My procedure for leap motion working perfectly in DCS

[pabletesoy]

I have tried with "_5.2.0_win64", "Installer_5.3.1_win64" and "5.0.0-preview+52386", I have copied C:\Program Files\Ultraleap\VRVisualizer\VRVisualizer_Data\Plugins\LeapC.dll to C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\bin, but I can't activate the enable box inside DCS...

 

[Bvv.Fr]

good topic, thanks

is it possible to disable the virtual fingers touch in the cockpit?

I just want to see my hand in VR without interactivity, (because I have a real physical cockpit)

 

merci

[edmuss]

47 minutes ago, Bvv.Fr said:

good topic, thanks

is it possible to disable the virtual fingers touch in the cockpit?

I just want to see my hand in VR without interactivity, (because I have a real physical cockpit)

 

merci

I don't think you can directly, you might be able to hack around it with enabling pointers (which I think diables the fingertip interaction) but that would mean that every time you make a fist you will get green or blue pointers zooming round the place.  Alternatively, it's only the index finger that will interact with the cockpit when pointers are disabled, the rest are all fully tracked but incapable of pressing buttons; if you were to keep the index finger folded and use the middle finger for button presses then it should work.

Additionally unless your physical pit buttons marry up with the location in the virtual pit you might end up with quite a jarring disconnect, that said it might be close enough and work for you.  Distance to the front consoles/buttons can be adjusted by leaning forwards/backwards and resetting HMD centre before sitting normally, this may help get the forward controls in the right place so the virtual controls are in the same place as your physical controls.

[Stone]

Another setup item to consider is interference from your monitor. I think most people use VR with their monitor directly in front of them. But this can create IR reflection into the Leap Motion camera, and according to the troubleshooting, can cause tracking performance issues. I was having a problem with my right hand disappearing in DCS until I moved my monitor (fortunately mine is on a swivel mount and can be easily moved to one side when needed). Something to try at least...

[a1133620002]

On 10/25/2021 at 12:54 AM, Swson said:

Hi to all

Some few words to share my procedure of how to perform a wonderful use of a leap motion device with DCS.
It is a bit long but I think interesting to read and it will perhaps save time to some of you.

I was flying in 2D with a TM Warthog. I have also built 3 hardware LCD MFCD and a proprietary track IR for few bucks, except the purchase of 2 sets of 2 Thrustmaster Cougar MFD.
I equipped 3 MFCD with their own 800x600 color LCD to delocalize the virtual ones of F18 and A10 II.
They are plugged using USB3 displaylinks saving GPU work. It was very nice (see description in home cockpit area) but I wanted trying VR flight.
Flying in VR requires switching DCS multi monitor lua files and WIN10 display configuration to single monitor using user capabilities of DCS controls area.
Personally I have 1 save for VR, 1 for single monitor 2D 1920x1080 and 1 for multi monitor 4320x1080, including the 3 real 800x600 MFCD (600x600 used), programmed in the user’s buttons 1/2/3.

After buying my HP reverb G2, I replaced the gasket by a FRANKENFOV using a velcro mounted Samsung Odyssey foam as described on youtube. This allow a minimalist bottom view very useful looking the environment without removing the headset. I am also using VR optical lenses even if I have very minor correction and dont always wear glasses usually.
At this point I discovered the problem to be blind to the environment. Using my own hands in the VR looks to be the only good solution compared with the constant permutation of VR controllers, HOTAS and mouse.
I discovered the old leap motion tool through an italian guy youtube and bought one from one located in France of the three Ultraleap site indicated buyers. Hopefully this tool is now supported by DCS.
Three days later I got both the leap motion (from UK) and a headset mount (from US) through Fedex.
The following is my experience and recommendations:
1- I install the leap Gemini 5.0 driver downloaded from developper Ultraleap site
2- Leap device USB3 link is immediately discovered and configured by WIN10 64bit and I got a green status in the leap parameters software
3- I discovered first that using the leap mount, the USB cable had to go out to the right arm side when headset is on the head. On the other side, the leap view is upside down and does not work well if even it works
4- The insertion of the leap into the extractible mount plastic part is VERY tight and it is VERY difficult to remove it so think a lot before inserting it inside.
5- On the G2, sticking the mount to the headset must be done above the two camera lenses of the headset, just under the headset’s LED status light, not to disturb the headset tracking cameras. In this position, the leap is not centered vertically and the headset curvature make it is looking a bit upward.
This is not bad because it prevents too much hands’ detection while they are on the HOTAS. Using leap mount is better and more stable according me than using velcro on the leap device because a fixed and stable position is critical.
The price of the mount is not so much.
6- Be sure to perfectly center horizontally the mount before sticking it on the headset. It is a one shot because the glue is very strong. This is critical for perfect symmetrical tracking.
7- At first I was very disappointed. The tracking was good but not perfect with the leap visualizer software so I made a fresh calibration using parameters software built-in app.
It took me at least ten trials before succeeding reaching 80/100. Don’t discourage and be sure that for this task, the USB cable is going out to the left arm side.
I performed the task with the device placed on the headset in its mount and not with it on hand as recommended by the application. Doing this, the headset was upside down allowing the cable out to the left arm as required. There is a demo video on youtube.
8- After a precise 80/100 calibration, the tracking through the visualizer was absolutely perfect. You must have :

