Meant to be Seen

I will be building a gun controller from an airsoft rifle to be used for a 360 degrees HMD setup but I can't decide on what base controller to strip for parts and use. I've currently got my eyes on a wiimote, a gyration air mouse or a playstation move; which one has the best tracking or should I get something else entirely?

get a Leap Motion SDK. it can track 1/100th mm precise. even a peak of a pencil or in this case a gun...

colocolo wrote:get a Leap Motion SDK. it can track 1/100th mm precise. even a peak of a pencil or in this case a gun...

While the Leap looks cool I doubt it would applicable to the setup I had in mind. That is, standing up with an HMD on your head and a gun in your hands, being able turn 360 degrees.

I would read this thread. There's a lot of info that you will find useful.

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 255#p70572
(this is the middle of the thread but I would start at the beginning)

The Move is going to be more accurate but harder to setup. The Wiimote is very easy to get going.

I had some success using a Wiimote w/ Motion+. Its really not so bad. There are also a bunch of gun shells you can get that work with the Wiimote (search ebay for wiimote + pistol or gun).

Yeah, that's a tough setup. Do you want independent weapon translation? If not, it would make it a whole lot easier to track just orientation (besides, orientation is the important bit anyway).

For absolute orientation tracking, any 3 dof gyro w/ 3 dof Magnetometer will do nicely.

Or hey, just use a plain ol' wiimote with one of the buttons set to "center". That will cheapen it up and simplify all the algorithms.

Also, the leap could work if you mount a few of them around you and they track the tip of your gun... that is assuming you aren't planning on walking around. You'd still need orientation though.

I would seriously consider the razer hydra:
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=15369
I've ordered one of these and really think the base station mounted on head is the way to go. The difficult thing will be exactly how to integrate into games.

Ive seen a wireless version of hydra being announced, any idea on when its coming out?

Thanks for the input everyone, I've ordered a Gyration Air Mouse Elite, mostly because it seems to have much less drift than the Wii+.