Hand Tracking

Note: you are currently viewing documentation for a beta or an older version of Varjo

The Varjo XR-3, VR-3, and VR-2 Pro headsets feature integrated Ultraleap’s hand tracking. Hand tracking lets you reach into the virtual world with your hands and without using a physical controller. Gestures such as pinching, grabbing, and interacting with objects allow for a new level of immersion in your applications.

See the platform-specific documentation for hand tracking:

Setup with XR-3 and VR-3

With the latest generation of Varjo headsets, hand tracking is enabled by default and no additional software is required. You can also disable hand tracking in the Headset tab in Varjo Base.

Note: The Ultraleap SDK used with VR-2 Pro will not work with XR-3 and VR-3. However, you can use XR-3 and VR-3 normally even with the SDK installed.

Note: To support hand tracking on XR-3 and VR-3, software built for VR-2 Pro will need to be updated to use the latest version of the Ultraleap plugin for Unity and Unreal .

Setup with VR-2 Pro

Download the Ultraleap SDK for Varjo to enable the hand tracking module. It is important that you use this Varjo-specific SDK, as we provide a version of the software tailored specifically for Varjo headsets and stripped of all unnecessary components.

When both the Varjo and Ultraleap SDK are installed and the VR-2 Pro is connected, you will see the Ultraleap icon turn green in the notification area in Windows:

Developing with hand tracking

You can develop hand tracking support for Unreal engine, Unity, or natively. Refer to Ultraleap’s documentation for up-to-date guides on integration and best practices for using hand tracking in XR.

We recommend that you get acquainted with Ultraleap’s XR design guidelines before you start to work on hand tracking interactions. The guidelines provide valuable information for using hand tracking successfully in your project.

When you start to develop with hand tracking, make sure to define an offset for the hand position. This is necessary because the head tracking point for your headset differs from the hand tracking point for Ultraleap.

Hand tracking offset for XR-3 and VR-3

Use the following offset (X = right, Y = up, Z = forward, you may need to use a different scale and coordinate system depending on your engine of choice):

Y:      -0.0112 m
Z:       0.0999 m
X tilt:  0°

Hand tracking offset for VR-2 Pro

Use the following offset (X = right, Y = up, Z = forward, you may need to use a different scale and coordinate system depending on your engine of choice):

Y:      -0.025734 m
Z:       0.068423 m
X tilt:  5.0°