![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
So anyway, I'm itching to move on and do something new. Thanks to the work of Palmer and John Carmack (if it wasn't for the latter, I may have never heard of the former), the dream of VR I had as a kid has been sparked again and more vivid than ever. It's something that I would very much like to be a part of. Given the current state of VR, I've been trying to consider what the next small step could be, utilizing most of my skills. What I've been thinking about is input devices. Of course, we all agree that there's no one-size-fits-all solution, but in the current state of things, perhaps there's a one-size-fits-most? I'd like to work on something that compliments the Rift (at least what we currently know about it), and offers a compelling experience for users.
What I'm proposing is a multi-node motion tracker and joystick pair. Here's what I had in mind (and my reasoning):
A device that consists of two joysticks containing IMUs, two strap-equipped IMUs for mounting to the user's upper arm, and a strap-equipped chest mounted IMU all daisy chained together. My initial thoughts were that each IMU could just consist of an accelerometer and magnetometer, and perhaps it is plausible, but perhaps adding gyros would help keep the magnetometer locked on to the earth's magnetic field despite local distortions, and other sources of magnetic noise. Either way, the goal is to provide absolute orientation and skeletal modelling of the upper body and arms - something those 5 nodes could provide. With this data, and the data from the head tracker, the orientation of the head relative to the body can also be determined.
As for the joysticks themselves, I have a few ideas that I have not seen used on other joysticks before. The first, instead of using an analog thumb stick like the wii nunchuck or razer hydra, it would use an "eraser head" commonly found on laptops (with replaceable hats of various sizes). I know a lot of people hate them at first, but once you get used to them, they can be incredibly quick and precise. Have you ever seen an analog stick used with any success for controlling a cursor? Even modern fighter aircraft use pressure sensing joysticks with imperceptible movement rather than the old displacement types.
Another idea for the joystick is to flank both sides of the thumb stick with vertical scroll wheels (+ button). Their importance on modern mice cannot be overstated, and I think it would be easy to find plenty of use for them. Below each one, angling down and in would sit a button that you can press by rolling over it with your thumb (similar to: http://www.pcdistrict.com/modules/produ ... ro-230.jpg) Besides those things, the common two trigger setup (one analog) could be the last of the buttons.
The last feature that I've been thinking about is programmable voice commands which could be bound to keys. So for example, instead of having to bind the 'Esc' key to a joystick button, you can assign a voice command to it.
I would like the firmware and drivers to be open source. I'm thinking that perhaps it shouldn't have any embedded firmware at all except for perhaps a bootloader. The application on the host machine could load any version of firmware (including customized, obviously) it wants.
Of course, I can't go at it alone, so I'm hoping to assemble a well rounded team to tackle this. Let me know if you're interested!
For everyone else, I'd like to hear your thoughts, suggestions, and questions.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
Oh, and sorry for the long-winded post
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)