FreeTrack Forum

So I took the IR filter out and put the magnetic disk over the lens. I don't have any IR LEDs yet, but I've been trying to make it work with some visible light LEDs. The camera can pick them up fine through the magnetic disk, but only if the camera can see some background light as well. If I cover the entire lens with the disk, the camera just goes totally black, even if I boost the brightness/gamma in the settings. If I use the LED to move it toward the camera, it eventually wakes back up and the whole image looks washed out under the brightened settings. If I move the LED back an inch, the image disappears again. From farther away, if I move the LED rapidly the the webcam seems to notice it for some reason and wakes up briefly.

The problem isn't with freetrack. I've been testing this in my webcam's viewer software. Has anyone else had this issue? I am not sure what to do except to find some super bright LEDs, but I haven't heard anyone else need these.

This is the reason why to use IR-LEDs. So only the infra-red part of light traversing the filter are captured by the webcam. Also what you find out is, that the floppy disk material isn't that good as that for a ir-filter, because it let through a small portion of visible light, but block to much of any light in general.
See also this topic:
http://forum.free-track.net/index.php?showtopic=3205

Well, the magnetic disk is actually blocking so much light that the camera thinks the room is pitch black and just stops producing an image. The LED is clearly visible through the disk though and even the camera sees it if I pull the disk farther from the lens so the camera can see some of the wall.