TrackIR to joystick's Hat Switch (possible solution) ?

[johngates]

It looks like many folks are looking to purchase TrackIR for some fantastic legacy combat flight simulators that are no longer in production.

I'm wondering if your company can somehow accomplished this by tapping into a joystick's hat switch or any other joystick buttons dedicated for scenery viewing. On a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick (current 2008 model) I can use their 8-way 'Hat Switch' to continously pan around my cockpit view from my 1997 F-22 ADF combat simulator. Somehow if TrackIR can provide head movement data feed to simulate Logitech or any other Joystick hat switch (for at least pitch and yaw), you guys would solved a big huddle and automagically support hundreds of good legacy combat sims.

F22 ADF was produced by a British company called Digital Image Design (DID) who later made military simulator of the British RAF. It was sold here in the US with rave review for its very realistic flight dynamics and its A.I. war engine. They painstakingly did their best in duplicating the real F22 cockpit and many of its system.

One review of DID's F22 ADF or TAW:
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... hp?id=2948

[VincentG]

Joystick emulation is something that is being looked into, for a future release of the software

[johngates]

I'm somewhat puzzled by NaturalPoint Inc. approach on this. Why would your company painstakingly contact each individual software developer to make TrackIR work? Yes, I can understand that game engine modification is necessary to achieve the full 6-axial movement of TrackIR. However lots of older/legacy software can benefit by just a simple 2-axial movement (pitch and yaw). The obvious choice here is through the joystick's Point-Of-View (POV) hat-switch I mentioned above. I understand that the future release of your company's software will do this, but the burning question is why has this taken so long? NaturalPoint Inc. has been around since 1997. That is 11 years now. I understand the TrackIR product has been around for the last 4 years. Correct me if I'm wrong. Why waste so much time fixing individual software when "global" (joystick's POV) solution would have been much easier, faster, and support much more software? Wouldn't this have been a much better and more comprehensive solution?

TrackIR left head turn data stream --> joystick left POV button for left Yaw view.
TrackIR right head turn data stream --> joystick right POV button for right Yaw view.
TrackIR up head turn data stream --> joystick up POV button for up Pitch view.
TrackIR down head turn data stream --> joystick down POV button for down Pitch view.

Only 4 data streams needed to give legacy software a complete 2-axial movement which for most of us is better than nothing. This certainly is much better than pivoting our view using our thumb on a POV hat switch. Afterall, many of the legacy software cannot do more than this 2-axial movement POV (Point-of-View) anyways. No point beating the game engine to death as one would not achieve the desired outcome. What does other readers (besides NaturalPoint Inc.) think about this?

[stryker77]

I say I have to agree with F22ADF. Makng TIR work in older games would be most welcomed and appreciated. That could be done by use of TIR to POV emulator (?).

Although some older games only work with one joystick device, using ppjoy to use the suggested and requested TIR POV data, would be really simple.

I hope that this feature is forthcoming, because it would make use of TIR available in so many older titles.

While I do enjoy newer titles, I am one of those that much prefers some of my older flight and driving sims.

Looking forward to any naturalpoint respose, especially if the response is, the latest version of the software will now support POV.

[Seth Steiling]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. As Vincent mentioned, joystick emulation is certainly something we're looking into for our next software release. We're not far enough along in its development to give any definitive answers on this, though.

In general, our goal is to obtain support in new games, as opposed to add features in our software that are aimed at enabling TrackIR in legacy titles. Though we appreciate those users that play older games, we feel that first and foremost TrackIR needs to be supported in the newest and best games to remain viable in the years ahead.

Since support in both new and legacy games is not mutually exclusive, there's definitely a chance that you guys will get your wish. For the time being, it's simply an issue of prioritizing software and business development resources.

[electrikcar]

The hat switch in F-22 ADF behaves exactly like the cursor keys, so it's easier just to emulate the cursor keys... but TrackIR is analog and the cursor keys are digital. So you can only pan the view when you turn your head past a certain point, it's difficult to know where that point is so it's a real struggle to control. Also the panning is very quick and hard to get the view to stop where you want to. So TrackIR is mostly useless in F-22 ADF.

TrackIR is only useful for analog view control. A lot of old games have this but it is done through the main joystick axes when a key is held, so you can't control the aircraft and the view at the same time, making TrackIR mostly useless once again.

Ideally joysticks should have had an analog (instead of digital) hat switch for view control from the beginning, like consoles have now, which would have allowed TrackIR to be used in a lot of old games. But alas, this is not the case.

[johngates]

To NaturalPoint - Seth,

Thank you for your feedback on your company's position.

> Though we appreciate those users that play older games, we
> feel that first and foremost TrackIR needs to be supported in
> the newest and best games to remain viable in the years ahead.

You may have underestimate some of your potential customers. Don't get us wrong. We do use newer simulators as well. I currently enjoy MS-Flight Simulator X and X-Plane. Been using FlightSim since SubLogic Corp days back in 1982 on an AppleII+, later on C64, Amiga, and finally Windows. I'm interested in purchasing TrackIR for my F-22 and several other newer simulators but stop short because I can't use it on my F-22 ADF. I would have more use of the TrackIR on my F-22 than I would on my FSX, X-Plane, and racing sims combine. A group of friends sometimes would team up and have dogfight over the net with our F-22s. I was waiting for Virtual Retina Display since the late 80s but nothing practical ever panned out from the Washington group's research. TrackIR is perhaps the next best thing to VRD. The point is your company is not making a sale by over emphasizing on newer simulators. The whole purpose is to sell as many units. I took the time to write this. Imagine how many others in my same position who don't bother to write.

To electrikcar,

Interesting point regarding analog vs. digital. However, here is another perspective to ponder. Computer is inherently digital in design. Any analog inputs do have to be converted back into digital for a computer to process. In electronics, one can always convert it using an A-to-D (Analog to Digital) converter circuit. Even analog joysticks with potentiometer inside need to be converted to digital somehow for the computer to process. This is the same with any other input devices such as microphone (sampling), still camera (digitizing), and video camera (capture). All those processes (in parenthesis) are basically conversion to digital data. When the input is already digital, I'm sure there are ways to manipulate that data to make it work. I know it is more difficult since movement has to be interpreted as how long the digital button is pressed instead of exact location based on the position of the joystick. Just my 2 cents.

[Seth Steiling]

We'll definitely keep this request in mind once we begin work on the new TrackIR software.