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The earliest device for interactivity
in a virtual environment and with virtual objects was
the dataglove developed at NASA Ames. Based on an invention
developed by Tom Zimmerman while he was at Atari Research
for measuring motion of a single finger, the gloves were
custom built for NASA by Zimmerman at VPL Research and
later marketed by VPL as a commercial product.
These gloves were fitted with special
sensors to measure the bend of the fingers and equipped
with a magnetic tracking system that allowed for the glove,
and the hand inside it, to be followed in 3D space and
the ability to handle virtual objects freely. Special
software was also developed in the VIEW lab to allow different
gestures for specific actions and system commands such
as "flying" through the virtual environment,
interacting with virtual menus, or easily scaling models
of virtual objects.
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