I dismissed that idea at first but thinking about it more - it gives me another crazy idea. Does anybody know if there is something out there like a magnetic proximity sensor with centimeter accuracy and a range of half a meter? What if you could put some type of sensors (or magnets) on the toe and heel of your shoes so that the relative positions of your feet to each other could be triangulated. Combine that information with a pedometer type device on each shoe so you know which foot is stepping and you could roughly approximate the gait, direction, and tempo of your feet and compute a movement vector.mAchiNE wrote:I think for a backtop system a wireless pedometer might be the best option over kinect (may be less accurate but easiear to add to the system and no space limitations so you could go run around on a big flat field somewhere and not be limited by the range of the kinect)
So then you just need a large space like a soccer field and a backtop and you're in business. No fake gestures necessary because you would just actually run around the space. You would need to recalibrate every once in a while when you moved to the edge of the field, but for large chunks of virtual space you could just move naturally.
Another similar but simpler idea...what about wearing an optical sensor pointed straight towards the ground and basically turning yourself into a giant optical mouse running on a giant mouse pad?
And while I'm on a roll - and even simpler idea. Maybe you could just stick an optical camera on a tall pole and plant it at the edge of the field. Then wear a big refective hat or a light source and have the camera compute your position on the field and transmit to your backtop.
Anybody want to look like a huge dork running around in public with VR gear on?