Leap Motion Sensor Looks To Out Kinect Microsoft

 Computer Interfaces

A start-up company, Leap Motion have built a device about the size of a cigarette lighter that contains three tiny cameras inside. It attaches to a computer and turns any PC or Mac into a gesture-recognition device. The idea is similar to the one behind Microsoft’s Kinect, the device that lets people play games just by moving their hands and body.

Where Microsoft's Kinect brought the idea of 3D motion tracking to mainstream adoption in the marketplace, the 3D camera's low, 640x480 resolution, moderate input lag, and bulky form factor have somewhat limited its use cases.

Now, a new startup called Leap Motion wants to revolutionize the motion-tracking space with a chewing-gum-pack-sized 3D sensor that promises sub-millimeter accuracy.

Leap Motion claims its small sensor creates a "three-dimensional interaction space" of four cubic meters that can track the 3D position and orientation of individual fingers and even thin objects like pencils in real time, all to a tolerance of one-hundredth of a millimeter.

The company says the breakthrough in resolution comes not from the hardware, which consists of relatively standard parts, but from what CTO David Holz calls "a number of major algorithmic and mathematical problems that had not been solved or were considered unsolvable."


In the video demo below prepared for Cult of Mac, Holz demonstrates what appear to be very responsive and accurate gestures with his finger tips and hands.  Some may argue that as for replacing the mouse, the Leap Motion interface might not be comfortable over long stretches, however with the kind of performance exhibited in the video, the device is intriguing.  Moreover, the Kinect has been very successful for Microsoft and is being extended into a number of uses, including robotics.  If Leap Motion can do the same via its developer program, it may be an ideal device for robotic sensing and much more.

The San Francisco-based company has just started taking preorders for the $69.99 PC- and Mac-compatible device, which it plans to ship in December. It's unclear exactly what apps the system will support at that time, but the company told CNET it has plans to offer up 15,000 to 20,000 free development kits to kick-start the software market on its open platform.






SOURCE  Core 77

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