I think many of us might agree second most important step (after HMD w/tracking) in VR immersion would be skeletal tracking - especially the hands. Imagine playing Doom3 with a flashlight in one hand, and a pistol in the other with 1:1 coordination. Imagine reaching out for a door, and opening it slowly with your visible virtual arm. Is this possible with the Hydra? I don't have one (but am seriously considering it), but here are some thoughts I've had about it (sorry if this has already been discussed)
The idea is to have accurate arm/hand positioning relative to the body using just a single hydra. Under standard usage, the base is placed in a fixed location. In order for accurate arm positioning to be possible, your body has to remain completely stationary. This is probably difficult even if you're seated. Since it's easier to track your arms relative to your body instead of a desk, what if you attach the base of the Hydra to your chest? That way, your hands can always be oriented correctly in the VR space even if you move your body. This may seem pretty obvious, but how well can you actually track and represent arm movements with just a single controller in each hand?
Well, you can model the physiological movements of a human arm, calibrate the software with the player's physical measurements, and/or pre-game hydra calibration by doing something like Vitruvian Man poses (maybe even a quick in-game calibration if it starts to drift). You should be able to extrapolate a pretty good representation of physical arm movements using just one Hydra controller in each hand.
I do wonder though how much the base can be moved around in an environment. Is there typically some distortion in the magnetic field? If so, would the changing of this field due to the base moving around significantly affect controller positioning accuracy. Does it even need to be calibrated like with joysticks?
So many questions because of so many possibilities
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