Hand Tracker - Initial Impressions

Accessories PiModules & Accessories
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So, I got my Hand Tracker today. Package had been opened by customs but all was fine.

Hardware installation:
First thing that happened was that I dropped the hand tracker module on the floor. It didn’t break but it started rattling. I managed to pry it open and empty it of two tiny screws made for screwing into plastic. When pried open, you can see that the module is not designed to be user servicable. There are screws that are either magnetically screwed or heated to affix the cover. I still think I did the right thing because those two screws might had shorted something, but the module is slightly busted up but looks good once screwed into place on the HMD.

The hand tracker does not work with the silicon sleeve, so you do have to cut a few piceses away at the bottom. I used a flat piece of metal held in one hand as a protector and then cut the sleeve while still mounted on the HMD.

I had to disconnect the eye tracker since the 8KX has only one USB port, might run a separate cable for it.

Software installation:
Plug and play, once connected Pitool asked me to allow it to download and install the Leap Motion software.

Initial impressions:
I only tested this in Pitool default home environment (not experience), which has had leap motion support for years so its a good way to see if it works.

FOV
Better than expected. I can almost touch the left and right limits of my vision in normal FOV. Tracking is of course lost if I turn my head, but that’s expected.

Distance:
Also better than expected. I can actually touch my chest while looking forward. I can not touch the HMD, but perhaps two centimeters close to it which definitely is close enough.

Refresh rate:
Good enough, there is some filtering applied to the input making movements smoooth and precise. I don’t expect any problem with the module being slow, as experienced with the eye tracker, but I don’t know if its fast enough to for example use as an input in a physics game where you might flick a finger quickly to throw something. I guess we’ll see when more games are tested.

Now on to some testing, dunno if I’ll find any games that work but perhaps Pimax Experience has hand tracking support?

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Glad its working for you, for me not so much, Pitool doesn’t prompt me to do anything, tho the camera is seen in device manager.

Steve

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I suggest you install the latest pitool beta version along with the Pimax Experience version .74. It has hand tracking support as well.
You can grab those here:
https://community.openmr.ai/t/pimax-vr-experience-version-0-74-0-0-beta-available-now/33579

To make sure your install went right you can double check using the guide found here:

PS: At the bottom of the guide there is a list of links you can use to download some software to check it out further.

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i had pitool 266 loaded is that not the latest? also the links for the PE dont work for me :frowning:

Steve

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ok have now downloaded both new ? already had (266) and the new PE V74 still no joy

in the pitool experience hand tracking is disabled and cant be enabled and restarting pc and pitool give no prompt to download leap motion sware

Steve

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OK so to some degree its sorted tho it isnt connected directly to the headset tho i have mounted it on it. i used a usbc to usb adapter the headset then allowed me to download the software thru the headset tho when i connected the leap it wasn;t working again, i’m guessing that its something to do with the power or lack of the headset is suppling??? firmware fix for this???

i have bodged the leap to the front of the headset with tape and the hands track - now i just need to get this sorted for dcs and i will be happy

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I got the hand tracking I ordered november 2019 today.

I knew at the time that there weren’t (m)any games with hand tracking support, but had a hope more games would implement hand tracking during the wait. Unfortunately I don’t see many actual games supporting it. There are leapmotion demos, but see no point with those.

I thought AltspaceVR had hand tracking support, because I remember seeing avatars with human-like hand and finger movement, but read in a blog post they stopped supporting it.
Then I remembered I read somewhere that Bigscreen has hand tracking, but I could not find any information about this or options to activate it.

So I feel like I have bought something that isn’t ready yet. Hopefully, if the Oculus Quest hand tracking becomes popular, then maybe developers will implement support for ultraleap as well…? Not sure if it’s easier to implement ultraleap if support for quest hand tracking already exists in a game…
Oh well.

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I said that about the original LM that I bought for my CV1 years ago, but after playing around with the few simple apps for a few days it has sat on the shelf ever since.
This was the reason I never considered this version with much interest.

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You can always install the controller emulator for UL and use HT that way. PE also supports it for config and game launching etc.

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thanks for the suggestions @PimaxUSA,
I get HT = Hand Tracking and PE = Pimax Experience, but not sure about UL…?

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GitHub - SDraw/driver_leap: Self-sustainable fork of SteamVR driver for Leap Motion controller with updated vendor libraries + GitHub - cbuchner1/driver_leap: OpenVR Driver for Leap Motion. So someone know how to turn off the emulation without uninstall the driver ?

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The hand tracking module was made by UltraLeap… :wink:

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In case you never found an answer…
I use VoiceAttack to “Run application ‘C:\Windows\System32\sc.exe’ with parameters ‘stop LeapService’”

Make sure that you turn the LeapService back on before restarting PE (which happens every time you exit SteamVR) or PE will see that you don’t have hand tracking and change your settings for you.

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So I finally got around to installing the HT.

(Don’t judge me for this next part :wink:, it’s all for science)

I’m impressed. The first game(only game) I tried, and one of the few reasons I got the hand tracking i the first place was to try VAM.

All I can say is wow. “It just works”

I was expecting it to completely not work. But to my surprise… I simply loaded a scene , clicked on enable leapmotion and BAM.

Its especially cool when you posses a character and you can move the fingers around. (again don’t judge me)

This could be a great app to showcase hand tracking but I can understand why its not on the Pimax List of handtracking apps. As it is a bit (ahem) adult.

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Hi @Strydr, thank you for the tip, I think I will make a switch batch script to disable/enable it (I’m not a fan of voice commands)

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I know that I’m about to feel really stupid but what is ‘VAM’? Do you mean ‘Vert-a-Mate’? If so, what level do you support and what do you think? (naughty boy! :rofl:)

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Just checking in in April 2021… is the hand tracking module recommended? Just not sure what applications it can be used for other than the pimax vr experience… I’m hoping it works well with dcs world being able to manipulate knobs and dials in cockpit… has anyone tried the hand tracking in dcs? If anyone is willing to try I’d greatly appreciate it and you can install the base sim for free via steam…

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It doesn’t work on some random headsets (usb incompatibilities), can’t recommend this crap.

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Hand Physics Lab released yesterday, April 1 on Oculus Store. Does the hand tracking module support this game on pimax 8k?

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