{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,19]],"date-time":"2026-02-19T04:52:42Z","timestamp":1771476762089,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":28,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,10]],"date-time":"2018-03-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1520640000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Hand rehabilitation is fundamental after stroke or surgery. Traditional rehabilitation requires a therapist and implies high costs, stress for the patient, and subjective evaluation of the therapy effectiveness. Alternative approaches, based on mechanical and tracking-based gloves, can be really effective when used in virtual reality (VR) environments. Mechanical devices are often expensive, cumbersome, patient specific and hand specific, while tracking-based devices are not affected by these limitations but, especially if based on a single tracking sensor, could suffer from occlusions. In this paper, the implementation of a multi-sensors approach, the Virtual Glove (VG), based on the simultaneous use of two orthogonal LEAP motion controllers, is described. The VG is calibrated and static positioning measurements are compared with those collected with an accurate spatial positioning system. The positioning error is lower than 6 mm in a cylindrical region of interest of radius 10 cm and height 21 cm. Real-time hand tracking measurements are also performed, analysed and reported. Hand tracking measurements show that VG operated in real-time (60 fps), reduced occlusions, and managed two LEAP sensors correctly, without any temporal and spatial discontinuity when skipping from one sensor to the other. A video demonstrating the good performance of VG is also collected and presented in the Supplementary Materials. Results are promising but further work must be done to allow the calculation of the forces exerted by each finger when constrained by mechanical tools (e.g., peg-boards) and for reducing occlusions when grasping these tools. Although the VG is proposed for rehabilitation purposes, it could also be used for tele-operation of tools and robots, and for other VR applications.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s18030834","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,12]],"date-time":"2018-03-12T13:13:48Z","timestamp":1520860428000},"page":"834","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":32,"title":["Measurements by A LEAP-Based Virtual Glove for the Hand Rehabilitation"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4790-4029","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Giuseppe","family":"Placidi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"A<sup>2<\/sup>VI_Lab, Department of Life, Health &amp; Environmental Sciences, University of L\u2019Aquila, Via Vetoio 1, 67100 Coppito, L\u2019Aquila, Italy"}]},{"given":"Luigi","family":"Cinque","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Sapienza University, Via Salaria 113, Rome 00198, Italy"}]},{"given":"Matteo","family":"Polsinelli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"A<sup>2<\/sup>VI_Lab, Department of Life, Health &amp; Environmental Sciences, University of L\u2019Aquila, Via Vetoio 1, 67100 Coppito, L\u2019Aquila, Italy"}]},{"given":"Matteo","family":"Spezialetti","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"A<sup>2<\/sup>VI_Lab, Department of Life, Health &amp; Environmental Sciences, University of L\u2019Aquila, Via Vetoio 1, 67100 Coppito, L\u2019Aquila, Italy"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"528","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jbmt.2011.01.023","article-title":"Movement therapy induced neural reorganization and motor recovery in stroke: A review","volume":"15","author":"Arya","year":"2011","journal-title":"J. Bodyw. Movement Ther."},{"key":"ref_2","first-page":"663","article-title":"Development of robots for rehabilitation therapy: The Palo Alto VA\/Stanford experience","volume":"37","author":"Burgar","year":"2000","journal-title":"J. Rehabil. Res. Dev."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"619","DOI":"10.1682\/JRRD.2005.03.0056","article-title":"Robot-assisted movement training for the stroke-impaired arm: Does it matter what the robot does?","volume":"43","author":"Kahn","year":"2006","journal-title":"J. Rehabil. Res. Dev."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1100","DOI":"10.1016\/j.compbiomed.2006.09.011","article-title":"A smart virtual glove for the hand telerehabilitation","volume":"37","author":"Placidi","year":"2007","journal-title":"Comput. Biol. Med."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Franchi, D., Maurizi, A., and Placidi, G. (2009, January 29\u201330). A Numerical Hand Model for a Virtual Glove Rehabilitation System. Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE Medical Measurements and Applications, Cetraro, Italy.","DOI":"10.1109\/MEMEA.2009.5167951"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"141","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-642-12712-0_13","article-title":"Characterization of a SimMechanics Model for a Virtual Glove Rehabilitation System","volume":"6026","author":"Franchi","year":"2010","journal-title":"Comput. Model. Objects Represent. Images"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1737","DOI":"10.1016\/j.apmr.2013.01.029","article-title":"Increasing patient engagement during virtual reality-based motor rehabilitation","volume":"94","author":"Zimmerli","year":"2013","journal-title":"Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1927","DOI":"10.1016\/j.compbiomed.2013.08.026","article-title":"Overall design and implementation of the virtual glove","volume":"43","author":"Placidi","year":"2013","journal-title":"Comput. Biol. Med."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"418","DOI":"10.1016\/j.apmr.2014.10.019","article-title":"Effectiveness, Usability, and Cost-Benefit of a Virtual Reality-Based Telerehabilitation Program for Balance Recovery After Stroke: A Randomized Controlled Trial","volume":"96","author":"Colomer","year":"2015","journal-title":"Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Placidi, G., Cinque, L., Petracca, A., Polsinelli, M., and Spezialetti, M. (2017, January 24\u201326). A Virtual Glove System for the Hand Rehabilitation based on Two Orthogonal LEAP Motion Controllers. