mouse cursor rotation compensation
Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 4:18 am
Dear Naturalpoint Devs,
as a loyal (owned TrackIR 2, 3 Pro, 4 Pro & 5) and frequent user of your head tracking technology, I would finally like to post the following request:
It's an idea I've had for a long time and applies primarily to sims with clickable cockpits.
In these cases the user has the task of operating some switch or knob in the 3D-cockpit. To accomplish this, the viewport in the cockpit axes being controlled by the head position has to be coordinated with the mouse pointer location on the screen.
Although training together with a good TrackIR profile and IR-noise free environment will allow fairly efficient operation, it remains fairly unnatural.
In practice, any viewport (head) movement will cause the mouse cursor to drift off the desired cockpit location and has to be actively compensated by the mouse.
Consider the human body: the mouse cursor simulates the human hand. The hand is attached to the arm which, in most humans, is not directly attached to the head. The neck primarily provides us with three rotational degrees of freedom with respect to the torso. This means any head rotations don't influence the hand position. This as opposed to translations which are effected by moving the upper torso which also moves the arms/hands.
Considering the above anatomical facts, it would be more natural if the TrackIR software had an additional mode which would compensate any cursor movement due rotation of the viewport. Movement due to translations would be unaffected.
I would like to implement this myself, but I lack the time and knowledge of the required interfaces with the TrackIR software, plus it would be much more elegant if such a feature were to be integrated in the software itself.
Just hoping to make TrackIR even better. Thank you for your consideration.
Best regards,
Mark
as a loyal (owned TrackIR 2, 3 Pro, 4 Pro & 5) and frequent user of your head tracking technology, I would finally like to post the following request:
It's an idea I've had for a long time and applies primarily to sims with clickable cockpits.
In these cases the user has the task of operating some switch or knob in the 3D-cockpit. To accomplish this, the viewport in the cockpit axes being controlled by the head position has to be coordinated with the mouse pointer location on the screen.
Although training together with a good TrackIR profile and IR-noise free environment will allow fairly efficient operation, it remains fairly unnatural.
In practice, any viewport (head) movement will cause the mouse cursor to drift off the desired cockpit location and has to be actively compensated by the mouse.
Consider the human body: the mouse cursor simulates the human hand. The hand is attached to the arm which, in most humans, is not directly attached to the head. The neck primarily provides us with three rotational degrees of freedom with respect to the torso. This means any head rotations don't influence the hand position. This as opposed to translations which are effected by moving the upper torso which also moves the arms/hands.
Considering the above anatomical facts, it would be more natural if the TrackIR software had an additional mode which would compensate any cursor movement due rotation of the viewport. Movement due to translations would be unaffected.
I would like to implement this myself, but I lack the time and knowledge of the required interfaces with the TrackIR software, plus it would be much more elegant if such a feature were to be integrated in the software itself.
Just hoping to make TrackIR even better. Thank you for your consideration.
Best regards,
Mark