Get yer Dev Kit while its hot.
What technology does leapmotion use (is it imaging? a theramin?)
I'm not sure, but they promise uber-kinect like performance ; ie minority report handwaving;
but ultimately, if it creates a depth map at that size, shape, and cost ($80), it's a SLAM-dunk!
a theramin pronounced "booyawwahhaaeeeeeee'
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It came off to me as kinda fake.
I saw this earlier and my first reaction was "wow"! At first I wasn't sure if the video was some well-produced smoke-test (e.g. "hey let's see if this goes viral to judge demand before actually building it") but then Google revealed a couple demos, so at least the core essence is there.
No idea on how it works. The inventor of the supposedly "patented" technology is David Holz. A quick search (USPTO website) for patents or published patent applications under his name revealed nothing. It is possible the "patents" could be some peripheral IP they licensed, say to handle the gesture recognition part rather than the basic depth perception.
As for how it works, if I were to make something like that I'd use a combination of stereo vision and structured light. You could probably do the basic processing with a decent ARM, but to get the high spatial resolution they are quoting you need something with more oomph. They are almost certainly not using time-of-flight.
They quote they can measure accuracy to 1/100 mm. That's 10 microns. If true, they probably did that using a lot of hyperacuity say averaging depth information from a region and using the law of large numbers to improve the accuracy.
If this item is real, then it is a game changer.
Already pre-ordered it. Once its shipped I'm sure I'll do an unboxing video.
$70 for something 200* better then connect... damn. Also it looks like they're giving away free dev kits to get the ball rolling on their hardware.
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