Head-tracking at home - Overview please
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 9:02 am
Hi all,
I need head-tracking at home! What kind? 9DoF. Basically, I'd like to see that all of my head movements translate in a virtual space. Can someone give help by giving an overview on the devices and applications available today for such a feat? Please and thank you. I've searched the forum but have only found some problem-specific threads. I hope I didn't miss anything.
Background:
I have a VR920. Display quality aside, it is my first and only HMD and I think it's cool! Getting stereoscopy to work was challenging but I found I wanted to focus my efforts on the head-tracking. In fact, even if I had to spend a few hundred (one hundred preferably), I wanted to buy a dedicated solution for this that would work ideally. A blackbox solution from off-the-shelf that would have 9DoF of fluid head tracking with few quirks or problems. I wasn't able to find anything quite so simple. I was able to find lovely IMUs from sparkfun, but I'd need to interface them properly. I found that I might need some filters and algorithms to process the raw sensor data. Then I found that my Nexus phone has IMU sensors, and I spent a few days trying to get that to work.
So here I am. I thought I'd ask the pros. Maybe your insight can help me save time and actually get this done. Is it unreasonable to expect quality 9DoF headtracking, with a simple setup, for around 100$ or less?
Please and thank you,
Marco.
**EDIT**
I just wanted to relay what I wanted to do with such a device. I am a programmer. My ultimate goal is to attach the head-tracker's data to a camera in a virtual world. In my current experiments, I've made some scripts in Unity3D to do this. The scripts work fine, the head-trackers i've tried do not! Haha. But if there is an even simpler way, I'd love to hear about it. Also, I mainly work on OSX but if I need Windows or Linux, I can do this too.
I need head-tracking at home! What kind? 9DoF. Basically, I'd like to see that all of my head movements translate in a virtual space. Can someone give help by giving an overview on the devices and applications available today for such a feat? Please and thank you. I've searched the forum but have only found some problem-specific threads. I hope I didn't miss anything.
Background:
I have a VR920. Display quality aside, it is my first and only HMD and I think it's cool! Getting stereoscopy to work was challenging but I found I wanted to focus my efforts on the head-tracking. In fact, even if I had to spend a few hundred (one hundred preferably), I wanted to buy a dedicated solution for this that would work ideally. A blackbox solution from off-the-shelf that would have 9DoF of fluid head tracking with few quirks or problems. I wasn't able to find anything quite so simple. I was able to find lovely IMUs from sparkfun, but I'd need to interface them properly. I found that I might need some filters and algorithms to process the raw sensor data. Then I found that my Nexus phone has IMU sensors, and I spent a few days trying to get that to work.
So here I am. I thought I'd ask the pros. Maybe your insight can help me save time and actually get this done. Is it unreasonable to expect quality 9DoF headtracking, with a simple setup, for around 100$ or less?
Please and thank you,
Marco.
**EDIT**
I just wanted to relay what I wanted to do with such a device. I am a programmer. My ultimate goal is to attach the head-tracker's data to a camera in a virtual world. In my current experiments, I've made some scripts in Unity3D to do this. The scripts work fine, the head-trackers i've tried do not! Haha. But if there is an even simpler way, I'd love to hear about it. Also, I mainly work on OSX but if I need Windows or Linux, I can do this too.