TrackIR3 Pro Head-Tracking System For Gamers

simfan writes "Ars has a review of the TrackIR3 Pro up that's worth a look. Using the TrackIR cursor control system originally designed to help the disabled, the company made a device that tracks your head movements in games. It turns out that this works really well in flight sims and other games where you can replace mouse control. There's some video of the performance as well."

Comments

Profit?

[Crzysdrs]

I wonder if they simply cannot make enough money selling to the disabled that the only viable market for such equipment is selling it to the gamers with disposable income?

Re:Profit?

[Mateito]

Being serious for a moment, maybe they could use that as a marketting point.

"For every 3 gamers who buy one of these, we give one to a disabled person who desparately needs it". Do it right, they may be able to set themselves up as a charity and get tax breaks

World Vision spends rediculous percentage of its donations on marketting, but they've worked out (I hope) that the net amount of money passing to the causes they promote is maximised in this way.

So how about a charity or company who works to provide benefits to the disabled? And to top it all off, we never need feel guilty about computer games again.

"Get off the computer"

"I can't, Mum. I'm helping a disabled guy".

Re:Profit?

[ArchAngelQ]

Actually, my girlfriend and I where looking into setting up some sort of ad-hock version of this, but this looks better. She's got a motor imparement, and so mousing for her is generally a bit of a pain in the ass, doable, but slow. With this, she'd be able to mouse easier, and play City of Heroes with much greater ease =)

Now to convince her to wear a silly hat. That's going to be harder.

Oh, and quick plug on my own opinions about people with disabilities and computer use: There are a lot of smart people out there, with unnessicary complications for getting into computer use because a lot of computer periferals are built for able bodied people. It's unfortunate, but I'm glad things like these are making it to mass market production, because it means people who need them, but can't get their insurance companies to pay for them, will be able to afford them more realisticly.

I don't know...

[Nos.]

I'm just not sure if I want something that looks like a Might Morphin Power Ranger looking at me from the top of my monitor. Not to mention what stretching your neck might do to you while in game!

Saccades

[leeum]

When I was a physiology student, we examined saccades - high speed movements of the eye. We do not smoothly transition our field of vision to something interesting, we tend to "snap" our focus instantly to catch a better glance.

Where this was interesting, I thought, would be if we could leverage this mechanism as an input device especially for FPS games. Instant targeting and pretty damned accurate aim.

However, there probably won't be too much of a market outside that though, since smooth and steady movements of the eyes are pretty difficult to achieve, if not impossible.

great news for the next level in games

[muel]

The article makes a small mention of VR, but really, this has to be pretty damn important for the behind-the-scenes push for VR game consoles in the next decade. Every game company in the world with a brain should already be planning for an eventual shift to a VR system, even if it's 10 years away, and both the dropping price and increasing functionality of this TrackIR product makes the feasability of a low-priced, easy-to-use VR console that much more likely in the coming years.

Biggest problem with these

[bugnuts]

They track head movement, but your monitor is stationary. It's natural to move your head left to see things to the left, but with this you have to turn left and simultaneously look right.

I've looked into the hardware for making a real HUD/tracker, which has a display and does headtracking, and how to integrate them. For gameplay, it's mostly limited by the resolutions of current goggle setups. It's easy to find 640x480 goggles, but higher resolutions for gameplaying are much tougher.

If $140 makes you balk on one of the crappy units in the article, you shouldn't even consider the $2000+ it'd cost for a decent Head-mounted display.

This isn't ready to fly yet

[MinusBlindfold]

They need to build the display into the headset if its going to work. I see other postings talking about having to strain your eyes to look at the screen when turning your head, etc. This is no good. I remember in 1994/1995 I was at this arcade that had virtual reality games... there were a few different ones... you stood up in this ring with a headset on... the headset had a display built in, when you looked to the left you still saw the screen... you could also see the other players walking around (Networked)... it was more of a virtual reality deathmatch. They need to get this sort of technology back. It seemed like there was so much hype back in the mid 90s, and then it sort of dissolved. Companies kept promising cool new VR products for the masses but nothing surfaced... people let go of the dream.

Re:This isn't ready to fly yet

[grantdh]

Companies kept promising cool new VR products for the masses but nothing surfaced... people let go of the dream.

Like I said in an earlier post - VR games died because it made people sick thanks to an imbalance between their motion-detecting inner-ear and what their eyes and ears were telling them.

NASA started using VR systems as a very inexpensive way of training astronauts in dealing with motion sickness. Back in the early days of the Space Shuttle program, the scientist astronauts were often puking and left operating at half efficiency 'cos they weren't used to it. Turns out the early astronauts were doing it too (scene from Apollo 13 :) but weren't telling anyone 'cos they were big, tough test pilots, etc :)

To help give astronauts their spacelegs BEFORE they went into space, all sorts of mechanisms were devised to have the astronauts eye's show they were moving (eg: rotating in a cabin, etc) while their inner-ears said they were not moving at all. VR was one of the cheapest, smallest and easiest things to do that.

Eventually, trainees became accustomed to it and weren't as likely to get motion sickness so soon. It still happens, but they're used to it.

One of the big "secrets" is not to move around quickly - also, don't move your head about the place so much - move your whole body, etc. This and inertial control sorta explain a lot of the slow/wierd movements you see on NASA TV, no? :)

Re:Perfect for DDR Max Extreme Action 4

[Hast]

I want a combination with Donkey Konga, Gitaroo man, the marachas game (for Dreamcast) and Karaoke Revolution (and DDR).

Suddenly you have a boy band simulator. (But with real music.)

IL 2 Sturmovik

[centipetalforce]

In case some of you are wondering why this is so vital to the flight simmer, well, it isnt.
But what it does it supposedly does very well. Being a former member of the IL2 Sturmovik community, home to some of the most insane, fanatical, and hardcore legion of gamers in the world, Track IR is a godsend to those whose day is ruined when they lose a dogfight.
Instead of having one hand on a mouse and the other on a joystick, they can now concentrate on the joystick.
Since IL2 is life to many a gamer, track ir really sadly enhances many peoples lives and contributes tp their purpose in living.

I thought about...

[SharpFang]

...a system that would cheat at cards.
Some game, 3 cards, poker, blackjack, whatever. A cam that tracks head AND EYEBALL movement of the player, and when the player is not looking the game attempts cheats. Not replacing card values it dealt to "its own hand" in RAM, just displaying all the tricks, like sneaking an ace out of the screen etc, so all the tricks would be visible to everyone watching the game, but the player :) Very entertaining if it could be done right, so really you don't notice but others do :)

Hopefully you got reflexes to do that

[DrYak]

It isn't as difficult as you may think...

The human brain has reflexes, that conects the labyrithe inside your inner ear (built-in head-gyration sensor), and your occulars muscles.
This reflex stabilise the eyes, and makes you able de look straight ahead, even if you're walking and your head is shaking a litte.
In case of using a head motion tracking device, this reflexes help you stabilising your eyes and looking straigth to the monitor.

There are also other relfexes specifically designed to track moving object.
Like when you're looking thru the window of a train : you don't have to think to compensate the speed of the vehicle. You just "follow" the trees outside.
and of course, it can also help you keeping your eyes on the object that is interesting on the screen while it comes to the center, as you move your head.

Combination of these reflexes, makes it a little bit easier to use this kind of head tracking devices.

Otherwise, it would have been far more impossible to use them (like if you had brain tumors blocking neural pathways for these reflexes, or if you used retinal implants, or if you were just a robot).

my mate uses one

[GuyFawkes]

he was a motorcyclist who suffered a brachial plexus injury and subsequently had his arm amputated at the shoulder.

he plays IL2 sturmovik forgotten battles (which has a LOT of real commercial and military pilots playing head to head with the "civvies" like him) and his rankings are REAL good.

he swears by it.

I believe he uses it for cockpit (view from) viewing angles rather than actual rudder / aelieron control.

Works Decent Enough

[Etnie]

I have a TrackIr 3Pro. First few days were pretty tough and made my neck sore after a few minutes. After about a week it becomes much more natural.

However, it does train you to look at the monitor while turning your head. While flying for real (CJ-6A), I have noticed that my eyes tend to 'lag' now when looking around.

I also tend to focus on the instruments more than outside but that comes from more flightsim time than real time.

-e.

HUD and head tracking - like snowcrash

[lanroth]

I came up with the same idea for head-tracking in a drunken ramble a while ago. Nice to see someone has done it.

Expanding on this idea how about a wearing an opaque pair of white glasses and sitting in front of a video projector. The projector projects light onto the glasses and you see the image. Kinda like a back-projection TV but the screen part sits in front of your eyes.

This way you have a lightweight, passive, cheap head mounted display. You'd need lenses in the glasses so you could focus on the image of course.

I've not done a good job of explaining the idea I know.. if you want a really good explanation read Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson - he describes a similar idea. Infact, read it anyway it's brilliant.
Hmm.. thinking about it some more you probably have read it, this being slashdot ;-)