EXO
18-01-08, 21:48
Project Panhead - The TrackIR Alternative by MadCowMoo
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/panhead_logo.png
The Premise<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
I always enjoy learning or finding out how to do stuff that I know nothing about. So my interest was twanged when I saw that epoch was getting a TrackIR Pro gadget. Like most of you, no doubt, I work on a budget and do without more by circumstance than choice.
<O:p
The Pitch
<O:p
So, welcome to Project Panhead, my heartfelt attempt to bring TrackIR to the masses without all the fanfare and trappings. If you want a workable and, after much testing, highly useable and easy to make solution, allow me to take you on a journey of discovery, the likes of which you haven't experienced since finding that old and dog-eared copy of "The Joy of Sex" under you parents' bed!
<O:p
The List
<O:p
<O:p
1 Baseball Cap, standard design and if possible all one colour with an adjustable strap at the rear and air-vent holes stitched in to the dome, although not mandatory.
<O:p
1/2 regular Wire Coat Hangers, the sort you get with your dry cleaning.
<O:p
1 Roll of Electricians Tape, used to wrap wires and avoid short circuits. I used tape the same colour as my baseball hat, looks neater.
<O:p
Few Cableties, small to medium gauge which will be used to secure cabling to the baseball hat.
<O:p
Soldering Iron and small gauge Solder.
<O:p
Pair of Bull Nose Pliers to bend coat hanger in to shape and Pair of Cutters/Snips to cut the hangers.
<O:p
Small piece of Hand-Bendable Metal, I used one of the bits you take out of the back of a PC to allow fitting a PCI Card.
<O:p
6 lengths of Small Gauge, Single Core Electrical Wire. I used 3 lengths of Green for +I’ve and 3 lengths of Green/Yellow for -I’ve, but anything will do. Make sure the lengths are enough to run from the front of the hat to the rear and back again.
<O:p
1x CATEYE Cycling Light. The one I used is in the picture. It is powered by batteries, has 3 internal LED's and a clip on the back. It is a front light so the LED's are white. There MUST be 3 LED'. 3 is perfect, but if there are more we can disable them. Any type will do, as long as it contains LED's.
<O:p
Batteries for the CATEYE Cycling Light.
<O:p
The Boring Theory Bit
<O:p</O:p
<O:p
Motion detection and analysis can be broken down in to a few things:
<O:p
- Make something move
- Observe its motion on camera
- Interpret the motion
- Instruct something to reproduce the motion
<O:p
In Project Panhead, I will demonstrate how to twin these actions with the following tools:
<O:p
- Your head
- WebCam
- Software
- LOMAC Cockpit View (F1)
<O:p
The basic idea will be to play with the settings on our WebCam in order that it shuts out all natural and ambient light, and that it only reads light we are going to produce from 3 LED's we are going to mount on the baseball hat. The 3 LED's will act as a 3 dimensional model, with their rest point as a reference and as you move your head, you change the distances between the 3 LED's that the software can then interpret as motion in a particular direction.
<O:p
Easy, ehh?
