Abstract:
I am creating a addon for Blender that will allow the LEAP Motion Controller to be used to control Blender’s sculpting tool using natural 3D gestures. The intention is to have the gestures responsive and fluid to a level to be useful as an alternative to sculpting with a mouse.
Project Scope:
-Addon will be usable immediately after installation with press of a button
-The LEAP can be used to manipulate the viewport and operate the sculpting tool simultaneously
-The user should not need to reach for the mouse until they have finished their sculpting session
-Have adjustable parameters for aspects that may differ between hands
-Viewport manipulation covers tracking, tumbling and dollying
-Sculpt tool (tentative) and change between add and subtract material and radius without needing to click menus
-Have a fixed natural three dimensional gesture language that is intuitive and responsive
Git repository link to source (also contains LaTeX source to academic paper, some instructions are there, folder to source is StarkPy): https://[email protected]/gxian/stark.git
Missing the youtube video - I’d love to test once you make progress - right now the leap is sitting on my desk making an awesome paperweight. I’d like it to do more!
Waw waw. We’re seeing the birth of a new interaction models every month thanks to gadgets like the leap and people like you. I wish you the best and look forward to play with this once you release it. I’ve been lucky enough to be a “test subject” for a bridge between the leap and Blender two professors here in the North of France had developed. In was still in the very early stages, so a bit jerky but already quite usable. It allowed translating and rotating 3D objects in all dimensions. Is that a NZ accent you have ? First time I hear it, it almost sounds like the british…
I’ve got the sculpt tool animated by hand so far. Public cloning of source code should be available very soon.
I am from New Zealand, born and raised, however, many fellow NZers have commented on the fact that my accent has a more than usual influence from British and American phonemes, especially when I speak in front of camera. Possibly because that’s all TV consists of here.
Any plans to update this for V2 with skeletal tracking? I have a leap motion and was unimpressed with the V1 but with the V2 I am very interested in a plugin for blender as there are many uses such as object manipulation, sculpting, movement in the viewport, camera, and game engine, and controlling hand armatures.
I think as you suggest sculpting is going to be a great application. I really like how tools are tracked in the new version. I find that a standard #2 pencil is the best. It tracks at less than 5ms latency. In addition using a second hand to control rotation and movement while sculpting is a great idea.
Are you currently working on this? I’m not currently a programmer but am hoping to learn python are you going to make that video you mentioned on integrating the leap in blender.
There won’t be any fixed released schedules, it’ll be whenever I have time to work on it and I’ve also returned my LEAP to uni. My next priority is to add some Bayesian filtering to improve tracking and add some more flexibility on the tracking tool.
