cosmos tracking Vive Cosmos hand and finger tracking?

[Fink]

Hi there.

Will the Vive Cosmos get hand and finger tracking or is that out of scope for that particular piece of hardware?

Also is there anything experimental that we can use at this time?

Thanks

Fink.

[stvnxu]

Hey @Fink, 

Great question - yes Vive Cosmos does support hand and finger tracking. Please keep in mind the SDK is in Early Access mode, and there will be upcoming significant updates to improve the experience. 

You can learn more and download our hand tracking SDK  here: https://developer.vive.com/resources/knowledgebase/vive-hand-tracking-sdk/

If you do begin developing with it and have further questions, be sure to check out our Hand Tracking SDK forum group: 

https://forum.vive.com/forum/73-vive-hand-tracking-sdk/

Thanks,

Steve

[Phr00t]

Is it then likely we will be able to use our hands as SteamVR controllers with an update?

[HackPerception]

@Phr00t - Calling them "SteamVR controllers" implies driver level support within SteamVR. The implementation is not driver support, it's SDK-based support which means that developers have to integrate an SDK into their individual project to enable the feature set meaning that it's per-application support rather than global SteamVR support. Quest's handtracking is also SDK-based but they've launched with some basic handtracking in first party apps and the core OS - with SteamVR however it's more difficult to do that because SteamVR is an open platform/ecosystem that services numerous headsets rather than being a closed platform like Quest.

It's worth noting too, that handtracking is currently further along on Pro because it's a more mature platform.

[Phr00t]

Leap Motion did it: https://github.com/SDraw/driver_leap

[HackPerception]

@Phr00t It was never integrated into SteamVR main branch though before Leapmotion's techology portfolio was purchased - this is something an end user has to manually install and enable which can't scale and the solution also requires the end-user to download and install an additional runtime which carries with it additional EULAs. With the SDK based solution, the user doesn't need to install an additional runtime in many cases because that support can be wrapped into the executable binary.

OpenVR is highly flexible - it's why it's my VR runtime and development platform of preference and you can definitely go create your own drivers. That said, getting a tech stack fully aligned and the driver integrated into the SteamVR main branch for scalable support is a complex and lengthy process. It's all very complex logistically - only a few companies have gotten their drivers added to SteamVR main branch. There are major advantages to both SDK-based approaches and major advantages to driver level approaches - it's not exactly clean cut and with SDK based approaches you control the release and update schedule rather than relying on a 3rd party platform mediator.

[A-Jey]

Is there already a testing app where we can try out to see the direction it's going?

@stvnxu

[T]

@A-Jey

You can download the SDK which has a demo that you can see in the videos in the same page. Inside the SDK file find "\ViveHandTracking_0.8.2.zip\Prebuilt samples\ViveHandTrackingSample_Win64.zip", unzip it somewhere and launch ViveHandTrackingSample.exe. Tried it a bit and it recognized my hands/fingers but it wasn't smooth. Looks like early stages or it needs specific lighting.

[stvnxu]

New release for our hand tracking sdk just came out today v0.9.0

Check it out!

 

[aortiz268]

does the vive cosmos track finger movement while holding the controllers similar to like what the valve index can track fingers