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Virtual reality technology is all set for the next phase of the journey as a lot of new VR headsets with enhanced high-end features are expected to hit the market by the end of the year. Oculus seems to be monitoring this progress in the virtual reality industry quite closely and the latest developments emerging from the Oculus campus testify to this fact.
Earlier this year, while paying a visit to Oculus’ R&D Facility, company CEO and boss Mark Zuckerberg teased inside images where he himself was spotted donning a pair of interactive VR Gloves. This was sufficiently strong evidence to determine that the company has been testing hand-tracking features with its Rift VR Headset.
Image credit: Facebook
Oculus’ VR Glove Advancements
In the latest blog post by Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist at Oculus, a new Oculus Video reveals similar kind of gloves in action. The video highlights an Advanced Hand Tracking marker-based solution that works using external tracking cameras.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URUlBCEMUVw
Abrash said that the R&D team at Oculus has been testing several such prototypes and the developments are said to be still in its preliminary stage. Abrash said, “Unfortunately, hands have about 25 degrees of freedom and lots of self-occlusion. Right now, retroreflector-covered gloves and lots of cameras are needed to get to this level of tracking quality.”
Maybe the further stages of development might showcase a more comprehensive solution wherein all the tracking sensors be embedded within the gloves themselves. Implementing accurate finger-tracking solution stands today as one of the key challenges in the evolution of VR technology.
However, many small-scale start-ups and tech companies are also rigorously working to make this a reality soon.Recently, we saw the details about HTC’s Vive “Knuckles” motion controllers emerging and also an actual physical device being spotted in action showing up finger tracking. With the Oculus VR Gloves, it remains to be seen whether we can even see the possibility of incorporating haptic-feedback which can react to actions of touch or button-press.
The chances about Oculus’ VR Gloves coming to consumer market this year seems bleak. However, the company is expected to release a spectrum of standalone VR headsets in 2018, we might get to see this interesting pair of gloves being released simultaneously.
Now this is something concrete development coming from Oculus… I hope they are available for consumers from next year
this might be great for playing games as well, like pressing trigger and obviously best thing for porn