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  #1  
Old 08-02-2007, 12:28 PM
virtualray virtualray is offline
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Low Cost VR Device Drivers

Hi, I apologize if this is discussed elsewhere, I did not see it in a quick review. Are there any plans to support new low cost VR devices launching this year like the Trimersion HMD and Novint Falcon? Also, is there any direct support for Wiimotes planned?

thanks,

Virtualray
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  #2  
Old 08-02-2007, 01:01 PM
farshizzo farshizzo is offline
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Hi,

We are always willing to integrate new devices into our toolkit. The HMD you mention might already be compatible if it uses a standard stereo mode. If you want the raw accelerometer data, then we would need to write a plugin that accesses it.

We currently don't support the Falcon device. We do support haptic devices by SensAble.

We are already considering adding wiimote support to Vizard. There are no guarantees when it will be available though.

Do you already have any of these devices?
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  #3  
Old 09-09-2007, 08:39 PM
virtualray virtualray is offline
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Low cost devices

Actually I should not have included the Trimersion HMD in the question, becuase it is driverless and just uses mouse and WASD inputs as if it was a keyboard.

I do have a NovInt Falcon, and have been using Wiimotes with other 3D apps through hacks, but that does not provide the full set of inputs with a sensor bar, just a couple of degrees of rotation.

I have been impressed with the quality of the Falcon, especially given the very low price. The SDK is out now, so I am hoping to see more apps pick up support, it will be a very useful device.

thanks,

virtualray
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  #4  
Old 09-10-2007, 09:30 AM
farshizzo farshizzo is offline
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We already have a working plugin for the wiimote that supports all the features, including the extensions. It will be available with the next release, which will be out at the end of this month.
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  #5  
Old 02-17-2008, 02:52 AM
nige777 nige777 is offline
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FreeTrack?

Hi,

I know this is an old thread, but as part of a University module we have been experimenting with the free (well, the clue is in the name ) FreeTrack tracking software, which emulates (as far as I can tell) NaturalPoint's TrackIR head tracking product. We have got it to work with Vizard using mouse emulation, although the lag is terrible and it ain't that accurate, so was wondering about the possibility of it working directly with Vizard?

Regards
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  #6  
Old 02-19-2008, 02:34 PM
farshizzo farshizzo is offline
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Are you sure the lag is introduced through the mouse emulation mode, and not just the software itself? I can't imagine that much lag being caused by sending the data through the mouse position. Either way, you can download the Vizard SDK from our website and create your own sensor that connects to the FreeTrack software.
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  #7  
Old 02-20-2008, 02:36 AM
nige777 nige777 is offline
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FreeTrack

Thanks for the prompt response farshizzo, I shall look into that.
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  #8  
Old 02-06-2013, 07:53 AM
ckharrison ckharrison is offline
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Hi nige777 and farshizzo, I see this is a very old thread, but if either of you are still around and see this, could you let me know how your mouse emulation has gone? Our lab has just purchased the TrackIR system with the intent of pulling it into Vizard to drive the orientation of a Sony HMZ-T1 visor. How did you connect TrackIR to Vizard in the first place, and secondly, did you find a solution to the lag issue you mentioned?

Many thanks
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  #9  
Old 02-06-2013, 10:35 AM
mspusch mspusch is offline
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I cannot answer this specific lag question -
have you tried your HMD yet with Track-IR?

from my tests (and that was with a version of Track IR a few years ago, and with a lower end HMD than the Sony) the Track IR was working reasonably well in a limited range in front of the sensor (camera).

in general, for head orientation tracking, we find that in order to get a good VR experience, this needs to be very smooth and stutter free and with as little lag as possible. this is why we use for almost all our integrated solutions either intertial/magnetic orientation trackers (like Intersense, InertialLabs, xSense, Trivisio, etc.). Also electromagnetic trackers are good for that reason like Polhemus.

For position, we at Worldviz have our own camera based large area position tracker system called PPT ( http://www.worldviz.com/products/ppt ) which you are probably aware of. However, such a system is a completely different price point than Track IR, its much more expensive, and it's normally used to smoothly and accurately track whole and large rooms for free walking around (10m by 10m or more).

But, thinking down your lines, i.e to produce a cheap, still highly performing solution, we have developed the WIRKS system
(www.vizapps.com ) which sells for $2990 and includes the Sony HMD, an InertialLabs orientation sensor (which we physically integrate with the Sony HMD, so that it's not in the way and there is only one cable), and a Microsoft Kinect for position tracking of head and hands.
We combine this with a version of our software Vizard that's filtering / piecing together the data.

The WIRKS solution gives a surprisingly smooth immersive experience (see movies at the bottom).
So we can say with confidence that for a limited volume (about 2m x 3m) the Kinect combined with a high end motion sensor is an acceptable solution for immersive virtual reality.

I reallize that this post does not exactly answer your question about how to integrate the mouse movement for head movement and i hope someone else helps out on that end. but i just wanted to post what my experiences are with those respective systems.

have fun!
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  #10  
Old 02-11-2013, 02:13 PM
ckharrison ckharrison is offline
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Hi mspusch,

Thanks so much for your quick response. (I'm sorry I didn't subscribe to the thread, so I didn't see that you responded until I just checked back in, but that's all fixed now)

Just to give you a bit of background on where I'm coming from with my question since I was very vague in my original post in the interest of being brief: our lab actually already possesses the Cadillac setup, complete with the SX111 and PPT Studio, which we've had for just over a year now, so I'm pretty familiar with all the nice high-end components. My primary conern right now is in the interest of developing as low-cost of a solution as possible (which could potentially be duplicated several times over) and distributed to our friends, and then all networked together to create a shared virtual reality environment.

Last summer I think our lab actually did a quick test drive of the InertiaLabs sensor, which seemed to do quite a nice job with orientation, though we were comparing to the IC2 on our SX111, to which of course it is a slight step down. while it is a great device, I still wanted to try something even cheaper and more accesible, and came across this TrackIR system, which so far seems to be doing a remarkable job, especially given it's price point. Simply within the TrackIR software, I've run the tracker in first person mode while wearing the Sony HMD, and the responsiveness is nearly instantaneous and exceptionally smooth.

I've read up on the WIRKS package and watched all the demo videos, and it does seem to be a nice all-encompassing system, but for the sake of our research, we'd like to see if we could do something even more cost effective than that, and since the orientation tracker seems to be the most expensive component of the WIRKS system, that's what we'd like to slash first.

I've already managed to get the Kinect and the Sony HMD pulled in and coopoerating within Vizard, but as I'm sure you guys know, the Kinect doesn't do well at all with mapping the orientation of the head node, hence the need for the InertiaLabs sensor or the TrackIR system. And so, having these two pieces in place and working, I want to mute or override the orientation data (at least for the head node) coming from the Kinect and substitute in it's place the orientation from the TrackIR via it's mouse emulator mode.

The TrackIR is able to output full 6DOF tracking info, but of course I'd cut that in half and only take the orientation data and stack that onto what I'm getting from the Kinect.

Back to the issue of simply getting the data from TrackIR into a form that will play nicely with Vizard: I mentioned that they do have a mouse emulator, but the trouble with that is that I'll only get two degrees of freedom translated through, with being X-axis movement of the mouse being Yaw and Y-axis being Pitch, and will be missing out on the Z-axis Roll data.

I understand that TrackIR still hasn't joined the VRPN bandwagon yet with their sensor, otherwise this whole issue would almost be a no-brainer, so I'm just really trying to see what potential solutions there are for getting TrackIR to give me Yaw, Pitch, and Roll, in a method which Vizard will understand.

Thanks very much for your help!
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  #11  
Old 03-04-2013, 04:37 PM
Feuereissen Feuereissen is offline
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NaturalPoint TrackIR 4 Pro w/Vector Tracking, support within Worldviz Vizard

Hi everybody -- just following up on an old question:
Are there plans to support the NaturalPoint TrackIR 4 Pro in Vizard?
We have a number of those quite well performing and affordable trackers and are considering to use them as 6DOF trackers within Vizard soon (if possible).
Thank you for looking into this again...

Best,

Daniel.
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  #12  
Old 03-05-2013, 06:37 AM
ckharrison ckharrison is offline
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Hi Daniel,

I'm in the same boat as you. I'm actually working with the TrackIR 5, but it only seems to be a slight upgrade in hardware compared to the TrackIR 4, otherwise pretty much exactly the same. I'm still trying to find a solution, but haven't gotten any concrete or detailed responses on here yet, and am not having much success trying to figure something out on my own. I'm working with a C++ programmer in our lab to try and write our own back-end VRPN program which will take the data from the TrackIR and put it into that standard format for Vizard to understand. If we're able to figure it out, I'll see if I'm allowed to post our results. In the meantime, if anybody else reading this has a sure-fire way of connecting the NaturalPoint hardware into Vizard, I'd love to hear how you managed it.

Chris
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  #13  
Old 03-05-2013, 11:27 AM
Feuereissen Feuereissen is offline
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Hey Chris -- I appreciate your prompt response to this! I am at the time talking to the Worldviz support to see what we can do on this end, possibly have a module ordered if need be (I'll let you know as this progresses). In the meantime, I am investigating the FreeTrack software a bit more to see if it is of any use to us.

Good luck,

Daniel.
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