VRK brings hands recognition to Oculus

Some of you may already know VRK, the VR kneeboard(s) tool used to bring kneeboards with pen support in VR. If not, take a look at: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=246970

With the latest version, VRK is capable of interfacing Leap Motion hand sensor to DCS when using Oculus VR.

This feature was already availabe to SteamVR users through SDraw's driver. Oculus, because it is a closed platform, excluded itself from third-party integration (and all the fun).

By using the technique developed for creating VRK overlays, I was able to feed controllers data coming from Leap Motion in native mode.

This means that, in the same way, it is possible to integrate any other hardware without having to wait for Oculus and without having to ask ED to develop specific drivers into DCS!

This is a video of what I mean when I say "hands interaction":

This viedo has been shot at the very beginning of this project, using the SDraw driver and SteamVR. The low frame rate is due to Oculus running in SteamVR mode. Now, with VRK it runs without killing the framerate.

Of course it's just the beginning, hand are still difficult to be used, but I hope that this tool will help in moving things forward. If you already own a Leap Motion, try yourself.

Another little result for SteamVR users is that I did a proper installer for SDRaw's drivers. This should help pilots to install it without entering the configuration files voodoo.

Howto:

• Download and install VRK

• Read the Quick Start Guide (please)

• Configure it to run in Oculus mode and enable the Hands Emulation

• Enjoy

(if you don't want the kneeboards to appear, just set their size to 0)

P.S. I'm happy to see that the latest 2.5.6 version brought some news about hands. This make me think that the hands are in the scope of ED activities.

Looks awesome!

Looking forward too see how it will work with switches and rotaries.

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My only question: how does this work when you are still using a real-world HOTAS setup?

The way I want something like this to work is to know when my hands are on my real-world stick and/or throttle so that it "bonds" the virtual hands to the stick and/or throttle until I release one or both to push a button, etc. Of course, I would like the option to have the hands to be attached to the virtual pilot as well!

Questions/problems/wishes aside, that looks very impressive!

Everything depends on how ED will implement hands interaction in the sim, but looking at the trend they just added the option to control how hands will attach to the virtual stick (that was very annoying).

It's just the beginning, I hope we will have the possibility to explore more possibilities in the future. I think that, beside hand recognition, haptics will play a big role in cockpit interaction. We'll see.

A little suggestion if someone from ED is reading: to improve the options set, please add an option to completely disable stick and throttle control with hands. The most of us already own an HOTAS and don't want to risk hitting the wingman by chance.

Could you make a short video just to show how the current state of interaction with rotaries and switches are right now?

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