Essential Reality P5 Glove with SL?

I have a P5 glove from Essential Reality. It's a full 6DOF VR glove (+/- X, Y and Z Plus Pitch, Yaw and Roll) It also has 3 fingers which act as "button" equivalents and two fingers that act as chording modifiers. It is an amazing product, especially considering it was under $200.

Are there any plans to add 3d controller input support to Second Life? I'd love to be able to pair this excellent peripheral with the superlative SL experience. Imagine being able to build by moving things with the glove the same way you move them on screen.

Holy crap! Yes!

Ty for this post, Crosius!

It's only $80, AND you can download the windows SDK for free! I'm gonna be getting one of these babies, and I'll be calling a few of my programmer friends to see if they can patch it into SL and 3dsMax!!! I dream about such peripherals!
(Although, being in the UK, the shipping is gonna be extortionate unless I can find a distributor in Europe).

http://www.essentialreality.com

/Edit: I just checked out the international shipping/handling costs... only another $30! C'mon payday!

drool

ok so this is a brand spanking new thing. Where are some reviews? Is is cool? or crap?

I think i just wet myself lol. That would be soo cool. Everyone could be sitting there movnig their hands controlling a prim, like in Minority report. That would be really really cool.

Regarding reviews:

GamersHell.com

GameDev.net

Hey Eddie -- there's an UK distributor here .


So computer gloves aren't perfect. Yet. Let's say 5-10 years for a practical solution that's reasonably reliable?

Well I imagine it's pretty cool. It's not like it's the first one. I still have my old NES Power Glove.

That thing was neat but hard to use. My uncle had two sons and two power gloves, and hacked the second one so that it would work in the second port and gave it some extra functions. That was neat.



The P5 will work with Black and White, which is really awesome. If you haven't played that game, you're a god, and you interact with the world via a floating hand. It's really cool.

I have a few thoughts, since I own one.

The P5 works like a mouse-- you "slide" it around in 3-space and you "pick it up" by closing the last two fingers on your right hand. This lets you continue to move in a single direction past the edge of the "cube" of space in which the glove works. You can use the p5 as your system mouse, which it emulates by creating a virtual, vertical plane you move the glove around to move your mouse pointer, but that's hardly using the full capabilities of the peripheral.

It's precise enough for you to play a game like "ring toss" where you hold rings and throw them at bottle necks without any appreciable lag, and with the abitily to really control tragectory. Think about any lag issues you have with your mouse. The lag is about the same. (ie. not much at all)

It's bundled with hitman 2, which you will play _to death_ because it's a good game, but you won't use the P5 because its implemented in a very complex way that isn't as intuitive as the WSAD+mouse method most FPS use.

It has a range of possible values per finger (I think 12 so you can approximate "squeezing" things, or "wiggling fingers"
It's not exact, beacuse it doesn't measure how much you spread your fingers apart.

Black and White is the _best_ game for this peripheral at this time, because the interface is a _hand_ on screen that mimics your own hand's motions. Spellcasting is much easier with the p5 than with a mouse, especially that dreaded "5 pointed star" spell.

There is almost no support out there for this peripheral, which is a darn shame -- its a real, useable vr glove for CHEAP and it deserves to be adored by the 3d interactive community.

You do need to keep the top of your hand pointed towards a sensor while using the glove, but Essential Reality has done a pretty good job with the ergonomics, so you won't have to hold your hand unnaturally.

It's LIGHT. Most of these gloves weigh a ton, making long term "hold your hand out from your body" sessions a nightmare. I won't say you can use the p5 indefinitely without fatigue, but it's about the best I've found yet.

By turning mouse sensitivity up, you can control the pointer by just moving your wrist around, leaving your arm on your armrest -- I do this when I'm surfing the web and it is a real "neuromancer moment."

Bottom line - I bought it, I like it, I feel it's more than worth the money.

