the 3D model would be done, as well.
Then all that's left is to hook up the fabricator, hit "copy", and start cranking out toys...
Can I use it to play Rad Racer?
"I love the Power Glove. It's so bad." -from The Wizard, starring Fred Savage.
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
It'll be great to download some pr0n with it ;)
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
It looked to me like the raccoon was built up out of a bunch of primitives (deformed spheres, etc.) That's not much of a sculpting job, really, and not much more impressive than you could achieve with a pointing device like a mouse or Wacom tablet.
Where a device like this *might* be interesting is when used in conjunction with Maya's Artisan tools or Softimage|XSI's weight maps to deform and stretch a polygon mesh by pushing and pulling vertices.
And as for the idea of "most models" being created through a sculpt/digitize process, maybe that's true at the high end (Pixar, ILM, DD, PDI), but your average mom and pop animation shop is likely using the tools built into their software.
A well designed modelling enviroment like Maya or Softimage pretty much eliminates the need to check positioning in relation to axes... most modellers I know do most of their work in the perspective view anyways.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
or the artists could work comfortably, in the way they're used to, and you could spend a little extra time with a computer graphics guy doing the object capture/associated tweaking...
hmm that would be a good idea, but you'd have to have EXTREMELY high-accuracy position tracking, otherwise the minor errors would quickly add up and you'd be left with a 3d model that looked absolutely nothing at all like the piece of clay. This is the same as when a beginner writes a 3d program which uses the standard SIN/COS rotation formula on the verticies that have already been rotated; everything looks ok to begin with, but soon the model loses all touch.
so, the 3d scanning method, or the completely virtual clay methods are the only ones that are at all feasable unless the detection accuracy of the gloves is insanely high.
one day....
ìì!
Two problems (that haven't been mentioned yet): firstly, you now have the problem that the program needs to know what the piece of clay looked like initially. Unless you can always start with a perfectly spherical ball of clay... Secondly, you would need to model the physics of the clay, such as sagging. For all that trouble, you might as well just go with force feedback.
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
Actually, with a primitive HUD this could be entirely useful. Johnny Nmemonic anyone?
It is absolutely perfect for my senior project.
I had planned on using the actual and quite dated power glove, but this is a great replacement.
What is my senior project?
Why designing and implementing a remote control mechanism for my car.
Yeah, sure it probably would end up in a few homicides and going to sleep with the unit on really isn't recommended.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
The Nintendo Power Glove actually became quite famous among hobbyist VR developers. Compared to the other gloves of the time, it was probably around one tenth of the price, and although it was, of course, not as good as those expensive gloves, one could do some nice things with it when interfaced to a PC.
The problem with the Glove on a Nintendo was that the games just weren't designed to be used with the Glove, so it was much easier to use the controller. Actually, Super Glove Ball, the one game that took advantage of the Glove's "raw" mode and was designed specifically for it, was also easier to play with the controller. In General VR usage on a PC, the Glove was nice though. This new glove product could have potential.
There's another potential problem with this: sculptors are unlikely to use just their hands to shape the clay. To bypass the scanning step, the glove tracking details would have to be combined with detailed information about every tool used. For example, was the tool that was dragged across the surface of the clay scraping with a flat or curved edge, or was it gouging a thin or wide groove?
An interesting idea, but I don't think the scanning process will be retired any time soon.
Check your design details of the PowerGlove.
They use a unique one-piece resistive scheme on mylar strips that covers the entire finger. The VPL DataGlove happens to use fiber-optic flexion sensors at each knuckle joint- which is more precise but much, much more expensive. The link you offer says as much- and indicated that it's pedigree was from the DataGlove but didn't say that it WAS the same.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Big ass difference. The drivers you pointed to are for interfacing it via something called a "Menelli box". The sourceforge effort is for plugging it directly* into the parallel port.
Finding a powerglove may be next to impossible now. Finding a menelli box is to the next magnitude.
Either way you shake it, the powerglove still bites...but is fun to play with
(*) Well, as directly as you can since the connectors are different, but you can run wires from the powerglove into the parallel port holes and it works.