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Getting started

The MANUS SDK is our C++ library that allows you to interact with MANUS gloves. The SDK is compatible with both Windows and Linux. The SDK allows you complete freedom to integrate MANUS gloves into your application/platform.

Overview

The SDK comes with two example projects: SDK Client and SDK MinimalClient. The SDK Client is a full example demonstrating all functionality from the SDK. It includes initialization, connection, pairing/un-pairing, glove calibration, skeleton loading/saving etcetera. While the SDK MinimalClient is a bare-bones example that demonstrates the minimal amount of code needed to get the SDK connected and receiving glove data.

Installation

  1. Go to the MANUS Download Center and create a free account or log in if you already have one.
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  2. Download the plugin as a zipped file and save it on your computer. Unzip the file to extract its contents.
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The downloaded zip file will contain the following folders:

  • SDKCLient_Linux - Contains the SDKClient example for Linux
  • SDKClient_Windows - Contains the SDKClient example for Windows
  • SDKMinimalClient_Linux - Contains the SDKMinimalClient example for Linux
  • SDKMinimalClient_Windows - Contains the SDKMinimalClient example for Windows

The SDKClient.sln contains all the examples inside a single solution and makes use of the remote cross compilation tools to compile the Linux examples on Windows.

Windows

The SDKClient_Windows and SDKMinimalClient_Windows can be compiled in Visual Studio using the provided SDKClient.sln file.

Linux

For compilation and execution on Linux, a number of dependencies are required and need to be installed manually. The SDKClient_Linux and SDKMinimalClient_Linux can be compiled using the provided makefile, Visual Studio Code workspace, or Visual Studio remote cross compilation tools. Please refer to the full Linux guide for exact installation instructions.

SDK Integrated vs Remote

The SDK can be used in two ways: integrated and remote. The integrated SDK is used when the SDK is fully integrated into the application and functions fully standalone directly talking to the glove hardware, thus not requiring a MANUS Core connection. This removes the dependency on MANUS Core. This is useful for applications that want to deeply integrate MANUS glove devices, this will however require manually handling glove calibration, pairing/un-pairing, tracker data and currently only supports up to one pair of gloves (2 gloves).

The SDK is used in remote mode when the SDK is used in conjunction with MANUS Core. This is generally easier to implement because all glove management is handled by MANUS Core Dashboard, and the SDK only needs to connect to MANUS Core and receives glove data. It's necessary when using multiple glove pairs and when wanting to use the built-in tracking system integrations (SteamVR, ART, Vicon).

The SDK is compatible with both Linux and Windows. Please refer to the installation instructions above. Do be mindful that MANUS Core itself is only available on Windows, and thus when using the SDK in remote mode on Linux does require a separate machine running MANUS Core on Windows.

For more information on how to use the SDK in integrated mode, please refer to the SDK Integrated article.