Leap Motion Astronomy?

[long_arms]

Hello,

I'm sure some of you will already have heard about the leap motion device before. It is pretty amazing. Here's a video, there are loads more if you search around. Think theyre like $70 if I remember correctly.

And heres a video of a little game theyve developed.

Anyway, I've got one coming my way whenever they start shipping and was thinking of any uses for it, astronomy wise.

Stellarium and similar applications will be pretty cool.

Obviously editing of astrophotography will be nice.

Actual control of the mount? See people using games controllers why not use your fingers/hands/gestures?

I think control over everything to do with the mount and scope i.e control, focus, filter wheels etc etc would be pretty cool (a gimick dont get me wrong) but pretty cool.

I definitely think in a few years this will have evolved into something built into your smartphone, tablets etc

(I know noone would suspect it anyway, but to be clear I have nothing to do with Leap Motion, just pre-ordered one because they look like a cool gadget )

Dan

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Curious. I might have a use for one of these

[sologuitarist61]

Certainly looks very interesting, but I note on the website that it states 'using just your hand and finger movements and Leap Motion enabled software' (my underlimgs). so I take that to mean it will not work with most of the programs we have loaded on our PC's at present (though I would be happy to be proved wrong as it look a good piece of kit and at a half dcecent price as well.

[Mike73]

Looks like it will make your arms ache!

[long_arms]

Certainly looks very interesting, but I note on the website that it states 'using just your hand and finger movements and Leap Motion enabled software' (my underlimgs). so I take that to mean it will not work with most of the programs we have loaded on our PC's at present (though I would be happy to be proved wrong as it look a good piece of kit and at a half dcecent price as well.

Thats a good point. Thousands of developers have had it for a few months to develop things for it. They've also said that it will have an app store to download software (some not free )to use with it.

Have to wait and see I guess, although there may be some sort of program like Xpadder (for games controllers), that allows you to assign certain gestures to whatever you wish. I've obviously got no idea.

[long_arms]

Looks like it will make your arms ache!

Yeh I definitely don't think it will be replacing the keyboard and mouse for that reason.

I'm sure people said this about touchscreens though and they've caught on (just a little )

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I am thinking of getting some student to implement a user interaction modality for our 3D visualization code working. In that arena it might be ideal