Motion-control software and hardware company Leap Motion announced the Leap, the world’s most accurate 3-D motion control device.
Press release from Leap Motion:
San Francisco, CA –
Motion-control software and hardware company Leap Motion announced the Leap, the world’s most accurate 3-D motion control device. It will change the way people control their laptops and desktop computers. The Leap is 200 times more sensitive than existing technologies and will cost a fraction of the price, just $69.99. Open now for pre-orders, the Leap will ship to consumers this winter. Leap Motion also has begun accepting requests for free developer kits today. Thousands will be provided in the coming months to let developers create a wide array of Leap-based applications.
The Leap creates a three-dimensional interaction space of 4 cubic feet to control a computer more precisely and quickly than a mouse or touchscreen, and as reliably as a keyboard. Leap Motion’s patented software, the heart of the Leap, represents four years of research and a series of major mathematical breakthroughs by co-founder and CTO David Holz.
The Leap is accurate to within 1/100 of a millimeter, a precision level required for touch-free natural gesture controls like pinch-to-zoom. The Leap addresses the shortcomings of all existing human/computer interaction tools by enabling a 3-D workspace that recognizes intuitive gestures. It is the first product in history to accurately sense the individual movements of all 10 of the user’s fingers, and can also track objects like a pen. Traditional mouse-and-keyboard navigation turns actions that are intuitive in the real world, like drawing a picture or manipulating 3-D objects, into highly technical tasks. Existing motion-sensing technology is crude, inefficient and often frustrating, and even touchscreen technology is limited by a two-dimensional workspace and scale restraints.
“It was this gap between what’s easy in the real world but very complicated to do digitally, like molding a piece of clay or creating a 3-D model, that inspired us to create the Leap and fundamentally change how people work with their computers,” said Leap Motion CEO and co-founder Michael Buckwald. “In addition to the Leap for computers, our core software is versatile enough to be embedded in a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, cars and refrigerators. One day 3-D motion control will be in just about every device we interact with, and thanks to the Leap, that day is coming sooner than anyone expected.”
Computing tasks ranging from simple to complex can now be accomplished with natural hand and finger movements. Current uses of the Leap include:
- Basiccomputing tasks like navigating an operating system or browsing throughWeb pages
- Precisevirtual drawing in 2-D and 3-D
- Signinga digital document by writing in air
- Navigatinglarge-scale 3-D data visualization systems
- Creatingand manipulating 3-D models like houses and cars
- Playingcomputer games, including fast-twitch first-person shooters
Future applications from developers could include medical imaging, robotics, unique art creations, computer-aided design, virtual-reality environments, training simulators for complex manual tasks and more.
The Leap plugs directly into a USB port and calibrates in one step, allowing users to quickly begin controlling their computers with natural hand and finger movements. Users can fine-tune the Leap’s sensitivity settings, create their own custom gestures and even network more than one Leap together to create a larger interaction space.
“Breakthroughs in technology come in all sizes, but often the very biggest disruptors come in very small packages: the computer chip, the mouse, the smartphone and now the Leap. Roughly the size of your pinky finger, I believe the Leap is the future of how people will interact with their devices,” said technology visionary Bill Warner, founder of Avid Technology and a Leap Motion investor. “What's previously been an expensive special effect in movies is now an affordable everyday reality, in full 3-D. With the Leap, you use both hands and all 10 fingers to work within your computer's virtual environment just as easily as you do in the real world.”
Developers who want to create Leap-compatible applications can request a Leap software development kit via Leap Motion’s website at http://bit.ly/KrKMua. Leap Motion’s app discovery platform will make it easy for developers to promote and monetize their own applications for the Leap.
The Leap will be widely available this winter at a suggested retail price of $69.99. A limited number are available for pre-order at https://live.leapmotion.com/pre-order-the-leap/.
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
