FreeTrack Forum
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Class : Beta Tester Off line |
Firs of all, you need to know that for a reflective system, you _will_ have to remove the webcam's IR filter - reflected light is way too weak to be picked up trough a filter, especially on in a labtec camera (they have really strong IR filters).
About the sensor bar - i don't think it's a good idea. LEDs in sensor bar are only bright enough to be seen by a IR camera (just like LEDs we mount on FT caps/clips), but they're way too weak to iluminate objects in distance and reflect off them - sensor bar simply isn't designed for this. You'll eighter have to grab a real IR illuminator (since they're designed as an illumination for cameras, their LEDs are much brighter than ones on a Wii SensorBar), or build one yourself. Such illuminators are commonly used for night surveillance CCTV systems. you can find some on ebay, or around internet stores. http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=IR+illuminator&category0= Of course you won't need anything very powerful with 140 LEDs and 80m range  Even something with about 10 LEDs should suffice. |
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Class : Beta Tester Off line |
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Class : Apprenti Off line |
I think all Logitech cams have IR filter. Is true they see IR light (depending on what type of IR LEDs you have, the wavelength can vary from LED type to LED type). I have a Logitech Quick Camconnect and had my IR filter removed.
One squad mate has a older version of Logitech QuickCam (similar to that from the link you post but with different base) and it was a PITA to remove that IR filter from it. I thought about using reflective surfaces with freetrack but, dropped that idea when I saw how poorly the reflection is picked up by my Logitech webcam (with the IR filter removed!). And... buying a TIR clip to make freetrack work?  Man... I think you will end up buying the whole thing... Good luck though... |
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Class : Beta Tester Off line |
As i said, you probably WILL need to remove the camera's IR filter if you want to use a reflective system.
Sure, the camera can see some IR light now, but it's only a fraction of what it would be able to pick up with IR filter removed, and the reflected IR light is rather weak. Take a look at how my IR camera (these are settings i use in FT) sees me without the IR illumination enabled:  The room is illuminated by halogen lights, which emit some IR, so there's still some light visible. When i enable the IR LEDs, it looks like this:  As you can see, my head got illuminated a bit by the IR LEDS, but the reflectors are still way brighter, so FT has no trouble with picking them out from the background. here are the images with my head tilted and pitched to the point where i can barely see the entire screen (absolute maximum movement i would use in FT): IR LEDs off IR LEDs on I used a reflective tape for my setup. Since you have an original trackIR clip, it should work even better, since it's specifically designed to work with IR LEDs illuminating it (unlike the tape), it should work even better than my setup (at least without the IR filter and with visible light filter applied to the camera). You said you were using a LED flashlight to test it. Unless it's a IR flashlight, i don't think it will be of much real use for freetrack, but it should be enough for testing - if your face is illuminated by it, then the points should still be seen in the camera really clearly. Just remember that the material on the trackIR clip is actually a RETROflective - that means that it bounces most light exactly back to its source, while all other materials (including skin) disperse light in all directions, and only a small fraction of it returns back to the camera. That's why the points are so much brighter than my head in those pictures. So the light source has to be as close to camera lens as possible to make the reflection visible to the camera (that's why i mounted LEDs around camera lens in my setup). If it's moved away from the camera, all light will come back to the flashlight, completely missing the camera and the reflectors in the picture will look as if they were made of plain gray plastic. I'm sure that with some proper illumination you'll become a satisfied FreeTrack user  |
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Class : Beta Tester Off line |
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Off line |
Use a classic inefficient tungsten light bulb, it produces ample IR light for illuminating reflectors and also burns a hole in your retina at the same time.
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Nothing, everything gets illuminated equally.
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