FreeTrack Forum

I have seen IR LED arrays with 36 LEDs.  At 24 feet (about 8m) the beam is 3.5 feet (about 1m) across.  It requires a 12V power supply.  Perhaps an IR lamp like this used with 3M-brand highly reflective tape (like the reflective material they use on sports clothes) would work if the beam is wide enough at the point where you sit.

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Since I only use Microsoft Flight Simulator, I am looking at just 1 LED on my headset for up/down/left/right movements.  I'm guessing that will be documented in the next revision of the program and manual?

Also, FreeTrack suggests using a piece of photographic film as an IR filter on the web cam.  I am guessing that means an exposed/developed piece of film?  It would be good to clarify this and document it in the manual.

I have seen IR LED arrays with 36 LEDs.  At 24 feet (about 8m) the beam is 3.5 feet (about 1m) across.  It requires a 12V power supply.  Perhaps an IR lamp like this used with 3M-brand highly reflective tape (like the reflective material they use on sports clothes) would work if the beam is wide enough at the point where you sit.

You would still need to remove the infrared filter from the camera and the number of leds is a little overkill considering 5 medium brightness leds can do a good job, as long as there isn't a window in the camera frame. However, if you have a background light problem, the more leds the merrier.

Since I only use Microsoft Flight Simulator, I am looking at just 1 LED on my headset for up/down/left/right movements.  I'm guessing that will be documented in the next revision of the program and manual?

FYI even if you only want up/down/left/right movements, using a single tracking point can be frustrating because rotation and translation cannot be distinguished. What sort of documentation do you have in mind?

Also, FreeTrack suggests using a piece of photographic film as an IR filter on the web cam.  I am guessing that means an exposed/developed piece of film?

The film has to be developed, but not necessarily exposed; exposed film filters more visible light than unexposed film, so you won't need as many layers.

You are correct.  I didn't think the 36 LED array and 3M reflective tape was a great idea, just an idea that someone might improve upon.

Somewhere on this site I got the impression that the next version of FreeTrack would support 2 directions of movement (up/down, left/right) with one LED.  That may be incorrect since I have to guess what some of the messages written in French mean.

My suggestion about the IR filter was to clarify exactly what was needed (developed or undeveloped film) and add that to the user's manual where it talks about filtering the webcam.

Somewhere on this site I got the impression that the next version of FreeTrack would support 2 directions of movement (up/down, left/right) with one LED.

That's correct, single point tracking, which supports two degrees of freedom (2dof), is in the version currently available. The Freetrack program is in english and has pop-up hints to describe some of the more ambiguous functions.

and add that to the user's manual where it talks about filtering the webcam.

The documenation is being improved and is a bit behind the capabilities of the program itself. I'm also writing my own docs to clarify some of the inner workings.