Improve Kinect Head Tracking

[Greg Driver]

Hi,
Many of you use Kinect for head tracking when seating or Kinect is very close.
What we have right now: easy setup but not always working as you say.

So what I propose to add bit more to this and make head tracking more robust. But this will require small addon… Basically it will be either BULB or IR Light with something reflecting it on headset.

Yes, it will be then bit similar to PS Move Service with FreePIE but… really no pain of calibration.

First option is to add BULB and it will be tracked as specific object – not kinect skeleton.
Second is to put IR Light close to kinect and something reflecting this light on headset front

Please let me know what u think.
Greg

[Jonny]

The main problem with PS Move + Freepie is that it often requires recalibrating. If it is easy to set up the kinect with the bulb and it doesn’t require any further work, then I don’t see a problem. Except that you look pretty stupid with a bulb on your head but who cares really.

I would say the bulb is the easier option. Will it be the same as PSmove service, a light + ping pong ball?

[casetero]

I dont undestand how are you going to track that bulb. With the kinect or would we need another ps eye to do it? If your plan is to use the depth camera of the kinect as usual, and add a tracking point with its normal camera, and you think this could work, that would be great.

The depth camera has 30 hz, for me insuficient for positional track. Which Hz has the normal webcam??

Yesterday i tested the psmoveservice with a bulb, and is very responsiveness ( 60 Hz) and reliable, but there wasnt smooth. Any advice?

Thank you!!

[Jonny]

Psmove service can be great, but it really depends on how many cameras you have and how well aligned they all are. As well as how well you have done the colour configuration. How many cameras do you use? 2 front facing cameras well placed should give you smooth enough 180 degree tracking.

The colour configuration is really important too. Make sure all trackers can see all colours vibrantly. I was using a ping pong tracker for a while, but gave up because I couldn’t get the colours looking right. The 2 psmoves would look great, but the ping pong ball wouldn’t show. Then if I changed the settings to find the ping pong ball, the psmoves wouldn’t show. Nightmare.

I haven’t tried it yet but I expect the kinect is a better option for positional than psmove service.

[Greg Driver]

hi, so i am not sure how it will work. all depends how well I can get 3d coordinates from depth data. i am gonna use color to get position and then depth to get coordinates. so this is basically like ps move but you need only color calibration and color light does not have to be bulb. potentially can be other source of light, much smaller. i am gonna test it.

[oldmanbluntz]

This works fine for head tracking with the psmoveservice, in my experience. camera placement of 8 foot deep by 9 foot wide by 8 foot high. I use 6 psmove cameras, 4 in each corner, and 2 ontop of my tv. the Kinect one is also ontop of my tv. the tv with 2 of the cameras and the Kinect are ahead of the front 2 cameras in the corners by about 4 feet, so the Kinect camera is able to cover my whole play area at a distance. It works pretty flawlessly. A little better than my pingpong ball tracker on my headset through psmoveservice.

I setup my living room specifically with the vr in mind. The Kinect will track me all the way back on the couch just fine at 14 feet away. I have my play area set to an arear that is 2.8 meters by 2.2 meters, from just under the front corner cameras to the front line of the couch against the wall. I’ve put a lot of time into this outside my job, haha. If you get it tracking better with the pingpong ball, that would be awesome. I Imagine it will be pretty much 100% flawless. Thank you for your hard work in this. It’s pretty awesome.
My psmove and kinect positions
The HMD tracker ball

• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by oldmanbluntz.

[drewlove420]

Will this proposed feature be able to potentially use the lights on the psvr hmd?

[roadrunner06]

Please that would help stabilize headif we could use the light ball. Not sure though if you could get the consistent or stable data from kinect. Hopefully it could.

[Greg Driver]

i made some pogress on that and there will be also to take just light ball as source. sorry it is taking so lon.g

[sfex3champion]

This is cool since im using psvr and it has lights already. So far it works okay. But the odd few times my camera will transport into the wrong position above the car and stuff. If you can fix these tiny camera snap backs it may be perfect for head tracking in sim games

[Author]

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