I've been thinking about buying a track IR for some time now, if you're not familiar with them (though i'm sure most of you are) they're devices that use a camera and Infrared or visible light to track points (LED's or reflectors) mounted to your head and via software translate this data into movement on screen. So essentially if you move your head to the right slightly, you view on the screen in a 3d cockpit will move with it. This obviously greatly improves immersion in a simulator like rFactor, or even orbiter which believe supports this feature.
Now, Track IR is meant to be very good, but it's also quite expensive. I've never been able to justify the expense on whats essentially a toy and i'd rather spend money on other hardware like graphics cards or steering wheels, etc.
Chatting with TSPenguin the other day put me on a track to build my own setup for pennies. In fact it seems ludiucrously simple.
There's freeware software that can handle the motion capture and i have a webcam that can see infrared LEDs so i'm halfway there already. All i need to do is to fabricate a mounting system for the LED's on a cap and wire it all up. I'm currently looking at what types of IR LED's to purchase.
So, y'all still with me? Has anyone else here built one of these before? what results did you get, what pitfalls did you encounter and what hardware & software did you use? And most importantly, did you get it to work with Orbiter?
All comments, suggestions and queries welcome, i'll try and keep this thread updated with the project as it progresses. :beach:
Now, Track IR is meant to be very good, but it's also quite expensive. I've never been able to justify the expense on whats essentially a toy and i'd rather spend money on other hardware like graphics cards or steering wheels, etc.
Chatting with TSPenguin the other day put me on a track to build my own setup for pennies. In fact it seems ludiucrously simple.
There's freeware software that can handle the motion capture and i have a webcam that can see infrared LEDs so i'm halfway there already. All i need to do is to fabricate a mounting system for the LED's on a cap and wire it all up. I'm currently looking at what types of IR LED's to purchase.
So, y'all still with me? Has anyone else here built one of these before? what results did you get, what pitfalls did you encounter and what hardware & software did you use? And most importantly, did you get it to work with Orbiter?
All comments, suggestions and queries welcome, i'll try and keep this thread updated with the project as it progresses. :beach: