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Finger Tracking

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 12:55 pm
by UofAStudent
Hello, I want to track the fingers of a person along with their skeleton. I read in the FAQ that finger tracking is not yet available. I assume this means, I have to figure out a way to do it myself, and that it is possible. My current approach will be to use tracking tools, or set up a rigid body for each finger. What do you think of this approach? All I really care about is streaming a set of points for the fingers along with the skeleton using the NatNet SDK. Let me know where to look.

Re: Finger Tracking

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 1:24 pm
by bsteagal
UofAStudent

As of the current version, finger tracking is not available.. however, it is supposed to be a feature available in the next version, Arena 2.0.. (currently in alpha testing) I don't know when this is coming out though.. perhaps a couple of months or in the beginning of 2013

Re: Finger Tracking

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 1:46 pm
by UofAStudent
Thanks for the quick reply. Do you know if its possible just to stream markers on the fingers? I am currently using a 12 camera set up, do you think putting 20 tiny markers with 2 per finger, or 10 big markers will have enough resolution to distinguish them reliably? Is it possible to stream those markers independent of a skeleton while simultaneously streaming the skeleton too?

I am noob, so my understanding of it is pretty basic.

Re: Finger Tracking

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 1:57 pm
by NaturalPoint - Mike
Bryan, UofA:

Finger tracking in Arena 2.0 is not going to be the full individual bone finger tracking that you're envisioning, rather there will likely be kinematics involved at some part for partial marker sets.

If you want to do full hand tracking without the rest of the body, you could marker the hands as you see fit and label the individual markers. It would be significantly more labor intensive, but it's possible. I've seen a customer do something similar with hand tracking for pianists already without the individual marker labeling in place (though he did have a fairly sophisticated custom analysis engine at the other end of the data for labeling and associating his data)

Re: Finger Tracking

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:15 pm
by UofAStudent
Thanks Bryan and Mike.

I will try out the individual labelling for each marker. I am doing gesture recognition with the entire body. Unfortunately some of the gestures require analyzing each individual finger in addition to the body. I wanted to see if the Optitrack was capable of this without resorting to something like the Acceleglove. For now, all I need are points of the body, and as long as I can tell which point refers to which part of the body then I am laughing.

Again, thanks, I will give the individual labelling of each marker a try and test that out.

Re: Finger Tracking

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 4:40 pm
by Seth Steiling
[quote=Bryan Steagall]UofAStudent

As of the current version, finger tracking is not available.. however, it is supposed to be a feature available in the next version, Arena 2.0.. (currently in alpha testing) I don't know when this is coming out though.. perhaps a couple of months or in the beginning of 2013

[/quote]
Sooner than that. :)

Re: Finger Tracking

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 9:36 am
by MichaelWallis
Hi,
I was wondering how the Fingertracking is coming along? Is there an estimate, when Arena 2.0 will be available?

Thanks,
Michael

Re: Finger Tracking

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 5:54 pm
by Seth Steiling
Hi Michael,

Keep your eyes peeled for more information on this in the coming 4-6 weeks. If you'd like more information right now, please contact me directly at seth[at]naturalpoint[dot]com and I'll shed a bit more light. :)

- Seth

Re: Finger Tracking

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 6:23 pm
by Megalodon
Okay... it's past the middle of April.

What's the status of finger tracking? Can we do this now with Arena 2.0?

Re: Finger Tracking

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2013 3:21 pm
by bsteagal
Hi Megalodon

Yes, it is working very well in Motive:body, which replaced Arena. The only thing, it only works with the flex-13, prime17 and prime41 cameras, which have the resolution necessary to do it.

You might, and I say might, be able to do it with the s250e's in a small capture volume with sufficient cameras (but it is not officially supported by NP)