An Oculus video posted last week,
shows what looks like the same gloves in action. It reveals a marker-based
solution that uses external tracking cameras. 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. Perhaps one day the company might be able to fit all
of that into sensors like those used for the Rift and Touch, but right now it
requires that elaborate rig constructed around Zuckerberg in the picture he
teased.
Oculus won’t be releasing any new
hardware in 2017 and the Touch controllers are still the primary form of input
for its VR experiences having only released late last year. It’s more than
likely that this is still an R&D project that’s not even confirmed for a
consumer release. We’d love to know if these gloves have any kind of haptic
feedback to react to actions like pressing buttons. Accurate finger tracking is
another important step towards fully VR immersion, but actually replicating the
feel and resistance of surfaces and objects in VR is another challenge
entirely.
More information: