Zuckerburg reveals hand and finger tracking without the need for additional hardware.
Facebook’s Oculus Connect 6 kicked off this morning with a slew of big reveals for the Oculus Quest standalone headset, one of the most exciting being the addition of hand and finger tracking.
During this morning’s highly-anticipated keynote presentation, Zuckerburg revealed that upcoming software updates to the Quest’s onboard cameras will soon allow for native hand tracking without the need for any additional hardware.
A video shown during the presentation shows users interacting with various experiences using their bare hands. The cameras appear to track the more minute details in a user’s movement, including their individual fingers.
“What began as a research project at Facebook Reality Labs has been brought to life through close collaboration with our product and design teams to bring about a new paradigm for VR input,” states Oculus in an official blog post.
“Our computer vision team developed a new method of using deep learning to understand the position of your fingers using just the monochrome cameras on Quest today—no active depth-sensing cameras, additional sensors, or extra processors required. This technology approximates the shape of your hand and creates a set of 3D points to accurately represent your hand and finger movement in VR.”
Hand-tracking for the Oculus Quest will be available in early 2020. It’s unclear exactly which experiences will support hand-tracking at launch. No doubt some users will prefer the familiarity of physical controllers and the immersive sensations offered by haptic feedback.
Feature Image Credit: Facebook
