Niantic and 8th Wall add hand tracking to AR toolkit

Niantic and 8th Wall announced today that they’re adding hand tracking to the latter’s AR developer toolkit. According to 8th Wall, developers will now be able to build hand and wrist-based AR applications. They can incorporate real-time APIs from the open web to incorporate textures or videos unique to each user. It’s available to 8th Wall developers now.

The new tools contain a proprietary hand model with 36 attachment points across the palm, knuckles, wrist and fingers. This gives developers fine-tuned control over the position and point of contact for AR items on the hand. The Hand Tracking tool also has an adaptive hand mesh that forms to the shape of the user’s real hand.