Some freetrack questions

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by SEE

There is no documentation regards the Transition Sliders ( the ones beneath the Model Point Construction Dimensions) but they can be used to set the optimum position of the LED clip with respect to the camera.

Rather than describe how it works simply do the following:-

1. Power up your LED clip, sit in your preferred position and with the Webcam facing your clip.

2. Start FT, do not press the Centre Hot Key and view the default location of the Skull. You will notice that there are two crosses, One RED the other BLUE, one attached to a fixed point in space and another affixed to the mid point of the skull.

3 Now adjust the Transition sliders in the X, Y and Z axis - the skull will move (in relation to the camera) and you can allign for a perfect default centre to the fixed X Y and Z reference lines.

Why is this included? One reason I suspect is that its bloody hard to actually get your clip in perfect centre to the field of view of the camera as you have to move your head to move the camera.....chasing ones tail never to catch it.....

Secondly, a thousand people could make a 'clip' and not one would be the same.....thats custom building at its best....


I calibrate the exact centre using the Transition Sliders (with a slight bias in the Z axis as I work close to the screen) and have perfect response in all axiz and find that I rarely have to keep re-centring my view ....try it is the best I can advise.

I think i more or less get it now...if i'm getting this right, it seems like it's a feature that lets you move the "center point" of the virtual grid that the tracking dots are superimposed on, instead of having to physically reposition the actual LEDs and/or camera or shuffle around in your seat trying to find the optimal position. If so, it's a very good feature

On another note, i think my webcam can track the IR leds from the trackclip Pro just fine if the room is dark. At least i can see 3 red dots with a cross on them in the black grid square and 3 green lights on the bottom right of the interface window, plus it shows a green icon when i minimize it to the taskbar so i guess it's working (i'm a bit unfamiliar with the interface so any corrections are welcome).

Funny thing is i didn't do any modifications at all, i didn't remove the webcam's IR filter neither did i use a floppy or piece of film as visible light filter. I just reduced the exposure to its minimum setting, disabled low light compensation and turned off the lights in the room, plus it's giving me a steady 30 FPS with zero jitter. I guess that it could work with the lights on if i used a bit of film to block out visible light, so the first obstacle is out of the way as it seems i won't have to modify it.

However, for some weird reason it doesn't register in-game. Also, the skull doesn't move around but i think i'm misunderstanding the interface here. In the trackIR software if i move around i can see a wireframe of a virtual head following my motions in the application's window (accelerated according to the profile/curves i'm using), so i was expecting the skull to do the same in the freetrack software. So, is it supposed to move when i move my head or does the red line protruding from the skull do that instead? I'm asking because it seems to be tracking fine and it also displays the position data and the accelerated data in the field below the 3d skull.

As for why it doesn't feed the data it tracks to the game, maybe it's simpler and it's just a DLL issue. I haven't uninstalled the trackIR software yet, so maybe i have to manually overwrite the existing DLL file with the one provided by freetrack.

In any case, thanks for all your help. If you could answer these last few questions i'd be grateful, otherwise i'll take it up to the freetrack forum for more detailed explanations. No worries either way however, you've all been very helpful and you got my thanks