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I'm curious about how folks are mounting their Leap hand tracker and the experiences they have with achieving optimal hand tracking performance. I'm considering one for my own use and contemplating mounting it so it is overhead allowing a clear view of my hands. I've seen one guy who even has it mounted to his Oculus HMD, but that seems to me a bit counter-intuitive, thinking the tracker needs to be stationary. Any advice?

EDIT: Seems like I should have done my homework! Leap makes a kit to attach the tracker to the DK2. Seems simple enough! I ordered up the Leap and two VR kits (one for the DK2 and the other for the CV1).

The Leap Orion Software is here if anyone else has interest: https://developer.leapmotion.com/get-started
The Leap VR Developer Mount is from Leap here: http://store-us.leapmotion.com/products ... oper-mount
I purchased the Leap from a HK seller on ebay here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/271221480224?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

I'm curious about the technology and what it will become. While I feel it's limited in the sense that the user receives no tactile feedback when interacting with the simulated environment, it may be useful in some scenarios. Exploring these new ideas is often enlightening.

I'll report more when I have it going

I'm using adhesive velcro on my DK2, a small piece on the cable cover and another on the back of the leap. I had to add some glue as the existing adhesive wasn't much good on the leap motion's rubber base

I would seem to be better for the hand tacking camera for it to be located in a fixed position off of a monitor (or triposd) that centers on your joystick and throttle since your hands should stay in that location even though you are looking around and off to the side. If you are trying to manipulate the Autopilot controls on the glareshield or the elements on the center console, you probably do not want any added motion for tracking purposes from head movement. I would really like to fly a 777 with Leap as Dan has demonstrated in a video - it's coming!!.
Dan (admin) - what has been your experience in location of hand tracking cameras?

Leap sells the mount attachment for the DK2, so I will presume at this point it's ok to do it that way. I have two of them coming, so we'll see. Orion also appears to have a special version just for VR, so Leap must feel mounting the sensor to the visor is the way. I made my post prematurely and should have done all of my homework first.

According to the developer, the new Orion SW is designed to have the Leap Motion sensor on the VR unit
The previous SW was designed for the sensor to be on the desk or under the monitor
As I just purchased the Flight1 GTN750 GPS with touch screen I hope to operate it with my real fingers reflected in VR

ok...today is the day my Leap leapt into my lap after its two week journey from China. Since it was only 25 bucks, I'd overlook the time I'm going to post more later today once it's all hooked up. This will be interesting!

Hope it goes well derek looking forward to a fresh perspective mate

Tony

Here's my report:

The Leap was easy to setup and get going. I installed the Orion package. All was straightforward. Anyone who has basic knowledge of Windows software installation procedures and UI configuration menus will not have any trouble. First was the calibration, and it went easily. Leap has a preview mode where you can see your hands as it sees them. It uses an IR camera to do the magic. After a few minutes of fiddling I went straight away into FlyInside for FSX (the latest version we have)

Dan's implementation of Leap is really great. I was wondering what I needed to do once it fired up, but there were my hands. I didn't need to do anything other than have the Leap connected for FI to use the Leap. Dan has already included an IR camera passthrough as well, so mashing a button brings up an IR view of your particular world. That's really cool and was unexpected. And no Vive required!

Humans have been relying on texture and relative proximity of objects when interacting with the world around them since we've been humans. The very physical nature of everything is something we never consider but controls every aspect of our existence.

We've been interacting with computers no differently, really. Our impulses to create inputs into our computers gives us very real physical feedback. Typing this is one example! When we're driving, flying or anything, we rely on physical cues controlling our behaviour at any point in time.

We interact with so many objects in life without seeing them, but touch is what our brains expect to sense when we do. When we go to start our car we put in the key and turn the ignition, know what it feels like to perform the act, and take off for our excursion, never really conscious of of the feel of the many physical things we touched. We rarely - if ever - need to see it to do so.

But what if we didn't receive any tactile cues? What if there was "nothing" really there and you went through the motions, trusting that your hand was in the right place and your conditioned car starting muscle memory acted properly? And say the car started. You'd have to take it on faith that all is "normal", in a relative sense at least. We'd have to make conscious decisions to accept matters, and a conscious "awareness" of interaction is something our brains are not often prone to expect to be required to do.

This is what it's like using the Leap. You can see your virtual hand and you can see the interaction, but the lack of tactile feedback makes it quite unrealistic to use and believe - FOR ME. That we often don't look at objects with which we interact makes it doubly hard to consider the Leap to be anything more than a novelty at this point in time. Surely I agree that there are relevant uses of it right now with many aspects of computing, but those who are into gaming and want instant tactile feedback when interacting with their virtual world should look at keeping what they have now.

My personal example of simply reaching down to throw the landing gear lever was telling enough for me. In a real plane you just do it. I didn't have that success and confidence in my pretend plane when I tried to do the same. While Dan's implementation is fantastic, and the Leap may have other value, for cockpit games it's got a long way to go. Maybe one day an electrical field of some sort will be invented so that it creates a pseudo-real environment of "electrical texture" that gives physical sensations of virtual objects in the open spaces of our physical worlds. Maybe one day!

Now that is a bloody excellent report and feedback, kudos Derek !!!

Tony