One of the questions that is asked is how to input the movements of the animation once that it has started. One of the answers are virtual reality devices. For this use the most interesting are input devices. With theese devices we can alter diferent parameters that, in turn, alter the behaviour of animation.

With development of new hardware and fall of prices of the old one, VR devices are also becoming available to institutes with not so deep pockets. In this project we use Nintendo PowerGlove with interconnection for a serial port of a common PC.

NINTENDO POWERGLOVE

A picture of Nintendo PowerGlove can be seen at our screenshots page. PowerGlove has originaly been developed for NES entertainment console. As such it is not suitable for connecting to a PC. For that reason we used a device based on a Xilinx microprocessor and which is developed in FER, Zagreb, Croatia. That device is used as a interconnection to a serial port.

Nintendo PowerGlove is the first commercialy available VR device. It was developed by AGE, Inc. development team. Thanks to a choice of materials and manufacturing process with a reasonable price they made a device that is in a price range that a common man can afford. Up until then VR devices were something only well standing institutes and research agencies could afford.

We use PowerGlove to adjust the position of the goal that joint chain of our model must try to reach. As we move the goal the IK algorithm works to position the end of joint chain as close to the goal as possible. We read the gloves world coordinates and with that data we compute the position of the goal.