One negative though -- you will get blisters on the backs of your knuckles from the sensor bands if you use the glove for extended periods of time. They are mildly tacky rubber, and they rub a little. I advise buying a thin glove to wear under the p5 to keep your skin where it belongs, unless you just want to wait for the callusses that will brand you an uber-geek (oh, those? I got those from my VR glove)

Anyone who is working on implementing SDK patches into SL, I definitely am willing to help troubleshoot.

I can just imagine playing Black and White with that... that must be fantastic.

Anywho, I might get the SDK for that to patch to SL. I think I may need the glove for it, which would be teh suxx0rs. If I don't, I think I should be able to do it with out a problem-o.

<cry>

I don't know why I didn't spot this before...

The damn thing is for right-handed people!

The left-handed minority sufferes another blow...

DAMN!

You're using your dexterious hand (irony!) to type, and the glove to move stuff around.

yeah, Essential Reality keeps _hinting_ that they may get around to making a left hand version, but nothing definite. People drool whenever this rumour circulates, because then you could toss your keyboard too -- type on virtual keys and use both hands.

I think there are people in the forums on ER website discussing the desperate measure of transplanting all the tech from a righty P5 into a lefty home-built glove, but I could be out to lunch.

Still, most "ergo" mice also kick you lefties to the curb. You must half-expect new products to ignore your needs. That the P5 also does this isn't so much a shortcoming of ER's vision as another example of an industry-wide blind-spot.

Apple gets by selling just 5% of the computers out there. There must be a similar niche for lefty peripherals. You could even call it something cooly ironic like

"Syne* Peripherals" (Ideally, that * should be a star)

Unfortunately, I've been adjusting to a right-handed world long enough that it feels really weird to move the mouse with my left hand. So even if I could find an ergo mouse for lefties, I probably wouldn't use it. :/

I'm ambidextrus. Hee hee.

My right hand is stronger and better trained since I use right handed tools more but I use my left hand for a lot of things that people normally use thier 'best hand' for.

Typing is a breeze.

Yeah, i use my right hand to move my mouse, due to the fact that my desk doesn't really give me room to use my left hand on it. Plus, I've been living in a right handed world for so long that I have become ambidextrious for everything except writing.

I got an email today, the P5 Gloves are on clearance at TigerDirect for $19.99 for any of those interested.

Sorry to those who paid more, and hopefully those overseas can still get them.

I have purchased from TigerDirect previously and am happy with my products, in case any of you are leery.

At $20, it's great bargain, and I have put one in my shopping cart at TigerDirect... But what am I going to do with it? I'v played Black & White about all I'm going to already. What other games/programs is it compatible with?

Anyone think it can be adapted to SL?

If someone can write a patch to make it work with SL, I'll jolly well LEARN to use my right hand for it!

(hmm... that implies I cannot currently use my right hand at all, which is not the case. Just a few minutes ago I successfully managed to pick my nose with it )

Write the company who makes it. I'm sure they'd make mods if enough users expressed interest. After all, they DO want to sell the thing.

[email]info@essentialreality.com[/email]

I tried to order a p5 glove. Since I'm not in the US they asked me to fax them an order form so they could setup a wire transfer. Has anyone been through this? it's been almost a week an no reply from them.

I ordered one.

. o O ( Now... What am I going to DO with it? )

OK gang. I wrote them and this is their reply:

"The SDK is available for free from our website. The SDK will allow for
pretty seamless integration into any application. We can support you
in any way if you run into problems."

So, if anyone was up to it then there ya go.

Just got mine today. All I've done so far is play the game on the driver cd. You have to reach around 3d space to grab these little shapes. Very weird. I hope someone figures out how to get it working with SL.

I played Black & White with it, and I've got the rubbed-raw spot on one of my knuckles to prove it.

Yeah... We need to get this thing working with SL!

Has anyone seen any utilities to map the fingers to key's? The driver that comes with it only lets you map them to mouse clicks.