Brekel Hands – FAQ

  • What hardware do I need?

Brekel Pro Hands needs a Leap Motion sensor.

 

  • Which drivers do I need?

You’ll need Leap Motion’s v2.x beta drivers which you can get from the official Leap Motion developer page or my downloads pages.

 

  • Can I use this with a Kinect sensor?

No, only a Leap Motion sensor is supported.

 

  • Can I record in sync with any other Brekel Kinect apps?

Yes, simply put one app’s “Recording Triggering” to “Master” and the others to “Slave”, recording start/stop and filenames/folders will be synced.

This will work if multiple apps run on the same computer, but also when they run on multiple computers on the same network.

 

  • How do I use the recorded data with my rig?

First have a close look at how the axis of your character are aligned, and match the axis in Brekel Pro Hands.

Then it should be a simple matter of setting up a series of orientation/rotation constraints to let your rig follow the data, but you can also simply copy&paste animation curves.

 

  • Can I record with props (pencils, cups etc)

The tracker is based on computer vision algorithms and a trained tracking model of hands.
It is not designed to track props and will get confused when the hands/fingers are obscured by sticks, cups or other props.
The only way to track hands/fingers reliably in those situations is with highend motion capture equipment.

 

  • Can I use two or more Leap Motion sensors?

Nope, currently the drivers only support a single Leap Motion sensor per machine, but this may change in the future.

You can however run the software on two separate machines, each with it’s own Leap Motion sensor.

 

  • Can I strap the Leap Motion device to my body?

Yes, tracking still works when attached to your head/chest and it’s moving around along with you.

 

  • How does the new IR 170 sensor compare to the classic Leap Motion sensor?

– IR 170 has a slightly bigger FoV (square now instead of rectangular)
– depth range is larger
– stereo baseline is larger (may be beneficial for depth estimation quality)
– framerate is lower at 90Hz (classic one is 115)
– it’s lighter 21 grams (vs 31 grams)
– it’s more expensive

So all in all for VR it has some benefits but for other intents and purposes it’s not a huge leap from the classic sensor.