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Pattern Recognition Applications and Methods, ICPRAM 2017, Porto, Portugal.","DOI":"10.5220\/0006197801840192"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"241","DOI":"10.1089\/cpb.2005.8.241","article-title":"Virtual Reality in Brain Damage Rehabilitation: Review","volume":"8","author":"Rose","year":"2005","journal-title":"Cyberpsychol. Behav."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1380","DOI":"10.1161\/STROKEAHA.110.605451","article-title":"Virtual Reality in Stroke Rehabilitation","volume":"42","author":"Saposnik","year":"2011","journal-title":"Stroke"},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"S242","DOI":"10.1097\/PHM.0b013e31826bcedb","article-title":"Robotic approaches for rehabilitation of hand function after stroke","volume":"91","author":"Lum","year":"2012","journal-title":"Am. J. Phys. Med. Rehabil."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Maciejasz, P., Eschweiler, J., Gerlach-Hahn, K., Jansen-Troy, A., and Leonhardt, S. (2014). A survey on robotic devices for upper limb rehabilitation. J. Neuroeng. Rehabil., 11.","DOI":"10.1186\/1743-0003-11-3"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.20870\/IJVR.2011.10.2.2805","article-title":"Methodology for controlling contact forces in interactive grasping simulation","volume":"10","author":"Antonya","year":"2011","journal-title":"Int. J. Virtual Real."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"490","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cmpb.2013.01.009","article-title":"Design of an efficient framework for fast prototyping of customized human\u2013computer interfaces and virtual environments for rehabilitation","volume":"110","author":"Avola","year":"2013","journal-title":"Comput. Methods Programs Biomed."},{"key":"ref_17","unstructured":"Chaudhary, A., Raheja, J.L., Das, K., and Raheja, S. (arXiv, 2013). Intelligent approaches to interact with machines using hand gesture recognition in natural way: A survey, arXiv."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"322","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cmpb.2014.06.020","article-title":"A low-cost real time virtual system for postural stability assessment at home","volume":"117","author":"Placidi","year":"2014","journal-title":"Comput. Methods Programs Biomed."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Placidi, G., Petracca, A., Pagnani, N., Spezialetti, M., and Iacoviello, D. (2015, January 1\u20132). A Virtual System for Postural Stability Assessment Based on a TOF Camera and a Mirror. Proceedings of the 3rd 2015 Workshop on ICTs for Improving Patients Rehabilitation Research Techniques, Lisbon, Portugal.","DOI":"10.1145\/2838944.2838963"},{"key":"ref_20","unstructured":"(2018, March 09). Reach into virtual reality with your bare hands. Available online: http:\/\/www.leapmotion.com."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6380","DOI":"10.3390\/s130506380","article-title":"Analysis of the accuracy and robustness of the leap motion controller","volume":"13","author":"Weichert","year":"2013","journal-title":"Sensors"},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3702","DOI":"10.3390\/s140203702","article-title":"An analysis of the precision and reliability of the leap motion sensor and its suitability for static and dynamic tracking","volume":"14","author":"Guna","year":"2014","journal-title":"Sensors"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"214","DOI":"10.3390\/s150100214","article-title":"Evaluation of the Leap Motion Controller as a New Contact-Free Pointing Device","volume":"15","author":"Bachmann","year":"2015","journal-title":"Sensors"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Petracca, A., Carrieri, M., Avola, D., Basso Moro, S., Brigadoi, S., Lancia, S., Spezialetti, M., Ferrari, M., Quaresima, V., and Placidi, G. (2015, January 9\u201312). A virtual ball task driven by forearm movements for neuro-rehabilitation. Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Virtual Rehabilitation (ICVR), Valencia, Spain.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICVR.2015.7358600"},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"138","DOI":"10.1108\/JAT-02-2014-0007","article-title":"Close range depth sensing cameras for virtual reality based hand rehabilitation","volume":"8","author":"Charles","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Assist. Technol."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"309","DOI":"10.1016\/1049-9660(91)90032-K","article-title":"Estimation of motion from a pair of range images: A review","volume":"54","author":"Sabata","year":"1991","journal-title":"CVGIP Image Underst."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"239","DOI":"10.1109\/34.121791","article-title":"A Method for Registration of 3-D Shapes","volume":"14","author":"Besl","year":"1992","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"272","DOI":"10.1007\/s001380050048","article-title":"Estimating 3-D rigid body transformations: A comparison of four major algorithms","volume":"9","author":"Eggert","year":"1997","journal-title":"Mach. Vis. Appl."}],"container-title":["Sensors"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/18\/3\/834\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T14:56:31Z","timestamp":1760194591000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/18\/3\/834"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,10]]},"references-count":28,"journal-issue":{"issue":"3","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,3]]}},"alternative-id":["s18030834"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/s18030834","relation":{},"ISSN":["1424-8220"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1424-8220","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,10]]}}}