Leap Motion Controller Update to Offer Affordable Individual Joint MoCap

Leap Motion has announced that the software for its self-titled PC gesture-control device will soon track the movement of individual finger joints, as well as the overall motion of a user’s hands.

Since its launch in 2012, the $80 Leap Motion controller has attracted a lot of interest in the CG community, with Autodesk releasing Maya and MotionBuilder plugins last year.

Individual joint tracking, more parameters captured
In a post on the company’s blog, Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald revealed that version 2 of its software will track the individual joints of a user’s fingers, compensating automatically where individual fingers are occluded.

The software will also expose “much more granular data” via its SDK, including 27 dimensions per hand.

Affordable Individual MoCap tools coming soon
The update, which will be free, and does not require a change of hardware, is now in public beta for developers, although there’s no news of a consumer release date yet.

Jasper Brekelmans, creator of upcoming hand-tracking tool Brekel Pro Hands, has already announced that he is using the SDK.

Read more about the Leap Motion V2 update on the developer’s blog