FreeTrack Forum

Would it be possible and or better to use a IR Night Vision Web Cam?

I'm thinking the contrast or lack of color would make it easier to see the IR Leds?

What should I look for if this would work?

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1329

buy this one - no modification required at all...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h__9_6?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=a4tech+pk-333mb&sprefix=a4tech

theres a brief look at my rig and the reflective sideclip I use here.....

http://www.armaholic.com/forums.php?m=posts&p=58477#58477


IR reflect works amazingly well for me and the No Fuss Factor is a BIG plus...

If the camera is shining SIX IR LED's at you, you don't really need to shine another 3 back - just bounce it!


B

Bush I am very interested in the reflective route now that I have seen your setup.

My setup is identical to this one. Mine looks the exacte just with out the Free Track words and mine is black.


Now I do alot of gaming with the lights on. I don't turn the lights off much. With your setup do you have to have it dark in your room? Can you use that setup with the lights on??

I am confused a little with the invisible light source cam.

Reason I am thinking of going this route is I would like to do away with the wires if I can.

Hi hotshot...

ok - superswift reply which I'll edit later, but just to put your mind at rest...

http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b272/Bushlurker/?action=view&current=quicktest01.flv

thats a seriously cheezy 1min vid taken around 7pm today...

Its a crap camera - adjusting light compensation so it makes my wee office look kinda dark...

It's still pretty much full daylight outside and overhead I have 4 x 50W halogen spots...

as you can see later in the clip - the cam doesnt care - I've got its exposure, etc so low it can't see shit...

It sees the little reflective balls no problema tho  

I sit roughly about an armslength plus a foot away from the camera - it locks the spots no problem...

OK - hope this helps a bit....

I'm seriously considering doing a proper post on this style of tracking...

I haven't even modded my camera - its straight out of the box too...

B

PS the walls are dark blue which contributes to the gloomy look, but really - as you see from the shadow when I lean over the clip and block the light from the overheads... it's a normal lit room basically.....

Thanks alot Bush!!

Nice......I am going to order one of those cams, do you know of a shop that sells them in the states? I did a search and I could not bring up anywhere that sold them here in USA. Maybe I was missing it but everywhere I found was in the UK.

If need be I guess I will just order it over seas.

Also I know I read somewhere that you added heat to the reflective balls and had a nice after effect you were not trying to happen but helped. What material did you use?

Also do you have to cover the cam in any sort of way to permit light from entering? Or any mods to the cam at all other than just plugging it in and adjusting the settings?

Hi again!

AAh - Bummer! - din't even cross my mind you were in the States...

Hmmm...

OK...
Firstly - I know the post you mean - I raked the forum dry when I started my reflective kit - that WASN'T me with the heated tape - tho I'm gonna try that sometime... the reflective balls is the "untidy" part of my design...

I used some lightweight plastic beads off a cheap necklace and a strip of reflective material off a safety vest...

Cut a piece about an inch square, a bit of double sided sticky tape - dropped the ball in the middle and scrunched it up REAL tight - then I just trimmed all the ragged bits off till it was basically round again...

Its untidy if you look REAL close, (I DID do it pretty neat) but all the cam sees is a uniform dot, so it works fine...

So thats - reflective strip off a safety vest stuck on a bead - if you can think of a better way to coat the bead please let me know!!!

Remember to get the reflec tape the right way round - it just looks a shitty silvery dull grey both sides, but under IR - one side glows unbelievably brightly!

The cam.....

Yes - theres a tiny sensor on top - like another little LED - I cover that with a little piece of black sticky tape when in use... that makes it think the room is pitch dark, so it cranks up it's IR led's in response...
Its a professionally designed cam - not a TrackIR effort, so although it warms up a little, it's just fine - doesn't melt like a trackIR cam or anything....
Take the tape off when you're not tracking - tho mostly I forget...:)

This video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMBfXLsXPxQ
Is the one that sent me shopping... it's the same cam as mine - I bought it after watching this... when he starts talking about the cap - a popup says "ball shape is better" - that sent me off on the clip idea since I wear a headset and didn't want a hat...

I assumed I'd need to take out the IR filter when I got it, so I opened it up and couldnt get the damned little mounting screws out! - so I gave up and just tried it anyway - it worked perfectly, so I just never bothered with either IR filter removal OR with a visible light blocker over the cam either - straight outa the box...

I guess you could maybe try a different cam - as long as it has the IR LED's, and you can drop the exposure and brightness etc to ground level... my one plus one other A4Tech one were in the list on the FT site - I checked that first...

It's not exactly the greatest cam in the world - pretty crap for a webcam, but it seems to track just fine - I get exactly 30FPS and 2 jitter and it never varies... more than enough I reckon once the fps multiplier kicks in....

Where to get one??? Damn! I really dunno - it really never occured to me they might not be available elsewhere... jeez...

I'll explain the clip in more detail a little later if you like - tho I bet you have ideas of your own...
(first clip was standard 3-point-clip measurements from Freetrack - used about 9mm beads - for the nanoclip I dropped to 5mm beads and scaled down the size proportionally by 20%... still tracks fine and still locked fine on the smaller point size... )


one small interesting point....

NP make a reflective hatclip, and they make a LED sideclip, but they DON'T offer a reflective sideclip - in fact, I don't think I've ever seen one anywhere else.....

I wonder if NP are reading all my threads and planning a new product???
Wouldn't surprise me... hehe - specially if they tried to patent the idea.....

hehe

B

Thanks alot Bush!

I am going to find one of those cameras. In a week or so I am going to tell you how it comes out. Tracking without wires!!!!!

Your system looks great Bushlurker... i really like that monitor setup...

So thats - reflective strip off a safety vest stuck on a bead - if you can think of a better way to coat the bead please let me know!!!

How about this?
http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=125

I bet theres something similar in ordinary paint jar....? Would it work?

A4tech did have a seller here in the States at www.ergoshops.com but it looks like that domain is up for sale.  I have found a webcam that looks similar to the A4 one at www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1567081&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs.  I don't know the quality of it.  It appears that amazon.co.uk won't ship electronics overseas so that rules out that for us yanks.

This seems to be an ideal way to get a freetrack system up and running.

No idea where I can aquire an A4 webcam in Australia (overseas I had an A4 mouse, the best I've ever used).

For now, I've gone ahead and payed the exhorbitant sum of $1.16 for a 6 LED IR webcam on Aussie Ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/PC-Laptop-USB-6-IR-LED-10-0M-Webcam-Web-Cam-Camera-Mic-/170494543590?cmd=ViewItem&pt=PCA_Video_Conferencing_Webcams&hash=item27b24446e6

I have no idea what I'm actually going to get with this thing, and the 10 MP claim sets off a few alarm bells, I think though if the supplied software allows for some decent tweaking there might be hope for this little unit. As it's only $1, there is hardly any risk involved here.

As far as reflective materials go, probably the most accessible that I can think of is simple aluminium foil. Anyone tried this out?

(I understand that Titanium Dioxide and Red Iron Oxide in pigment form may be good places to start to look for highly IR reflective materials)


Will report back anyway whether success or not. If the webcam works then this will be a very cheap option for Aussies (not sure about availability in other countries yet).

Wish me luck  

The webcam arrived in the mail yesterday. By now it's all set up and working great.

I'm getting 29/30 fps with this cam, and 001/002 jps.

For a $1 webcam, that's alright with me.





The headclip is basically just a cheap plastic compass with squares of reflective tape at each of the three points, velcroed on to the side of my headphones. The next step is to replace the thin squares with some some reflective spheres- that should do it I reckon..

Cheers,