A website was recently passed our way that gave pretty detailed instructions on how to build your own head tracker for cheap. We've seen a few of these in the past and others featuring eye trackers, but this one seems pretty well done so we thought we'd pass it along.
The post on maximumpc.com goes over the various parts and steps to create your own IR head tracker which, with recent buzz regarding Kinect (Microsoft) and the Playstation Move (Sony) – two motion controlled gaming systems on sale this year – seems more relevant than ever.
That said, the technology has been around for quite a while now. Head tracking allows control of a PC with the movements of your head, or in simulation gaming, head tracking allows control of an avatar, for example, as you duck and bob your head throughout the virtual environment.
Head tracking is commercially available but can be cost prohibitive; so one guy tells us how it's done with a simple web camera and a few bucks spent on electrical supplies.
The system is essentially made up of a couple parts – a web cam and a system of lights mounted on your head. The camera filters out most everything except the lights. The author recommends FreeTrack software to run the engine, interpreting the location of the lights to determine which direction the head is facing.
The majority of modern web cams work, but you'll need one with a high frame rate and low CPU usage as well as auto exposure that can be manually switched off. Resolution is not an issue – nothing more than 320 x 240 is needed, so if you can change the resolution, that's to your advantage. The post offers a number of cameras that could be used in conjunction with FreeTrack, but recommends Playstation's 3 Eye, which is a high quality, high frame rate camera available for not that much money. They've modified one for infrared light, which is easy to do as well, and the author provides illustrated guides to get the job done.
After going through steps on the point model and light source, you are well under way to getting a DIY head tracker on the cheap.
Take a look at the link for more details:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/how-tos/how_build_your_own_ir_head_tracker
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