MANUS, the trusted Netherlands-based industry provider of quality Prime Series wireless data gloves harnessed by global professionals for high-fidelity finger tracking in virtual reality, announced the release of Polygon, the suitless real-time full-body tracking solution and the advanced Prime II Haptic gloves. The full suite of next-generation products saw official launch at the first Augmented World Expo Online, in May.
With the introduction of next-gen products alongside company rebrand, Manus now provides users with a complete, robust and efficient VR system specifically designed for teams across the enterprise sector of automotive, manufacturing, engineering and life sciences, including creators of virtual experiences within media and entertainment.
“Our team at Manus have listened to those in the industries who require believable real world interactions inside their virtual world environments,” said Bart Loosman, CEO. “We’re delighted to offer our customers a full service solution to expedite projects and team collaborations – whether it’s essential to speed up product prototyping, provide deeper immersion during engineer and medical training and simulation, or to entertain audiences with realistic motion for 3D virtual character animation and pre-visualisation. Manus has a robust and versatile solution to fit all needs.”
“The Prime One gloves have always delivered and we can’t wait to get our hands on the Prime II gloves for our WorldViz Vizard VR software user base,” commented Matthias Pusch, VP Sales & Marketing, WorldViz. “Manus is raising the standard for VR academic research and physiological measurements this year!”
Manus Polygon, the new software solution answers industry demand for an efficient, no-suit-required alternative that seamlessly delivers high-fidelity human motion data and whole bodies in VR for individuals or team collaboration. Using only five trackers with Polygon’s full-body IK solver (inverse kinematics), the portable and quick set-up system detects finest nuances in human motion to deliver continuous fluid movements transferred from participant directly to any 3D character style in real-time. Quality results are seen instantly with time-saving auto-filters to eliminate the need for post-production efforts.
The next-generation Prime II Series has undergone a complete upgrade, designed to optimise the user experience faster and for longer. All gloves are highly intuitive by replacing controllers and buttons in VR, acute finger tracking means every minuscule movement is measured providing users with precise results. Manus now offers three editions to market:
- Prime II: The base glove is the standalone data glove ideal for use in robotics, a VR glove to replace controllers, and as a motion capture glove.
- Prime II Haptic: The newest edition provides cutting-edge haptic feedback technology, to ensure deeper sensory and tactility when interacting with objects and textures in VR.
- Prime II Xsens: Seamless integration with Xsens MVN Animate to complete 3D character animations by adding natural hand and finger gestures.
Manus Polygon Highlights:
- Eliminates need for motion capture suit.
- Integrated full-body solving IK system: accurately tracks body movements via six data points.
- Combine Polygon and Prime II Haptic to expand real-time sensations of
- Self-calibrate tool: Fast autonomous, quick eight-step 45 second calibration process. Auto-assigns data points to corresponding trackers, full-body avatar delivered within seconds.
- Supports individuals and multi-users during training and simulation sessions, and global VR team collaborations, supports any 3D character animation and virtual setting.
- Accurately proportioned virtual human skeleton, motion retargeted and synchronised from actor to avatar in real time.
natural touch and intuitive prop interactions.
Manus Prime II Gloves Highlights:
- Precise finger tracking, detailed finger spread and overstretch measurement: Flex sensors measure 2 joints per finger, 11 DoF tracking of individual fingers by sensor fusion with IMU’s, drift prevented with new auto-filters, flex sensor reference points.
- Interchangeable battery: Five hours of uninterrupted motion capture, gloves instantly reconnect after swap.
- Universal tracker mounting system.
- Washable glove textile.
- Quick accurate (multi-user) calibration: 45 second turnaround.
Prominent customers already relying on Manus products are Lockheed Martin, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), General Motors, Volvo, Electronic Arts and Facebook Reality Labs.
Manus Polygon is available for purchase now as a SaaS. The pack includes a Unity and Unreal plugin and allows all types of retargeting on any avatar style.
Prime II Series is set for release July 1. Comes complete with one pair of Manus Prime II Gloves, USB-C cable x2, Manus dongle, batteries x2, charger and mounting adapters. Manus plugins for compatibility with Unity, Unreal Engine and MotionBuilder as standard.Visit the website for more information on software compatibility for each product offering. All online demos and tutorials available from June.
Polygon and Prime II Series gloves compatible with HMDs: Oculus Rift S, Oculus Quest, Valve INDEX, Varjo, SteamVR and HTC VIVE.
