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Elon Musk is just toying with us now. The geek superstar already has his hands and calendar full running a private space company that's traveling to the International Space Station and a car company that's taking the world and Wall Street by storm. But Musk can't seem to help himself from indulging sci-fi-style curiosities—or trying to become Iron Man.

Last month it was hyperloop. Fed up with California's long-delayed, over-budget, slow high speed rail, Musk thought up a solution to carry people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes and then released the plans into the wild, saying essentially, "Here, somebody build this. I'm busy." Now Musk, frequently described as the closest thing the real world has to Tony Stark, has developed his own take on the gesture-based user interface that Robert Downey, Jr., uses to create and control designs in the Iron Man films.

In the video above, you can see Musk demonstrate turning, zooming, and otherwise interacting with a 3D model of a SpaceX Merlin rocket engine and other tech using hand gestures only. The setup is a clever amalgamation of existing products, including Leap Motion (a 2012 PopMech Breakthrough Award winner) and the Oculus Rift immersive virtual reality headset.

While the demo shows the UI swiftly exploding diagrams and turning models to give the user an incredible look inside a three-dimensional structure, the tech isn't there for Musk to design a rocket with a wave of his hand—yet. The SpaceX demo is about visualizing, not building. Musk, however, argues that we're on the verge of a manufacturing breakthrough that will be driven by these more intuitive approaches to engineering and design—as opposed to the current keyboard-and-mouse situation, which he describes as trying to create 3D objects with 2D tools. Waving your hands seems preferable to getting carpal tunnel from a mouse, though one wonders how quickly an engineer's arms would tire out.

It's not clear how much time Musk has to start making this revolution a reality, or whether his Iron Man lab will be another interesting idea other dreamers will need to pick up. What is clear is that the man can't simply see problem, think, "You know, I could come up with a better way to do that," and leave it be. That is probably maddening for his calendar-keepers, but good for those of us who love bold ideas. Hyperloop was borne of Musk's annoyance at California high-speed rail. The Iron Man Lab came about because "We saw it in the movie and made it real," as Musk tweeted at director Jon Favreau. "Good idea!"

Someone get this man to work on air travel.

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