The SDK for tracking hands in Oculus Quest without a controller has been released to the public. Now this feature can be integrated into games and applications.
How it works
The new system in the VR headset will track the position of the hands and fine motor skills of the user. No controllers, sensors, or special gloves are needed for this. Tracking will take place thanks to helmet cameras and a new machine learning method.
The feature is promised to be added to Oculus Quest in early 2020. Developers can start working with the SDK now if they have Oculus Integration software for the Unity engine. The package provides APIs for building hand models (including skeletal ones), as well as tools for obtaining and processing location data.
Privacy issue
A privacy policy is also attached to the SDK. Data that can be considered personal (for example, about the size of the user’s hand) can only be used inside the application.
In addition, it is expected that the new system will eventually begin to track the unique biometric data of users. So the authors of Oculus may require that players have the opportunity to allow or prohibit hand tracking without controllers.
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According to VentureBeat, the first software for Oculus Quest with advanced tracking may appear not only in the official Quest Store, but also in the SideQuest — a third-party store of the headset.
Recall that the system was initially presented at the Oculus Connect 6 conference.
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