Virtual Harp

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  Trying out Virtual Harp with Leap Motion

Inspiration

Synth harp as part of a live keyboard performance is often less than ideal. It either requires programmed glissandi that don’t line up well with the timing of the orchestra, or cumbersome to play.

What it does

Virtual Harp aims to allow the player to control the instrument by player with their hand in the air and watching the interaction on the screen

How we built it

So Sun created the 3D design of the harp in Maya and Unity, and build in a script to play the audio files that correspond to the correct harp string when a finger collides with a string in Leap Motion. Brendan made Harp audio samples for the notes we choose in Finale music software and exported to .wav files.

Challenges we ran into

We were frustrated with the WiFi mostly. We had plans to include harp pedaling interactivity with an Arduino but abandoned that feature for now.

Accomplishments we’re proud of

So Sun did an awesome job building the 3D model and wiring it up.

What we learned

Unity and Leap Motion have some amazing potential that can be explored further.

What’s next for Virtual Harp

Extending the range from one octave to the full range of the harp. Adding features to change pedal, or presets for harp pedal settings that can be changed quickly in live performance. Making sure notes can be re-attacked even if the previous sample hasn’t finished playing. Last but not least, building as WebGL so that it can be ubiquitously accessed.

Built With

• leap-motion
• unity