receiving unlabeled point data from Arena on OS X

[srajko]

Hi,

We are trying to receive the data stream sent out by Arena (v. 1.4.0beta), and are interested only in the unlabeled point cloud data. We got started using the information posted on the forums and the documentation, and are now able to receive something through multicast group 224.0.0.1 on port 1001.

The first problem we ran into is your choice of port - ports below 1024 are reserved for root processes, so we have to run our client as root. It would be great if you could also stream on some higher port (or, is this a parameter that can be set somewhere?).

We will now try to parse the data and extract the unlabeled point cloud from the stream. Please let me know if we are barking up the wrong tree (tight schedule on the project )

Thanks!

Stjepan

[srajko]

As a follow-up, I've parsed the whole stream coming in on port 1001 (according to document "NatNet Bitstream Syntax" version 1.4 (draft) labeled for NatNet Library Version 1.4.0).

There is nothing coming through that stream except for markers that belong to rigid bodies. How do I get the positions of markers not belonging to rigid bodies?

Thanks!

Stjepan

[Birch]

Markers need to be part of a rigid body or skeleton before Arena will stream them during a real-time capture. If you trajectorize a take, then you should be able to stream individual markers.

The reason is that Arena doesn't provide labeling for individual markers in real-time, it only supports doing that in post-process trajectorization. This means that even if it was to stream the individual markers in real-time, the name/label of the markers would be inconsistent from one frame to the next.

[srajko]

Hi, thanks for your response.

We don't care if the name/label markers are inconsistent, we have our own real-time tracker that takes care of that. Is there any way that this could be supported in the near future? We were planning on using this feature in an upcoming (early January) demo and looks like there was some miscommunication in terms of what we needed (at one point we were trying to get this information through the point cloud app, found out we didn't have a license for it, and that's when we were told something regarding the new Arena version supporting related functionality).

Thanks for any suggestions,

Stjepan

[srajko]

Just to clarify - all we need is the positions of all visible markers captured in real-time. Any labeling / rigid body information etc. is irrelevant. Please let us know what route we can take to access this data (do we need to use the Point Cloud SDK for this? do we need to purchase the license for it?)

Thanks,

Stjepan

[Birch]

Please contact support@naturalpoint.com and include a reference to this email thread. We will see if we can work with you to help meet your goals.

[Tommie]

Hi, I was wondering what the current status is of this topic, since our company is looking for exactly the same functionality.

We would like to have real time streaming of unlabeled markers, tracking is not required (we have our own real time tracking system).

[Birch]

If streaming of a untracked, unlabeled cloud of 3D markers is sufficient for your needs, the Rigid Body software is able to provide that out of the box.

NatNet is the only protocol in Rigid Body which is set up to stream individual markers, VRPN and trackD only support rigid bodies.