While I’m putting together the prototype I thought I would share some of the potential details.
This can easily be used on both hands, although dominant hand for weapons/world manipulation and left hand for movement and utility would be perhaps more practical.
Full dominant arm tracking in six degrees of freedom.
Full finger and hand tracking, sub millimetre. 6DOF. No glove, no moving parts.
Analogue joystick for off hand, two buttons. 3DOF gyro included.
Extra utility buttons available.
Buildable with a 3D printer in a couple of hours, at the moment I’m on 4 printed parts. Assembly should be under an hour.
I will probably release it under a non commercial open source licence, on github, software and hardware, which gives me the option of kickstarting the hardware for people without 3d Printers.
All the electronics are readily available and available now, I will start figuring out the software side if people show some enthusiasm.
Total cost (without the 3D printed parts) : Under $50 (about $40 is doable if you find the right auctions).
I’m sure a few clever people can figure out what I’m doing 🙂
Remember, Palmer didn’t technically invent anything with the Rift, he put together existing hardware, added some code and reinvented the world. This is the same (on a lesser scale), finger/hand/arm/weapon tracking in 6DOF for $40? What’s not to like?
I’ll post some pictures and a video soon.
I’m somehow concerned that your work on the F3 will slow down due to builing a new 6DoF IR-Tracker + software more or less from scratch. I’ve built an IR-Tracker with a PSEye Webcam myself (with FTnoIR + IR-Plugin) and it works ok-ish. But even at 187fps (modded drivers for the cam), there is noticable lag, I dont think this is suitable for properVR tracking. There is a reason why oculus uses 1000Hz tracking + gyros.
But I think that the F3 is awesome and has great potential. I’d love to see more updates about that again!
I’m already eager to take a look at your VR demo when my DK2 finally arrives (~4 weeks).
Thanks, sometimes you need a break from things though and this is really helping fire me up again… The F3 is a major project, this is more like a little side project that I can release into the wild and see how people react. It also might help give the F3 more exposure and publicity. Imagine what people will say when I release the best hand and gun motion controller that you can build for $40 and I put it together in a week :p
The gyros in the rift run at 1000hz yes, but the camera for positional tracking is only 60hz, I’m guessing they’ll be increasing this to 240hz for CV1…
Wow, I can’t wait to see this.