Professional and affordable TrackIR alternative

[313_Nevo]

hegykc :thumbup:

[mhe]

The mechanical arm has 5dof of positioning the clip. Headtracking is of course 6dof.

 

Led positions are the same as TrackIr.

 

You, good sir, just made my day. :)

[ineth]

Did not even know there were free trackers out there for the camera. I instadownloaded the Facetrack Noir but to be honest it is working so jerky that i had to let it go. I really cannot seem to get it work right and i find it bad that there are no presets. Might be my camera position, i got a 40" 4K monitor (yes monitor) and the camera sits higher then most cameras would. This could be a cause. So far the only thing i got out from it is fear. Not sure i would spend even a cent for anything if it asks me to work only once i set values over values over values. Calibrating the suckers should be easier.

[kolga]

WOW! this looks very interesting! Will it be made out of metal or plastic?

 

I can't wait for the prototype! :thumbup:

[Econ]

What is the resolution of the camera?

[Druid_]

Count me in one day 1 purchase !

 

Your product doesn't look like it will break if I sneeze unlike TrackIr.

[MTFDarkEagle]

Count me in one day 1 purchase !

 

Your product doesn't look like it will break if I sneeze unlike TrackIr.

Indeed! Count me in as well.

[ineth]

What is the resolution of the camera?

 

If you are reffering to me, honestly its a potato brand with a medium quality. Probably less then HD i guess. tbh i was allready considering buying a better one for skype so i might try it again later with that one.

 

cheers

[Milan MFG]

Considering Freetrack Vs. "real thing I don't see any comparisons on the net. I wanted to write some a while ago but pedals production took me away from the forums :-)

 

Anyway... a while back I was trying more than a few solutions...

- Dirty cheap camera and Facetrack NoIR - face tracking...I ended up being killed so many times because of loss of head tracking...so

- average camera and Freetrack CAP setup With IR leds - I got annoyed by my DIY setup and changing batteries. Tracking was moderately good...but low mid 20's FPS and poor IR made it below average solution for me. I knew it could be better...so

- PS3 eye camera fitted with IR led's + HAT with 3 reflective bulbs.... FREETRACK. This solution worked VERY GOOD at 320x240 at 120 FPS. I also used 640X480 at 60 FPS. Like others mentioned solution is good...but you need to spend a lot of time to get it right. This is called a reflective setup as you don't have strange wires on your head - just the cap with 3 reflection points.

Setup was a little bit annoying because I used a cheap IR filter for camera ( made of unexposed photography film)...so I had occasional loss of head tracking because a) camera could see a light from a cigaret and b) my glasses caused IR reflection too. I later switched to wear eye lenses but that's another story :-)

 

Obviously...later on I invested some money in the hoby and bought "the real thing" TrackIR 5... track clip pro too. So impressions are :

- It works really well without any fuzz

- Performance is very very comparable to my latest reflective PS3 eye reflective setup...but Track IR 5 is better in terms of a professional IR filter as opposed to my DIY one. Still, even "the real thing" can be disturbed by a cigar bulb...what differs in TrackIR 5 as opposed to freetrack is that it has more polished software -therefore TrackIR 5 software somehow KNOW that cigar bulb is something really far from other 3 tracking points and disregard it !!!

 

Anyway... original solution vs DIY ( If made good) is :

Original is much more expensive, but diy will cost you a LOT OF TIME

Original software is more polished and straight forward as opposed to DIY where you have to have more knowledge and tickle a lot of adjustments to get it right

 

One VERY GOOD thing in FREETRACK software, as oposed to original ...is that FREETRACK have something called "adaptive acceleration" if I remember correctly.... original don't have that...and I miss that a lot !!!

To be perfectly honest... Freetrack's adaptive acceleration gave me idea for our own MFG filtering on rudder pedals and it's doing really well :-) It is a really GREAT THING... one of those subtle things you get to apreciate weather it's head tracking or noise cancelation on hall sensors .

 

How it's implemented in FREETRACK ...

You set the curvature right !... and you want some deadzone in the middle...and you set the curvature accordingly ...so when you're looking straight ahead your screen is nicely still...and your head is always moving slightly :-)

But when you look fast from left to right...or up to down....that deadzone is a bit annoying at least...as you make a rapid move with your head from side to side.

