Leap Motion's VR Cockpit Demo

[MK84]

Leap Motion has several videos demonstrating their VR Cockpit concept in Unity with the Leap Motion controller. What might be possible.

VR Cockpit HOTAS Alignment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4PpAC2DJ5k

Building in VR with Unity + VR Cockpit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV32IeTSb08

[Sharkku]

Yeah, it looks awesome! What worries me a little though, is that all cockpit controls in that video seem very big. Is the Leap sensitive, or precise enough for the fine motor control needed to operate small swirches in a standard aircraft cockpit? I really hope so, because I want this to work so badly!

[TuomasH]

I think that the easiest way to have good "knob" sensitivity is to have Leap gesture zoom function. It is basically the same thing everyone uses on their smartphones, is it "pinch to zoom" or whatever in English? I don't think it would be hard to make such code where you make the same gesture with both hands and zoom in/out the cockpit region you are interested in. Then all the buttons and knobs are big and easy to use.

[MarkJHarris]

Nah. The fact that you are using OR means it should remain a 1:1 zoom at all times. If you want a closer look, lean forward! Where the fingers reach the hot spot for switch activation is the issue. Your hands are functioning like virtual mouse pointers but you have a lot of them on your stumps!!

There is a definite hand gesture language needing sorting. You either push with your index finger, rotate with thumb and index finger, flick a switch down, up or have to pull and move depending on actual switch design. A recognition of the correct hand shape and movement to actuate the switch correctly is the key to success.

Also mapping your controls so when you have your hands on the levers and yolk they are not signalling operations is vital.

Just my thoughts.

[geneb]

I think that the most effective use of the Leap+Rift in FSX/P3D is to try to simply be a hand guide. The idea wouldn't be to use your avatar hands to activate the controls, but to help you touch a real control. The idea being that your avatar finger will hit the virtual switch at the same time your physical finger comes into contact with it. That would allow people to build "dark" cockpits that had only inputs (switches, knobs, etc), and no expensive displays or custom mechanical instruments. As long as the virtual cockpit can be scaled to a properly dimensioned real cockpit, it would work very well.

g.