Head Tracking with Cliffs of Dover

[MadBlaster]

Like I said W-R, I don't know if it will "pan out". Your intent is so obvious. Run interference on the 1C board. From heretofore, you do not exist to me. And per your post 1 year ago, I don't care if you don't have arms or legs. Enjoy your TrackIR.

[Wolf_Rider]

Originally Posted by MadBlaster

Like I said W-R, I don't know if it will "pan out". Your intent is so obvious. Run interference on the 1C board. From heretofore, you do not exist to me. And per your post 1 year ago, I don't care if you don't have arms or legs. Enjoy your TrackIR.

what a sad post

[julian265]

I know it's challenging, but we really shouldn't feed the troll.

[Wolf_Rider]

Well, its your choice if you'd rather do that Julian, than address what asked of you in post 101 this thread. Perhaps you'd rather be tainted with Blaster's statement?

[julian265]

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

Well, its your choice if you'd rather do that Julian, than address what asked of you in post 101 this thread.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?...0&postcount=40

The post you've seen plenty of times before. No doubt you'll go off on some tangent from that, and raise a bunch of questions to which you already know the answer.

[Wolf_Rider]

Originally Posted by julian265

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?...0&postcount=40

The post you've seen plenty of times before. No doubt you'll go off on some tangent from that, and raise a bunch of questions to which you already know the answer.

actually, Julian, I've already asked a question, and before your above post... did you miss it, like you have the others asked of you?
and what is the point of your link, I don't understand... is it supposed to mean something??

I really have to wonder if the FT "boys" know what "the big lie" (in concept) is and where it came from?

[Blackdog_kt]

Wolf Rider, i'm someone who's actually tried both methods and found trackIR to be better, yet even to me you seem like you have an agenda to push.

They just gave you links where developers of DCS say that naturalpoint stopped them from providing support for other headtracking interfaces. It can't be spelled out any better, so you can either acknowledge it or bury your head in the sand.

The industry can't make games that only support one standard and then claim FT are violating copyrights when they are shutting them off from doing it in a legal manner, at least not without looking ridiculous.

So, in order to clear up some things, maybe i'll try to describe it a bit better to you.

A joystick, any kind of joystick, works with all games because there's a generic interface to control axial input for games.
Today, the same thing exists for headtracking but it's not getting used (and in some cases actively being prevented from use).
Well, my question is how would you feel if suddenly the only people who could fly the new sim where those who had a microsoft stick? I'd be fine, because i have a 10 year old precision pro 2, so who cares what happens to the rest of the community, right?

As for how hard it is to do it, i recently got a friend of mine to start flying IL2 with me. The guy is a programmer and a Linux user. Once i explained headtracking to him, he dug up a stagnant linux project, contacted the original author for some information and got to work. In TWO DAYS he had his own headtracking software, it works with normal LEDs (not even IR) and a webcam in a room with all the lights on. Heck, i tried it and it was smoother than the freetrack installation i tried on my home PC.

In the following weeks or months, he's probably going to code something open source and free from the ground up, which will be also coded in C/C++ and will be much less demanding on the PC than freetrack.

There is a very simple solution to all of this really.

1) Naturalpoint protects their software and API so that it only works with naturalpoint products, i'm all fine with that.

2) The developer provides a secondary, generic interface for alternative headtrackers, so that they don't have to use NP's API anymore. All it needs is the game to recognize 6 generic axis and accept inputs under a standard, generic interface.

Freetrack does have it's own API and doesn't need to use naturalpoint software. The reason FT is parsing it's data through the naturalpoint API is that freetrack's API is usually blacklisted or simply not used due to ignorance.

Finally, in regards to copyright, i asked my buddy about the possible legal implications of using the trackIR .dll file. He looked it up and apparently (maybe that's also the reason NP don't hold a patent), there's a legal clause that in the case at hand permits to sidestep the issue if certain measures are followed.
I don't remember exactly how it goes, but it seems that part of that .dll's content falls under public domain or something similar (you can't copyright basic mathematics after all), so all you need is a programmer to write his own .dll and make it available under an open source/free software license.

So, to sum up...freetrack doesn't NEED to use naturalpoint software to work. It just needs the developers to accept to use freetrack's implementation alongside the naturalpoint one. Then everyone is legal, we all get more options and you know me, i'm all for extra options so more members of the community can stay happy with their flight simming and the hobby can advance

[MadBlaster]

Originally Posted by julian265

I know it's challenging, but we really shouldn't feed the troll.

Agreed. But you know how it is when you accidently step in a pile of dog poop. It sometimes takes a few seconds until you realize what happened. I probably won't be posting in CoD board anymore. It's not W-R's fault. He obviously can't help himself. No arms, no legs. TrakIR and speech recongnition software are probably his only friends. If the mods do their jobs and ban this guy, maybe I'll be back. But until then, I'm out. Good luck trying to get Freetrack going.

[Wolf_Rider]

That's a rather sad outlook you have there, son

[GHarris]

I initially thought that Wolf_Rider's posts were genuine questions. But by the time I came to write my post on the 10th page I suspected he was just trolling on Naturalpoint's behalf.

His response to my post removed any doubt from my mind. He deliberately ignored my first statement: that discussions of how Freetrack has been used with other games are not relevant to the question of whether Freetrack should be supported in this sim, so long as there is a legal, open source Freetrack SDK available for use by sim developers... which would be used if Freetrack support were implemented in CoD.

His actions in this thread are the very definition of "FUD".

He asks for a description of how Freetrack's open source SDK works. Can anyone be bothered to write one for him? Seriously? If they did, he would just obfuscate or ask questions which deliberately "misunderstand" (or outright ignore) what was written. And continue to vaguely assert that Naturalpoint has been vaguely ripped off somehow.

And besides, the source code is freely available. If Wolf_Rider wants to understand how Freetrack works he can download it and take a look.

We live in a society where we are considered innocent until proven guilty. If Wolf_Rider, or Naturalpoint, or anyone else wishes to claim that Freetrack breaks the law, or infringes patents or copyrights, they are free to produce evidence to support such a claim. Indeed, if Naturalpoint has a legitimate grievance it is able to take legal action which would shut the Freetrack project down and obtain financial compensation. I have no idea why Naturalpoint would not have done this - as it would be entirely in the company's interest to do so - other than because they don't have any evidence.

If Naturalpoint, who are a company out to make a profit on selling TrackIR, were unable to demonstrate that their competition acts illegally (on account of it... er... not being true - how jolly inconvenient for these entitled-to-a-profit businessmen!), I suspect that they would spread precisely the kind of FUD we are seeing in this thread and elsewhere. Just ask vaguely insulting questions rather than offer answers, that's the trick! "When did you stop beating your wife", etc. etc.