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I've had TIR3 w/vector for a few months now, but so far most sims only supported the usual x and y axis. I've now upgraded to LOMAC 1.1 and loving the added z axis, but I've ran into a little hickup.

For the TIR unit to see all 3 points as I turn my head I've found that I've had to move the unit from the front of the monitor where it's only a 1.5 ' or so away to a stand I've built on the back of the monitor. Now it's around 3' away and tracks a lot better. I don't lose the 3 dots at the edge of the FOV when I turn my head, but a new issue has cropped up.

To sit on the stand it is about 6" to 8" above my head now so that it has a good FOV downwards over the front edge of the monitor. The issue is now that I'm using the z axis when I move my head towards the screen to zoom in on, say the HUD while I'm flying, since the TIR unit is 3' back and 8" up, it interpits that I'm also looking down. To zoom in I find I have to move towards the TIR unit, not the screen. So I have to move towards the screen and lift out of my seat towards the the unit. Not too bad, but I find it's not a natural movement.

What I would love to do is to 'train' the axis of the unit. So during setup once I've found where I want to place the unit I can give it example head movements for each axis. This way when I move my head in my z axis and the unit knows that when I move my head in that direction I want it to zoom in.

Love the product, it has really changed how I fly, but this would make it perfect for me.

bump? Any idea if this is possible?

Dayglo, sorry for the delay, I missed your question. From the sound of it as you move forward the TIR is miss reading your movement because the Scanner is too high. I have found that 2" seems to give the best results.

As you have rightly descovered the Scanner does need to be back a fair bit, especially if you had a TIR1 before. Unfortunatly because of the triganometry involved about 2'6" seems to be the best bet and cannot be changed due to the necessarily fixed lens.

I would also sugest if possible having the sensor facing directly at the scanner.

I will keep an eye here so let me know if this helps, if not we can try something else.

only problem is that it's physically impossible to keep the unit at the reflector level and have it at a proper distance. I've basically moved the unit from sitting on the front of my monitor to sitting on the back. But for it to see the reflectors when I look down, it needs to be raised high enough so that the FOV can see past the front edge of the monitor, thus my delemma.

If it sits at the front, I find when I turn my head side to side and move around I slip out of it's FOV too easily, now if it sits at the back, the unit misreads my movement.

I'll play around with the hight of the unit to see if I can lower it some without losing the FOV at the monitor edge.

Dayglow, I would try tapeing the Vector unit to the top of your cap if you cannot lower the sensor any more.

If the mountain won't come to mohamed, then ..........

Hi DG, didn't expect to see you post here.

I have my sensor on top of my monitor which is also above normal viewing level as well. One thing you can do to really help keep the effect you're experiencing minimized is to raise the Z sensitivity curve in your TIR vector profile so that you don't have to move quite as far to get the same result. The more distance you travel the more the downward motion so if you raise the Z sensitivity then you will not have to move as far.

You do lose a bit of precision this way and you'll still need to make up for it a bit posture-wise but this might be the best way to make the most of it.

The original suggestion was to give the user a "setup" option, to translate their movements into the axes, much in the way that you would setup old analog joysticks by moving the stick to the extremities.
It sounds to me like an excellent idea, and theoretically (since I have no idea how your drivers are setup, in fact, the functionality may already be there) this would just be a matter of adding a translation filter to the input, mapping one set of axis (the users') to another (TrackIR's x-y-z).
Taping stuff on your head, or changing the sensitivities of the axis to compensate will only detract from the main intent of the unit, to increase immersion. And you can't expect everyone's desktop setup to perfectly match the one in your lab, some monitors are bigger, some people are shorter, some people might not have the space to set the camera back, etc.

Anyhoo, my 2 cents. take it with this disclaimer, I don't have a TrackIR (yet! it's in the mail!!!)

[ June 14, 2005, 08:35 AM: Message edited by: Stickshift ]

In the software you can reverse the axis. Try mounting the scanner behind you, and put your hat on backwards.