THE launch could be a watershed. Since last May, Leap Motion has shipped 12,000 of its 3D gestural interfaces to eager developers around the world. Now, a little over a month , we鈥檙e getting the first glimpses of its enormous potential.
The Leap Motion sensor, which is 100 times more accurate than Microsoft鈥檚 Kinect and less than half the price, will have a big launch-day head start on its predecessor. Where Microsoft closed off its device and threatened to prosecute anyone who reverse-engineered the $150 Kinect, Leap Motion has provided all that information up front to developers.
This means there will be a host of applications available 鈥� from Leap-compatible versions of smartphone games to weather and creativity apps 鈥� right from the off on 13 May.
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Although it is initially aimed at desktop computers, researchers are already finding ways to jury-rig the Leap to smaller devices, to open up a new realm of interaction. 鈥淭he idea we envision in the near future is that a Leap Motion-like device will be integrated into a smartphone,鈥� says Mingming Fan of the University of California, Irvine. 鈥淚nstead of just interacting on the touchscreen, the space around the smartphone will be available too.鈥�
Fan has already hacked Leap and a smartphone together into a basic demo, but says that his goal is to use the hand tracking to allow a user to reach into the screen by going behind the phone. With Leap tracking the user鈥檚 hand and displaying its image on the screen, the virtual hand could then be augmented with a gun, say, for first-person shooter games, or with Photoshop tools.
Another group of developers, in Austin, Texas, needed just 24 hours with the Leap development kit to be able to rig it up to control a quadcopter using hand gestures.
Larger tech firms have also recognised Leap鈥檚 potential. Brian Pene, a researcher at 3D design company Autodesk in San Francisco, has built a prototype using Leap which lets users manipulate a digital model of an engine with their own hands. 鈥淟et鈥檚 say you wanted to disassemble and reassemble a 3D engine model,鈥� he says. 鈥淯sing a mouse you鈥檇 have to pick up everything in 2D space while constantly manipulating the view. With Leap you can reach in and grab much like you do in the physical world.鈥�
聯With Leap you can reach into the screen and grab an object much like you do in the physical world聰
Meanwhile, developer Mario Viviani, of Italian firm Mariux Apps, has hacked Leap Motion into a basic photo management system, taking advantage of the extra dimension it provides in and out of the screen to make it easier to handle large volumes of photos. He plans to have the software, currently called Project Agatha, ready for Leap鈥檚 commercial launch.
Vedran 艩karica of Croatian firm divIT points out that it will take some time for the truly game-changing 3D interfaces to appear, as 2D controls are so ingrained with computer users 鈥� developers included. 鈥淵ou have to force yourself to forget what you knew, and it takes time to cancel those paradigms. Most Leap demos are just adjustments of multitouch demos,鈥� he says.
He also suggests that the enhanced interaction possibilities that Leap offers will trigger a new generation of much more useful 3D displays. 鈥淭his is the first time that input technology has jumped ahead of display technology,鈥� 艩karica says. 鈥淚鈥檝e been waiting a while for something that can surpass the mouse, and Leap is definitely it.鈥�
Make your avatar wave
In January, Jason Gholston reached out and touched a virtual universe. A senior producer at Linden Labs, the company behind virtual world Second Life, Gholston has hacked the Leap Motion gestural device. His prototype lets Second Life players control flight, manipulate objects and get their avatar to make gestures. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very neat to just wave your hands and see things respond in the world, and with an acceptable amount of latency,鈥� says Gholston. Linden Labs has now handed over further Leap development to Second Life鈥檚 open-source community. Gholston says the Leap has the potential to give Second Lifers full control over their virtual hands and fingers through their real ones.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淎 grand Leap forward鈥�
