my trackir5 is dying...how is freetrack?

[Stublerone]

Yes,ps3 cam is a good cam. I heard of the old ps3 cams up to a specific serial number, which even suites better, because it was made of good parts and is very fast. How much fps do a actual ps3 cam has? 100? This is enough for flawless tracking! Don't know about the field of view of this cam and if there are even better cams out, nowadays. Some years ago it was even difficult to get a 60fps cam. 30fps was standard. I also like the freetrack software.

[David198502]

ok guys, thanks for all your answers, but in the end, i went again with a trackir5...i was really happy with this little tool the last two years, and now im just hoping, that the second device will last a little longer...

thx to the mods, for not draging this thread into one of the subforums...

[GF_Mastiff]

wow I have had my track ir since 2007/ March.

Track ir 4 with the ir enhancement. been through one big earthquake have to tape it to the top left of monitor, plastic left leg broken. Still keeps on going.

I leave mine running all the time.

[Pudfark]

I've got the TrackIr 4 pro and it stays on all the time as well...no problems yet and have had it two plus years....

[Blackdog_kt]

I had a trackIR4 with trackclip pro, until it died after 2 years of use.

My short verdict is great tracking quality, but flimsy construction for the money asked. That's why i didn't buy a replacement set.

As for freetrack, the higher FPS your camera can capture the better it gets. The problem with freetrack is that with the majority of 30 FPS cameras you have to balance it out between speed and smoothness. The faster you make it, the "jerkier" it becomes. Having a camera with a high FPS capture rate negates this. For example, if you can get a camera that captures 120Hz (same as the TrackIR cameras) it would be indistinguishable.

I also tried FacetrackNoIR but i find that for the camera to work as intended the exposure needs to be increased a lot, which eats away at the camera's FPS and makes it impractical.

Having tried all of them i think that the best solution nowadays would be a solid state 6-DoF sensor, the kind of things they put in model airplanes and program to work as autopilots. You can get one for $60 or so and it gives full 6DoF capability at very high accuracy: 3-axis gyroscope, 3-axis accelerometer and a magnetic sensor to act as a compass and help establish a reference point for center.

The best thing with that solution is that your quality of tracking is no longer affected by how wide the camera's FoV is, how far away you are sitting from it, or how bright/dim the lights are in your room. There is no camera anymore and since the sensor is small, you can easily attach it to your headphones just like you would do with a LED or reflector assembly.

It's main drawback is that you can't do away with the USB cable (unless you use batteries to power it), so it might put off some people who prefer reflectors over LED assemblies like the trackclipPro.

Of course, someone needs to sit down and code the software for it but it's not too much of a big deal. There is a free, open source head tracker for Linux (IL2:1946 runs under WINE in Linux and X-plane has native Linux support, so there is a flight sim community within the Linux users) that could be adapted to do the job.

The only problem with this is that it's a strictly DIY affair for sims that run under Windows. Since most games don't support a non-commercial API to interface with such devices, the guy who will code the software will have to "fool" the game into thinking it's a trackIR device. This is done by renaming your custom made .dll to the name the game expects to "find" when a trackIR set is connected.

This whole idea came up when i got a buddy of mine back into flight simming. He's an experienced programmer and has his way with soldering tools, so we thought we could make our own headtracker that will be better than TrackIR at less than half the cost. He has modified Linuxtrack a bit to use with IL2:1946 and he could come up with the required software (eg, a windows port that will work with CoD and solid state 6-DoF sensors) within a couple of evenings, but we wouldn't be able to distribute it for fear of lawsuits.

[TheEnlightenedFlorist]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

This whole idea came up when i got a buddy of mine back into flight simming. He's an experienced programmer and has his way with soldering tools, so we thought we could make our own headtracker that will be better than TrackIR at less than half the cost. He has modified Linuxtrack a bit to use with IL2:1946 and he could come up with the required software (eg, a windows port that will work with CoD and solid state 6-DoF sensors) within a couple of evenings, but we wouldn't be able to distribute it for fear of lawsuits.

Hi Blackdog. I'm curious why you're concerned with lawsuits. Linux-track is open source, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, that sounds like a really interesting project. I'm not a very experienced programmer, but if you guys decide to go through with it and need any help let me know.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by TheEnlightenedFlorist

Hi Blackdog. I'm curious why you're concerned with lawsuits. Linux-track is open source, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, that sounds like a really interesting project. I'm not a very experienced programmer, but if you guys decide to go through with it and need any help let me know.

The legal concerns are not about Linuxtrack. The guy who made Linuxtrack is an X-plane pilot and interfaces with his sim through X-plane plug-ins. In a similar fashion, people who fly FSX have the FSX API to interface with and people who play ArmA can use the freetrack API which is open-source and natively supported by ArmA titles.

However, for any third party tracking software to be recognized by and work with CoD or IL2:1946, it has to emulate trackIR and that is only doable in one way: by naming the .dll that the tracking software uses with the same filename as naturalpoint's .dll file.

So, no matter if it's a completely different file internally, people can argue that you are using a copy of trackIR's files because they see a file named naturalpoint.dll in the program folder. It would be relatively trivial to prove to court that the files are different, but who needs the legal expenses?

Now, if part of the CoD SDK (to be released in the future) included an API that let us manipulate the in-game camera, the issue could be avoided altogether because we would be able to have our Linuxtrack port interfacing directly with CoD.

[von Pilsner]

Originally Posted by David198502

ok guys, thanks for all your answers, but in the end, i went again with a trackir5...i was really happy with this little tool the last two years, and now im just hoping, that the second device will last a little longer...

thx to the mods, for not draging this thread into one of the subforums...

Good choice, hope it lasts (had my TiR4 for years now...)