FreeTrack Forum

Hey all.

I'm new to this and have no knowledge neither in electronics nor software programing.
But, I have an idea that might ultimatly improve FT's tracking.

What if... The IR LEDs that used on the tracking model will blink in a certain high frequancy, or even in a constant code (just like morse-code),
and FT will be programmed to track only light sources that blink in that specific frequency (or code).
That way FT will only track the LEDs and will ignore back lights and light glares.

I'm pretty sure that with a simple LED circuit and some program additions this can be made.

Just throwing an idea.  

Zohar de-Valenca

Edit: Thinking about it. The camera's frame rate has to be taken into consideration. For instance, if the LED blinks at 40Hz and the camera has 20 FPS, the end result is a 20 Hz blink seen by FT.

A modification of the idea might be for the LED's to only occasionally do the blinking thing for identification.  For example, every 5 seconds it blinks out a brief code (perhaps 4 bits) at 10 hz. This may be coarse enough for the camera to always see enough of it to determine the LED's id number.

After the computer has identified a particular dot, it can continue to track it by just following the blob.

Joe Dunfee

Nice idea ... but most likely it would increase CPU usage alot due to comparing the previous and current capture (to see what blinked or not) and would add alot of noise/jitter/false readings when moving fast since the distance between the on and off are too far off to be recognised.

It might still work, but I think removing the IR-filter and adding a general light filter would work alot better in any case.

-just my 2 cents.