That's where ADAPTIVE acceleration comes in. When you're making fast movement in Freetrack it override your curvature and skip that deadzoning - make a more "linear movement on screen :-) That's it. Freetrack have it.... TrackIR miss it. Small, but very important stuff.

 

I hope HegyKC can really pull this off. I looked into the subject a while back and I had " a fight" with Jason on Rise of Flight forums regarding freetrack. My nickname is "meanstreak" there... Like above mentioned site says..that thread got deleted.TrackIR are fighting hard to keep their protocol propriety and keep the competition out.

P.S. It's not just any camera. It don't have to be above 640x480 in resolution...but really need a good FPS...at least 60 FPS. Anything less causes microstuters for dogfighting... I recomend 120 FPS newer CMOS chip....but be aware that while Cmos can do 120 FPS that don't mean it's processing chip can...so choose wisely.

Reflective setup is really good enough - just put enough wide angle IR led's around camera...and 120 degree lens on camera itself

 

Milan

[AurelTristen]

This is fantastic news! At that price point, this could be big. I was looking into head tracking for a game I'm working on, and ran into the TrackIR controversy. Nobody has built a plugin for my engine because you'd have to sign a NDA just to use it. Perhaps I missed it in the opening post, but you're using Opentrack or your own open source software? I too would like to know the resolution of the camera, as well as if we can use multiple cameras. At that price point, having two of them would solve a lot of occlusion problems I run into.

[Mr_Burns]

This is fantastic news! At that price point, this could be big. I was looking into head tracking for a game I'm working on, and ran into the TrackIR controversy. Nobody has built a plugin for my engine because you'd have to sign a NDA just to use it. Perhaps I missed it in the opening post, but you're using Opentrack or your own open source software? I too would like to know the resolution of the camera, as well as if we can use multiple cameras. At that price point, having two of them would solve a lot of occlusion problems I run into.

 

He mentioned on page 4:

 

1080p camera sensors are the norm

 

SO might be using those.

[NakedSquirrel]

This looks really cool! :thumbup:

[ineth]

Considering Freetrack Vs. "real thing I don't see any comparisons on the net. I wanted to write some a while ago but pedals production took me away from the forums :-)

 

Anyway... a while back I was trying more than a few solutions...

- Dirty cheap camera and Facetrack NoIR - face tracking...I ended up being killed so many times because of loss of head tracking...so

- average camera and Freetrack CAP setup With IR leds - I got annoyed by my DIY setup and changing batteries. Tracking was moderately good...but low mid 20's FPS and poor IR made it below average solution for me. I knew it could be better...so

- PS3 eye camera fitted with IR led's + HAT with 3 reflective bulbs.... FREETRACK. This solution worked VERY GOOD at 320x240 at 120 FPS. I also used 640X480 at 60 FPS. Like others mentioned solution is good...but you need to spend a lot of time to get it right. This is called a reflective setup as you don't have strange wires on your head - just the cap with 3 reflection points.

Setup was a little bit annoying because I used a cheap IR filter for camera ( made of unexposed photography film)...so I had occasional loss of head tracking because a) camera could see a light from a cigaret and b) my glasses caused IR reflection too. I later switched to wear eye lenses but that's another story :-)

 

Obviously...later on I invested some money in the hoby and bought "the real thing" TrackIR 5... track clip pro too. So impressions are :

- It works really well without any fuzz

- Performance is very very comparable to my latest reflective PS3 eye reflective setup...but Track IR 5 is better in terms of a professional IR filter as opposed to my DIY one. Still, even "the real thing" can be disturbed by a cigar bulb...what differs in TrackIR 5 as opposed to freetrack is that it has more polished software -therefore TrackIR 5 software somehow KNOW that cigar bulb is something really far from other 3 tracking points and disregard it !!!

 

Anyway... original solution vs DIY ( If made good) is :

Original is much more expensive, but diy will cost you a LOT OF TIME

Original software is more polished and straight forward as opposed to DIY where you have to have more knowledge and tickle a lot of adjustments to get it right

 

One VERY GOOD thing in FREETRACK software, as oposed to original ...is that FREETRACK have something called "adaptive acceleration" if I remember correctly.... original don't have that...and I miss that a lot !!!

To be perfectly honest... Freetrack's adaptive acceleration gave me idea for our own MFG filtering on rudder pedals and it's doing really well :-) It is a really GREAT THING... one of those subtle things you get to apreciate weather it's head tracking or noise cancelation on hall sensors .

 

How it's implemented in FREETRACK ...

You set the curvature right !... and you want some deadzone in the middle...and you set the curvature accordingly ...so when you're looking straight ahead your screen is nicely still...and your head is always moving slightly :-)

But when you look fast from left to right...or up to down....that deadzone is a bit annoying at least...as you make a rapid move with your head from side to side.

That's where ADAPTIVE acceleration comes in. When you're making fast movement in Freetrack it override your curvature and skip that deadzoning - make a more "linear movement on screen :-) That's it. Freetrack have it.... TrackIR miss it. Small, but very important stuff.

 

I hope HegyKC can really pull this off. I looked into the subject a while back and I had " a fight" with Jason on Rise of Flight forums regarding freetrack. My nickname is "meanstreak" there... Like above mentioned site says..that thread got deleted.TrackIR are fighting hard to keep their protocol propriety and keep the competition out.

P.S. It's not just any camera. It don't have to be above 640x480 in resolution...but really need a good FPS...at least 60 FPS. Anything less causes microstuters for dogfighting... I recomend 120 FPS newer CMOS chip....but be aware that while Cmos can do 120 FPS that don't mean it's processing chip can...so choose wisely.

Reflective setup is really good enough - just put enough wide angle IR led's around camera...and 120 degree lens on camera itself

 

Milan

 

OMG i have read Magazine articles on good magazines that had way less information about allmost any subject.

 

i THANK YOU very much for your time to write this information.

 

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

 

Greek/German origin.

Flying sims since 1984.

Using computers since 1977.

Favored FS's:F/A18 Interceptor, F19 Stealth Fighter, Gunnship, F16 Combat Pilot, Flight of the Intruder, A320, Falcon 4.0, MSFS 2004-X, DCS

[Milan MFG]

OMG i have read Magazine articles on good magazines that had way less information about allmost any subject.

 

i THANK YOU very much for your time to write this information.

 

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

 

Thanks. Info above is just scratching the surface, quickly written without editing !

 

To add some more info for anyone intrested :

 

FACETRACKING sucess and failure :

- it is Excellent for civil sims, airliners and such. Simply because you don't need to wear anything on your head, and you don't need to make a precise and quick head movements this solution is still great for civil sims. It is also good to get people to use head tracking without any investment !

- Downsides, beside precision and occasional loss of tracking it require A LOT of computing power compared to point tracking - direct hit on your in game frame rate....and that's for a mid 20's camera FPS !!!

 

CAMERA HARDWARE ( resolution, FPS, flicker...)

 

For those of you that think we need a full HD camera I ask where you base your assumptions on ?!?! Do you know how point tracker work ??

I will try to explain this in common language :

 

GOAL is that camera provide a high contrast black image with only typically 3 round dots in white color. Such image is transferred to a point tracker software which need to :

a) accurately and quickly work out those camera pixels to determine the position of the CENTER of the 3 round dots

b) filter the jitter of these round dots movement

c) interpolate the position of the dots into a head position data over 6 axis of movement

 

Now if you consider this :

High resolution = more pixels to process = more impact on PC

High jitter = require stronger filtering = more guesswork and more impact on PC

Higher Frame per second = less lag in game response to your head movement. Impact on PC highly depend on camera resolution and filtering strenght, because resolution and jitter need to be processed ( multiplied) by number of frames per second ( FPS).

Based on above I give you a conclusion :

 

How Much Camera resolution we need ?

As little as possible to achieve accurate detection of center of those 3x dots...usually 320x240 is ENOUGH...but we can go 640X480 if performance hit is not too much

How many Camera FPS we need ?

At least 60 fps to have no visible Lag ( or delay between head movement and in game reaction).

More = better... 120FPS is more then enough. Actual best FPS setting depend on camera's cmos chip. We need to find a FPS setting where choosen cmos chip produces least flicker... probably ticke with cameraa's 50/60 Hz too to achieve that.In my tests I've tried using PS3 eye camera on very high FPS as driver allow it.I've also tried 80, 90, 95 FPS... Result is that camera "flicker" is noticable on some FPS settings while NOT on others...this is beyond my knowlage but probably has something to do with camera processing and cmos chip and frequency ... Thing is more FPS don't necessary bring better results. If camera give flicker image results are worse :-)

[Milan MFG]

Some more info that might intrest you

 

Two years ago I intended to provide to the community something like DelanClip offer now. "DBS T}{or" forum member can confirm as I've told him my plan a while back. I didn't do it because of two reasons. I was too occupied with pedals, and PS3 Eye camera seemed to much of a hassle to convert and sell it.

I dunno what DelanClip and others do with the camera to convert it, but it's not just a IR filter removal. IR filter is few mm thick glass filter. When you remove it camera is Out of focus. You need to put a visible light filter in, but also to sand the seat of the lens to get the camera back in focus ( lens distance from CMOS need to change). It also work out of focus too, but not a job well done in my book. I just abandoned it in hope that "inertial trackers" are the future. As I realised afterwards intertial tracker are capable of only 3dof :-( ..and that's not gonna change. ED tracker seems like a good one but why go 3dof route when we have a working 6dof :-)

 

There are other, propriety and expensive tracking solutions. To save you from googling here it is :

http://polhemus.com/motion-tracking/all-trackers/scout

Camera + Point tracker is Still the route to go because of price/performance. But, as HegyKC realised...we simply have to make hardware from scratch :-)

Edited December 29, 2015 by Milan MFG

[ineth]

To say i am impressed would seem like i am economizing on words.

 

Milan, wow

This, wow!!

[Endy]

I dunno what DelanClip and others do with the camera to convert it, but it's not just a IR filter removal. IR filter is few mm thick glass filter. When you remove it camera is Out of focus. You need to put a visible light filter in, but also to sand the seat of the lens to get the camera back in focus ( lens distance from CMOS need to change). It also work out of focus too, but not a job well done in my book.

 

This depends on the type of PS3 eye that you have. There were two different types, with slightly different build inside. In one, the good one, when you remove the IR filter, it's rather easy and the camera stays still in focus. The other one is not good for removing the filter at all and "breaks" the camera. You just can't remove the IR filter in the "bad" type without breaking the lens.

 

There are also outside signs that let you recognize the two types, here's a good thread;

 

http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/5189/

[GeorgeLKMT]

Milan is right, focus will change even with the good one. I managed to get the focus back by locking the focusing mechanism in between the positions.

[Milan MFG]

Correct . I didn't want to bother people with good vs bad PS3 eye. I spoke about a "good" one.

Like George LKMT said camera has two focus positions so you could somehow lock it in between to get it in focus...or make a permanent solution like I did... I sanded the square base of camera lens ( plastic) to get it back in focus. It's tricky to do because that base has some locking pins if I remember right.

Anyway...it's not a procedure that someone would do and repack the camera to resell as "IR filter removed"...it's a pain to do it right so I guess people reselling "PS3 eye with filter removed" didn't do it correctly but left camera out of focus.

 

Also , newly put visible light filter should be located on the CMOS directly..otherwise you'll see ghosting of white dots.

 

Out of focuse works, but has impact on tracking precision

[hegykc]

Thanks Milan for pitching in.

 

I realized as soon as I got into ir-filter research, that software is not the first key to flawless tracking. Actually it's the last. And that's not my opinion, it's fact. Numbers and data don't lie.

 

As posted before, here are some graphs to illustrate my point. Regardless of camera or software used, here are the differences between 3 filters. These graphs are very close approximations based on the numbers I got from my research. So it's not yet 100% exact science, but will be when I get all of my components and start testing everything there is. For now, even if not completely accurate, it shows very obvious differences between the three.

 

1) Floppy disk filter

 

- under the black area is the range of light a floppy disk filter lets through. You can clearly see that, first of all, it cuts off the majority of ir-LED light! Not only that, but the IR that it actually lets through, is completely mixed in with the IR from the sun, and even the room/monitor light! How is the software supposed to distinguish between background and points? Complete and utter garbage. Period. So any kind of device any of you (me included!) might have built in the past... if you used a floppy disk filter, you made garbage. Not to mention the software was far weaker years ago, cameras were far weaker, pc's were from the stone age. I made an approximation of 30% filter efficiency for IR transmittance, but actually it's 0%. Since all the LED IR light is mixed in with the background IR light. Plus, the filter is see-through!! It actually lets through vissible light which is the worst part of it all.

