Interactions in the immersive environment become increasingly realistic. Thanks to the improvements in haptics, depth of field, and other factors, users can feel that they are actually interacting with real-life objects. Now, thanks to a new and improved hand tracking platform developed by Ultraleap, these interactions will become even more improved and realistic.
Introducing Ultraleap’s Fifth-Generation Hand Tracking Platform
Ultraleap (previously Leap Motion), a company focused on developing haptics technology for the immersive experiences industry, has recently launched Gemini. It is their fifth-generation hand tracking platform, now available for download for Windows OS.
The platform features significant improvements compared to the prior version:
- Faster initialization and hand detection;
- Ability to track various hand sizes;
- Ability to track two hands at the same time;
- Good functionality in challenging environments (very bright or very low light);
- Superior position accuracy.
Hand Tracking – a Critical Element for XR Technology
Immersive technologies need a powerful hand tracking platform to offer users increasingly realistic experiences. Indeed, hand tracking is as important to XR as touchscreens are to smartphones.
“From powering immersive XR experiences, to providing quick and easy engagement with digital screens, Gemini is making natural interaction between people and technology possible,” the CEO of Ultraleap, Tom Carter, said in a press release. “Robust, accurate hand tracking is one of the biggest challenges in 21st-century computing.”
He also focused on the company’s unique strengths in their specialized field of work:
“With ten years of ongoing developer support, experimentation, and feedback, we’ve refined our hand tracking to deliver the best and most flexible hand tracking available. We are incredibly proud of the progress we have made, and we are looking forward to working with software and hardware partners to bring hand tracking to the masses.”
Gemini Supports Popular XR Toolkits
Apart from its technical improvements, Ultraleaps’ latest hand tracking platform can help create immersive experiences using the most popular toolkits:
- Unity;
- Unreal Engine;
- Mixed Reality Toolkit for Unity (MRTK-Unity);
- OpenXR.
Also, Gemini has already been integrated into Varjo’s XR-3 and VR-3 headsets, as well as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 platform.
Watch Gemini in Action
To demonstrate the new features and capabilities, Ultraleap has also released a demonstration video.
Using side by side comparison between the real-life hand movements and the VR interaction, the two screens appear perfectly synchronized, with no delays or blurring. At this level, VR movements are no different from real-life movements, allowing users to experience a completely realistic interaction with virtual objects and environments.
