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[Sharing is Fun] [Leap Motion] Finger Flocks


LSka
Sep 22 2013 | 1:36 am

Hello everybody,
I started poking with Leap Motion and the great aka.leapmotion external, combining the finger tracking with another wonderful peace of code which is jit.boids3d…

and here’s a simple yet fun project!
(You can download it here http://lska.org/lska/FingerFlocks_20130922_100924.maxzip , I put all the patchers and externals in a project, for ease of distribution)

The patch uses a poly~ to create an indipendent flock for every finger that appears over the Leap Motion. You can control the parameters of the single flocks using the target message.

The camera settings are calibrated on a second screen with the Leap Motion placed beneath it (and actually the output window automatically goes fullscreen on the second screen when you open it..), but you can adjust the settings to set your measures with the "camera position" values.

I’d love to know your opinion about it.

P.S.
obviously, you need to install the Leap Motion drivers to get it to work.


Mari Kimura
Nov 07 2013 | 7:30 am

Hi, I’m trying out your patch, which works! :)

BTW I’m still new at this, and have some question:
1) Where do you place your Leap? I’m using a laptop and it seems I have to place it between the trackpad and the keyboard to effectively track it…
2) I asked the Leap customer service, after getting some data dropping etc. They said that there is a "robust mode" that automatically adjust Leap with the background light, and it behaves differently depending on the lighting. I hear some people are building a little cover over Leap (with cardboard etc) so it doesn’t affect the behavior. This is very important for those of us who perform live on stage. Do you have any experience with it?

Thanks, and if you have other patches/objects I will use and test it!
mari


LSka
Nov 07 2013 | 8:08 am

Hi Mari,
For this particular patch I put the Leap right under the second screen, so I can approximate a direct correspondance between the fingers and particles (see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Dxfoo5MIA )

It really depends on which your purpose is: when I use it as a controller for Live ( http://www.lska.org/leap-modulation/ ) I place it to side, so I don’t get tracked when I use the mouse and keyboard, but if I should use it as a pointing device on my laptop’s first screen, surely a central position would be better.

Actually, the Leap outputs 3D coordinates relative to the center of its field of view.

I don’t know about "robust mode"…but I see that in the Leap Motion settings there are a few selectors dealing about precision vs speed, so I guess you could give them a try.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

LSKA


Joseph Hyde
Nov 07 2013 | 12:01 pm

really nice, thank-you. Ima going to show this to my students tomorrow – perfect timing!

Oh, and do you happen to know Oskar Fischinger? This looks weirdly like one of his studies.. Cool!


John Daniel
Nov 16 2015 | 10:02 am

Hello LSKA!
I am having trouble opening your fingerflocks, have tried file>Open in Max 7 and 6 and am having no luck. Could you point me to what I might be doing wrong?

I get this error in both:
"could not decompress FingerFlocks_20130922_100924.maxzip"

I have no experience with ".maxzip" it there something special I need to do to open it?

thanks much!!!
cheers!
jd


LSka
Nov 17 2015 | 12:36 am

Hello John,
please try downloading the file from this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dlll4o17jboqhrs/FingerFlocks_20130922_100924_20151117_092919.maxzip?dl=0
you should be able to open it directly with Max.

Cheers,
LSKA

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