1. the leap USB link connected on a USB3 with a green symbol on WIN10 task bar icons
2. all green status in leap parameters software, (I disabled the fault correction and robust tick linked with light)
3. plug your G2 to get WMR opening and launch steamVR, then the leap visualizer
4. obtain the 2 hands and arms skeletons with fingers able to touch in synchronism with reality, this means calibration is OK

9- close the visualizer and parameter software and launch DCS
10- it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to first make your environment as lean as possible.
In the beginning every time I wanted touching a virtual button, my hands were hitting something real so I rebuild fully my environment with this constraint in mind.
Also you MUST program and use the DCS cockpit camera commands particularly the forward and aft ones, then up and down and in a lesser importance right and left. This is mainly important for cold & dark startup were you manage many side buttons. Can be also of great help to manage frontal obscuration by real world objects like a desk or a monitor
Personally I use a programmable Xencelab small device able to program 5 sets of 8 keys onto a 10x5x1 centimeter box with a small OLED display giving the names of commands.
This is a perfect complement to an HOTAS were all commands are generally already affected in a recent jet AC.
I also positioned my stick and chair, of which I removed both armrest, very accurately and fixed using a fully adjustable studio monitor foot Gravity SP3102 which is very cheap and perfectly usable with the Warthog joystick. I am also using a side keyboard stand and a Trackball Logitech in place of a mouse. It is a much stable solution, always at the same location and that you could find blindly easily. I recommend it highly.
11- In DCS control « special » area activate leap and « thumb pressure » tick
I HIGHLY recommend suppressing all green pointers’ lines obtained while hands are closed  because they interfere a lot with the command through fingers.
This could be very difficult to obtain in DCS. There is probably a DCS bug.
You will need to select several pointer positions (right/left/both hands) every time ticking and unticking leap activation, click OK and going back to adjustment until pointers effectively disappears when closing hands.
This is ESSENTIAL according me. The leap motion is not really designed to click on menu buttons, mouse is here to stay…
In VR DCS commands part, click using mouse and restraint it to game area then unclick hand controllers
With this procedure, I successfully started and F18 from cold and dark using only hands, quite as fast as with a mouse and very accurately. It is really a HUGE improvement in immersion.

Encountered (small) problems were:

a)  some buttons are tricky to reach and/or activate (INS, RADAR, OBOGS…)in F18 you NEED to use the cockpit camera commands to move inside the cockpit, place the buttons onto leap device FOV and use then a reset command button to recenter view quickly. However I was even able to adjust rotating MFD brightness buttons using thumb and forefinger
b)  dont hesitate turning head looking to buttons. Dont forget the tracking device is on your head and has a limited while correct field of view
c)   of course use of leap motion during flight on the MFD in front of you is very easy and accurate
e) I encountered some freezes and two full disappearance of one hand during a one hour flight. Only one needing going in the special commands area to deactivate then activate leap to recover it. Moving hands close and far in front the device generally solves the problem.

So if you want invest few amount of money for a giant step into immersion dont hesitate. I join some photos as well.

Have a good day

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Hi Swson,

Thanks for sharing these tips!

Do you have a short video to let us know what should we expect when everything is calibrate perfectly?
I have been installing and uninstalling my leap motion for a few times during this year because I have never really get it to a point that I feel it's easier to use than using a mouse.
The main problem is I try to use my index finger as a "hitbox" to touch those buttons but it only has 10% of the time working!
 




 

[ienatom]

Hello everyone, just for info I still have the right hand dropping the tracking pretty often. The only way to reset it is to pause, open settings, special, leapmotion and disable/enable again. It's pretty annoying though since in the tracking app it never loses the hands but in DCS in happens every time with the right hand...

 

Anyone still having my same issue?

 

[edmuss]

Add a (larger) deadzone to your joystick or enable the option for the hands to use joystick.

By default any control input on the stick will hide the right hand, this can include if it's registering an impercetible amount; setting a deadzone can help alleviate this.

If you enable the option for hands to control joystick then if the leap hand is moved to the right place (virtually) then it will snap onto the virtual stick and you can then move the stick/axis with the leap alone.  Only problem with this is if the physical and virtual sticks are in the same place then you can get dual axis inputs being sent to the sim, however this does eliminate the control input hiding the right hand.

[Xupicor]

I installed Ultraleap Tracking software and while hand tracking worked out of the box in DCS, no dll shenanigans necessary (am I missing something?) but it broke OpenXR. After uninstalling it - OpenXR started working again. Did any of you get that as well?

As for the tracking, it was... not perfect, let's say, and way worse in usability than PointCTRL. It was the Stereo kit with wider FOV.

[edmuss]

You might need to set the ultraleap drivers to openxr, mine is running without any issues.

Tracking wise, they're great when you have the environment setup. You have to minimise IR reflecting surfaces where you're using the hands otherwise the software can lose the distinct outline of the hands.

Check the ultraleap visuliser to ensure that the coloured bones are present all the time, if they disappear then it's lost tracking; the bones will cycle colours each time it starts a new tracking instance.

[Leader98]

I just installed version 5.7.2 of the Ultraleap software, as I saw this video on Youtube:

 

I followed the instructions in the video (thank you Juan Pedro!) and my hands are perfectly visible in DCS.
My hands move just fine but flipping switches is still a challenge.

Does anyone have a hint on how to improve the switch operating?

[Bvv.Fr]

how can you disable the laser?

where you can assign a button to hide unhide the hands?

how can you disable the touch/interraction?

 

thanks 

[edmuss]

On 1/4/2023 at 7:50 PM, Leader98 said:

I just installed version 5.7.2 of the Ultraleap software, as I saw this video on Youtube:

 

I followed the instructions in the video (thank you Juan Pedro!) and my hands are perfectly visible in DCS.
My hands move just fine but flipping switches is still a challenge.

Does anyone have a hint on how to improve the switch operating?

Muscle memory, that's it. Once you've learned where the activation points are for each switch it becomes much easier.

9 minutes ago, Bvv.Fr said:

how can you disable the laser?

where you can assign a button to hide unhide the hands?

how can you disable the touch/interraction?

 

thanks 

Laser pointers are disabled under the VR tab in the controller section on the right, set the drop down to no pointers.

Hand hiding binds are in the UI layer I think.

You can't disable the touch interaction per se, clenching a fist will prevent unwanted activations. It's only the index finger and thumb tip that can activate things.

[Bvv.Fr]

thanks, i found it , you are too quick  no time to edit my post...

 

maybe we could cheat with laser enable if we could change the color to transparent to disable interaction with finger 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Bvv.Fr

[edmuss]

If you enable laser pointers it disables the touch activation but there's no binding to switch between them. If you make the pointers transparent then you'd struggle to activate anything

[Bvv.Fr]

sorry for my bad english that's not what i'm trying to say ^^

the idea is to never interact with my (leap motion)hands, I just want to see them, because I have the cockpit IRL in the right place.

And I prefer not to see the lasers.

I can do that with f14 and m2000c because leapmotion's hand interaction is not implemented, but I need something to do the same with the ED modules.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by Bvv.Fr

[edmuss]

Ah I see, I don't know if it's possible to do that by default. Perhaps it might be possible to do it utilising the fingers app but don't bind the click function? I think you would still get the cursor cross but the control interaction would be disabled.

[tomeye]

Has anyone understood how the fingers app work? Does it require a ring bluetooth device?

https://github.com/glenmurphy/fingers/releases/tag/v0.9.3

[Bvv.Fr]

Requirements

• Leap Motion tracker
• A bluetooth ring (of custom design, details soon)
• A Windows PC with Bluetooth

i don't really know what and where we can found a  bluetooth ring  

i hope it's not dirty 

[tomeye]

I played with fingers app and this is how it works. When you launch it and start moving hands around, fingers app moves the mouse cursor. You need to map a left/right click to the hotas and start clicking buttons etc. The bluetooth ring would be a device with 2 mouse buttons, so you still move hands around but instead of hotas you click using the ring.

Fingers app is quite straight forward, no install just download and execute. I will try with hotas during flight to check how it feels.

[edmuss]

Ah so if you have the mouse bound to hotas then you don't need the ring, might have to have a play with it

[tomeye]

Actually you only need mouse buttons mapped. However, you need one hand on hotas to click and the other moving the cursor.

[edmuss]

Sorry, I should have clarified mouse buttons on the hotas

[tomeye]

I tested it and It works very nice as you can control the cursor with your palm or fist. Just disable the laser and use the keybindings in UI Layer to disable hands.

I think with a ring device in both hands this will be great, given the fact that my mouse buttons are mapped in one of the hotas which restricts one hand from being used.

[edmuss]

Can you use the fingers to manipulate rotaries? I believe with pointctrl you click onto the control and rotate the wrist, is fingers comparable, if not how are mousewheel funtions handled?

I don't think it would be impossible to have a mode toggle switch via joystick gremlin that enabled both hands and bound the mouse buttons to both parts of the hotas.  I currently use pinky paddle + CMS switch on my warthog for the mouse, shouldn't be too hard to find a spare button combo (something like pinky paddle + APU start) to switch to a leap/mouse control layer which then rebinds a couple of hat switches to the mouse controls.

[tomeye]

I am using this https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3043393/  for my hotas config which utilizes trim stick to mouse functions. Left/right is left/right click and up/down mapped to scroll up/down.