Manus launches Polygon full-body tracking for Virtual Reality, as well as its Prime II gloves for VR

In Virtual Reality News

June 3, 2020 – Manus, the creator of the ‘Prime Series’ wireless data gloves for high-fidelity finger tracking in virtual reality, has today announced the release of Polygon, a suitless real-time full-body tracking solution, along with its newest range of advanced Prime II gloves. The full suite of products was officially launched during Augmented World Expo Online in May.

With the introduction of these latest products alongside a company rebrand, Manus now provides users with a complete, robust and efficient VR system that is specifically designed for teams across the enterprise sector of automotive, manufacturing, engineering and life sciences, including creators of virtual experiences within media and entertainment.

Bart Loosman, CEO at Manus, said: “Our team at Manus have listened to those in the industries who require believable real world interactions inside their virtual world environments. 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.” 

Manus’ Polygon software solution offers a “no suit required” alternative that delivers high-fidelity human motion data and whole body tracking in VR for individuals or team collaboration. Using only 5 trackers with Polygon’s full-body IK solver (inverse kinematics), the portable system detects the “finest nuances in human motion” to deliver continuous fluid movements transferred from a participant directly to any 3D character style in real-time, according to the company.

Manus Polygon features include:

• Eliminates the need for a motion capture suit;
• Integrated full-body solving IK system: accurately tracks body movements via 6 data points;
• Can combine with Prime II Haptic gloves to expand real-time sensations of natural touch and intuitive prop interactions;
• Self-calibrate tool – Fast autonomous, quick 8-step 45 second calibration process, which auto-assigns data points to corresponding trackers, and delivers a full-body avatar within seconds;
• Supports individuals and multi-users during training and simulation sessions, as well as  global VR team collaborations, 3D character animation, and virtual settings;
• Allows for accurately proportioned virtual human skeletons, motion retargeted and synchronised from actor to avatar in real-time.

Furthermore, the next-generation of the Prime Series gloves, Prime II, have undergone a complete upgrade, designed to optimise the user experience. The gloves replace the use of controllers and buttons in VR, and instead allow users to intuitively use their fingers. Acute finger tracking means every movement is measured, providing users with precise results. Manus now offers three editions of its Prime II gloves to the 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 immersion 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 Prime II series gloves features include:

• Precise finger tracking, detailed finger spread and overstretch measurement: Flex sensors measure 2 joints per finger, 11DoF tracking of individual fingers by sensor fusion with IMU’s, drift prevented with new auto-filters, flex sensor reference points;
• Interchangeable battery: 5 hours of uninterrupted motion capture, and the gloves instantly reconnect after a battery swap;
• Universal tracker mounting system;
• Washable glove textile;
• 45 second turnaround for multi-user calibration.

Matthias Pusch, VP of Sales and Marketing at WorldViz, commented: “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. Manus is raising the standard for VR academic research and physiological measurements this year!”

According to Manus, customers already relying on its products include Lockheed Martin, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), General Motors, Volvo, Electronic Arts, and Facebook Reality Labs.

Manus Polygon was made available for purchase from June 1, 2020 as a SaaS. The pack includes a Unity and Unreal plugin, and allows all types of retargeting on any avatar style.

The Prime II Series is set for release July 1, 2020. Gloves come 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 come as standard. For more information on software compatibility for each product offering, visit Manus’ website. Similarly, all online demos and tutorials will be available from June, 2020.

Polygon and the Prime II Series gloves are compatible with the following HMD’s: Oculus Rift S, Oculus Quest, Valve INDEX, Varjo, SteamVR, and HTC VIVE.

Image / video credit: Manus

About the author

Sam Sprigg

Managing Editor

Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he covers news articles on both the AR and VR industries. He also has an interest in human augmentation technology as a whole, and does not just limit his learning specifically to the visual experience side of things.