Contact Gloves

Contact-Gloves are an ultra thin button control system which fits over the hands. They work by having different ares of the fingers on both hands act as buttons which can be connected only using the thumb of the same hand - particularly the interior of the hand and topside (those easily accessible by the thumb) with each joint of the finger (distal medial and proximal phalanges) becoming buttons (six total per finger, 22 switches per hand). They are also able to act as basic scrolling surfaces, a simplified joystick and the system can be enabled or disabled by pressing the tip of the smallest finger into its bottom joint (curling it into a U). Force-feedback in the form of a physical click can be added and the system is also pressure sensitive.

The system is composed of an ultra-thin membrane which can be integrated into most any gloves and a wrist-unit which detects the tension of individual fingers, muscles and tendons for higher accuracy in determining finger position. This information makes contact gloves ideal for VR interaction.

• Basic action (any tipswitch to any intermediate, proximal or distal switch)
• Scroll/track/dial (rub tip switches together)
• Precision dial (tip switch of other hand along opposite full finger length)
• Joystick (pinch tip switches together so they don't slide, move in direction)
• Enable/Disable (close pinkie finger)

Note these are switch positions and do not visually represent the contact gloves. The system can be integrated with essentially any form of glove.