Wired glove
Encyclopedia
Input device
In computing, an input device is any peripheral used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system such as a computer or other information appliance...
for human–computer interaction
Human–computer interaction
Human–computer Interaction is the study, planning, and design of the interaction between people and computers. It is often regarded as the intersection of computer science, behavioral sciences, design and several other fields of study...
worn like a glove.
Various sensor
Sensor
A sensor is a device that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal which can be read by an observer or by an instrument. For example, a mercury-in-glass thermometer converts the measured temperature into expansion and contraction of a liquid which can be read on a calibrated...
technologies are used to capture physical data such as bending of finger
Finger
A finger is a limb of the human body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of humans and other primates....
s. Often a motion tracker, such as a magnetic tracking device or inertial tracking device
Inertial tracking device
An inertial tracking device uses the laws of inertia to track an object over very short distances....
, is attached to capture the global position/rotation data of the glove. These movements are then interpreted by the software that accompanies the glove, so any one movement can mean any number of things. Gesture
Gesture
A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body...
s can then be categorized into useful information, such as to recognize Sign Language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
or other symbolic functions. Expensive high-end wired gloves can also provide haptic feedback, which is a simulation of the sense of touch. This allows a wired glove to also be used as an output device. Traditionally, wired gloves have only been available at a huge cost, with the finger bend sensors and the tracking device having to be bought separately.
Wired gloves are often used in virtual reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
environments.
History
The Sayre Glove, created by Electronic Visualization LaboratoryElectronic Visualization Laboratory
The Electronic Visualization Laboratory is a cross-disciplinary research lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It brings together faculty and students from the Art and Computer Science departments of UIC...
in 1977, was the first wired glove.
In 1982 Thomas G. Zimmerman filed a patent (US Patent 4542291) on an optical flex sensor mounted in a glove to measure finger bending. Zimmerman worked with Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier
Jaron Zepel Lanier is an American computer scientist, best known for popularizing the term virtual reality .A pioneer in the field of VR, Lanier and Thomas G. Zimmerman left Atari in 1985 to found VPL Research, Inc., the first company to sell VR goggles and gloves...
to incorporate ultrasonic and magnetic hand position tracking technology to create the Power Glove and Data Glove, respectively (US Patent 4988981, filed 1989). The optical flex sensor used in the Data Glove was invented by Young L. Harvill (US Patent 5097252, filed 1989) who scratched the fiber near the finger joint to make it locally sensitive to bending.
One of the first wired gloves available to home users in 1987 was the Nintendo Power Glove
Power Glove
The Power Glove is a controller accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and the first peripheral interface controller to recreate human hand movements on a television or computer screen in real time. The Power Glove was not popular and was criticized for its imprecise and difficult-to-use...
. This was designed as a gaming glove for the Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
. It had a crude tracker and finger bend sensors, plus buttons on the back. The sensors in the PowerGlove were also used by hobbyists to create their own datagloves.
This was followed by the CyberGlove, created by Virtual Technologies, Inc. in 1990. Virtual Technologies was acquired by Immersion Corporation
Immersion Corporation
Immersion Corporation of San Jose, California, is a developer of haptic technology.The company was founded in 1993. Immersion's technology is employed in automotive, entertainment, medical training, mobility, personal computing, and three-dimensional simulation applications. Immersion's patent...
in September 2000. In 2009, the CyberGlove line of products was divested by Immersion Corporation and a new company, CyberGlove Systems LLC, took over development, manufacturing and sales of the CyberGlove.
In addition to the CyberGlove, Immersion Corp also developed three other data glove products: the CyberTouch, which vibrates each individual finger of the glove when a finger touches an object in virtual reality; the CyberGrasp which actually simulates squeezing and touching of solid as well as spongy objects; and the CyberForce device which does all of the above and also measures the precise motion of the user's entire arm.
In 2002, the P5 Glove was released. In normal applications, it worked as a 2 dimensional mouse and a few computer games were specially adapted to provide "3D" support for it. The P5 glove is compatible with Microsoft Windows XP and Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
version 9 or below. Unofficial drivers for Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
exist as well. While it received some positive reviews from gadget and gaming magazines, its lack of compatible software and other issues caused it to remain a novelty. It has since been discontinued.
Following the P5 Glove is 5th Glove. A data glove and flexor strip kit (5th Glove DFK) sold by Fifth Dimension Technologies. The package uses flexible optical-bending sensing to track hand and arm movement. The glove can be used with 5DT's ultrasonic tracking system, the 5DT Head and 5DT Hand tracker, which can track movement from up to two metres away from the unit's transmitter.
A recent development in wired gloves is the ShapeHand developed by Measurand Inc. ShapeHand is ideal for use in applications like the hand-over because it uses flexible sensors that are not physically built into a glove so it can attach to most hand sizes.
Concerned about the high cost of the most complete commercial solutions, Pamplona et al. propose a new input device: an image-based data glove (IBDG). By attaching a camera to the hand of the user and a visual marker to each finger tip, they use computer vision techniques to estimate the relative position of the finger tips. Once they have information about the tips, they apply inverse kinematics techniques in order to estimate the position of each finger joint and recreate the movements of the fingers of the user in a virtual world. Adding a motion tracker device, one can also map pitch, yaw, roll and XYZ-translations of the hand of the user, (almost) recreating all the gesture and posture performed by the hand of the user in a low cost device.
Alternatives
An alternative to wired gloves is to use a camera and computer visionComputer vision
Computer vision is a field that includes methods for acquiring, processing, analysing, and understanding images and, in general, high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g., in the forms of decisions...
to track the 3D pose and trajectory of the hand, at the cost of tactile feedback.
Popular culture
The film adaptation of Minority ReportMinority Report (film)
Minority Report is a 2002 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg and loosely based on the short story "The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick. It is set primarily in Washington, D.C...
makes use of wireless gloves to control futuristic computer-like peripherals.
The Power Glove was prominently shown off in Nintendo's product placement
Product placement
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the...
film The Wizard
The Wizard (film)
The Wizard is a 1989 adventure dramedy film starring Fred Savage, Luke Edwards, and Jenny Lewis...
, memorably wielded by antagonist Lucas Barton (Jackey Vinson
Jackey Vinson
Jackey Vinson is a former child actor of the 1980s. His first film credit, in which he played a young Jack Vinson was the in film Terminal Exposure in 1987. In the 1989 film The Wizard, which is considered to be his most esteemed work, Vinson played Lucas Barton, a video gamer with a selection of...
), whose smug boast, "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad!" became an internet meme
Internet meme
The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.-Description:...
years later.