Having arrived with the whole team we sat around the table with one of the co-founders and briefly discussed the project we're developing and the benefits of using the Manur VR gloves. After a tour around the office we got a hands-on with the gloves themselves. The development team has created a small room with some objects the user can toy around with. Some balls and cube to pick up and throw around, a pole, a sort of DJ table with records that can be span and a few buttons.
During one of the Virtual Technology classes the teacher mentioned that the human brain is great at substituting limbs that aren't yours and/or connected. Seeing your hands and fingers in VR move the way you move them in reality with the Manus Gloves is a great example of this feat. The moment I put on the Vive headset it felt natural. Instinctively you close your fingers to pick up objects and the same goes for in VR. When pressing buttons, we generally do so with our index fingers and once again, same works in VR. The gloves work as intuitive as we had researched beforehand and interaction with the world comes natural without having to explain the user any controls or mechanical rules. While the other team members got their chance to try out the gloves I had the chance to talk with one of the developers. The Manus VR team works with Unity3D aswell and provide an extensive library that comes with the gloves.
Knowing this and having experienced the gloves ourselves we we're convinced that adding Manus VR to the project is a worthwhile investment. Both for KLM as for us. The KLM and it's employees have a much more accessible simulation experience with a drop-in drop-out principle where controls don't have to be explained. And for us to work and learn with a new technology and thereby also discovering and research new topics made possibly by using the gloves. In the field, will the gloves really give that extra immersion? Will it still feel right without actually having the physical objects present? Comments are closed.
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