 

2) Developed photographic film

 

- Much better!Under the black area, you can see the filter let's through most of the IR from the LEDs. But still, it cuts off the brightest, most valuable part of it! And that's just the numbers for the film I have. Who knows how many kinds of the film there are, and what kind you used. You can also see that most of the IR that goes through, maybe even 80%, is mixed in with the sunlight IR and room/monitor IR. Again, very hard for the camera/software to distinguish between points and background. Plus, again the filter is see-through!! It actually lets through vissible light which is the worst part of it all.

 

3) Now here is the industrial IR filter I'm going to use:

 

Not only does it let through 100% of the LED IR light along with the brightest range of it, but a big chunk of this IR light is completely above the sunlight and room/monitor IR range. Best part of it all, the filter blocks 100% of visible light. You will not find that in any kind of commercially available filters. They are all see-through. Not this one, it's like looking through steel. You can put a billion watt light bulb behind it, and you won't see a thing. Until you point an IR camera at it, and it's completely transparent! Much, much easier for the camera/software to distinguish between tracking points and background light.

 

Couple all of that with the fact that I can manufacture my own lenses, for both the camera and LEDs, and the fact that software, cameras and pc's are all light years ahead from where they were just years ago... this should be as close to trackIR as possible, if not better.

 

Long story short, comparing what anyone has built themselves (or bought!), now or a few years back, would be like saying: "Windows 7 sucks on Pentium 4". Sure! But is the problem Win7 (software) or Pentium4 (hardware)???

 

And on top of all that, everyone is talking about freetrack. Freetrack is dead, long gone. Opentrack is the successor. The newest, actively developing open source head tracking software. And to my research, people are already using it flawlessly with any sim, including DCS. So if it works (what is today considered) flawlessly, with the crappy filters and out of focus cameras, I cannot wait to see what it will be like when I pair it with the best hardware possible.

 

Which is why i ordered everything. From the cheapest 1.99$ 30fps webcams, 1080p webcams, up to the 187fps PS3 eye, and beyond to 45$ usb cmos boards and 100$+ monochrome IR sensor boards. And I cannot wait to prove that a 1.99$ (or a 6$ ps3 eye included in the price) camera works just as good as a 100$+ custom IR sensor, if the hardware is designed right.

Edited December 30, 2015 by hegykc

[ineth]

Please keep us informed regarding your process.

 

I will sub to this thread due to this topic since i plan to get a tracking device in the near future and i believe in supporting people in their efforts.

 

If you wish i can seed some verbal advertising for it in the EvE online forums as well.

 

Have a nice day.

[Mickey_Techy]

Hegykc,

 

You sir, are awesome

[steve2112]

has anyone tried the Chinese knockoff ones on ebay?

search ebay for trackir and you'll find stuff like "OpenTrack FreeTrack Camera + IR LED Track Clip Pro is compatible to TrackIR 5 BK" for $39.

 

its using a modified PS3 eye so i assume should work well. i'm thinking of ordering one since i gave up on facetracknoir for the same reasons other people have posted.

 

well i just ordered one, i checked the sellers feedback and customers are reporting it works well so i gave myself a NY present. happy NY to all.

Edited December 31, 2015 by steve2112

[hegykc]

Haha you really put my hopes up. I actually thought I wouldn't have to go through the trouble of making my own, but again it's a let down.

 

It's not wireless, not detachable and uses the same crappy diy IR-filter. For a few extra $$ you could have at least bought a DelanClip made out of steel. I hate fused filament 3d printed parts. That finish looks so horrible I would hide it away if I had another simmer come by...

Edited December 31, 2015 by hegykc

[Kobradelta1000]

I am really excited about your progress hegykc!

I am using Trackir since the 3/Pro + vector clip (a xtra to pay -2nd tongle beside the camera), now on v.5, and followed btw. the background story of naturalpoints way of "marketing beahvior" over the years closely.

If your Tracking device will be as good as i think- what i hope is to be expected- i will buy a few of them to support yours for sure!

 

Sretna Nova godina!

Guten Rutsch alle!

Very best for the new year to all!

Thank you!

Greets from Austria

Edited December 31, 2015 by Kobradelta1000