<O:p
The Construction
<O:p</O:p
<O:p
Using the cutters/snips cut a piece of coat hanger 30cm long. Cut another 12cm long and straighten both lengths. Our "wire-frame" which will be mounted on top of the brim of the baseball hat is going to support 3 LED's facing towards our PC monitor where our webcam will be mounted on top.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2340.jpg
<O:p
Bend over one end of the 12cm length and fashion it in to a small loop, just large enough for the other 30cm to slide through.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2341.jpg
<O:p
Bend the ends of the 30cm length to look like the picture below. Your aim is to finish up with about 14cm between the 2 ends of the wire, but enough of a shape to slip on to the end of the baseball cap's brim.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2342.jpg
<O:p
Slip the ring you made with the first hanger piece on to the brim section and centre it on the crossbar.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2345.jpg
<O:p
Now, work on our piece of bendable metal. The idea is to make a support for the joint of the two hanger pieces, so that it enables the "ringed" length to go up at an angle. I bent mine in to a triangle type shape and used the pliers to bend the very ends of the metal around the hanger joint. See my picture below.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2346.jpg
<O:phttp://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2348.jpg</O:p>
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2349.jpg
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2350.jpg
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2351.jpg
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2352.jpg
The dimensions of the frame we are building are:
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/size.gif
<O:p
Wrap the electrical tape around this complete joint to make it sturdy. Use as much as you need, the sturdier the better.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2353.jpg
<O:p
Next we are going to bend forward the top few cm of our angled hanger piece so that it points forward and in the same direction as the 2 lower stems which will be on the cap brim.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2354.jpg
<O:p
Now, time to investigate the source of our 3 LED's and our power supply - our CATEYE Cycling Light. Remove the lens cover to get access to the 3 LED's. Note the orientation of the LED's in the light fitting. I simply looked to see which way the flat side of the LED's (+ive) was facing and marked that side of the circuit board/light fitting as FLAT SIDE (+ive).
<O:p
Using the soldering iron, heat the solder on the legs of each LED and remove all 3 of them from the circuit board/light fitting. Strip the insulation off the ends of all 6 pieces of electrical wire and carefully solder them to the legs of the LED's.
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2356.jpg
As I said, I used one colour for one leg and another for the other. I made sure all the FLAT SIDE legs were soldered to GREEN WIRES and the other legs soldered to GREEN/YELLOW wires. Make sure that there is no contact made between the legs of each LED and carefully wrap electrical tape around the soldered areas, with a piece between the legs to prevent contact/shorting out.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2357.jpg
<O:p
Using electrical tape, mount the 3 LED's on the 3 ends of our wire frame, all facing forward.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2358.jpg
<O:p
Mount the wire frame on the brim, make a couple of holes in the brim and use cableties to secure the frame to the baseball hat. I used a large cabletie to secure our elbow joint to the brim to increase stability of the frame.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2361.jpg
<O:p
Continue wrapping tape around each set of 2 wires, binding them around the wire frame. When you reach the brim for the lower 2 LED's, stop and make a couple of holes through the brim at the edge where you can poke through cableties to neatly attach the wires to the brim edge.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2360.jpg
<O:p
I used a cap that has ventilation holes in the dome section so simply fed our LED cables through them at the front and out through the back, leaving enough slack so the wires fit snugly against the inside of the dome. A couple of cable ties help as well.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2363.jpg
<O:phttp://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2362.jpg
</O:p<O:p
Time for more soldering. The idea is to trim the ends of all 6 wires short enough to comfortably enter our cycle light fitting but allow movement for us to adjust the cap strap or replace the batteries. First, I drilled 3 holes in the cycle lights lens cap and slipped the lens on to the 3 pairs of cables.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2365.jpg
<O:p
Strip the ends of all 6 wires and carefully solder them on to the points where the legs of the LED's used to be. REMEMBER THE ORIENTATION - FLAT SIDE IS +IVE SO ATTACH THE WIRE FROM EACH FLAT SIDE LEG TO THE FLAT SIDE OR +I’VE SIDE IN THE LIGHT. That's why it was important to note the orientation earlier.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2366.jpg
<O:p
Insert the batteries, snap back the lens cover and clip the light on the rear adjustable strap of the baseball cap.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2370.jpg
<O:p
Turn the light on and voila, you should be all set. I also filed the ends of the 3 LED's flat. This increases their angle of light dispersal and makes it easier for the software and web cam to see them. My light has a 3 position switch function, lights flashing, lights steady, and lights off. Make sure you always use a light steady on state.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2374.jpg
<O:phttp://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2375.jpg </O:phttp://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2376.jpg
Plug in your webcam, not all work with this system, but the majority do. Stick it on top of your monitor in the centre, facing you.
</O:p<O:p
The Software
<O:p
<O:p
Download:
<O:p
AMCAP (http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/amcap.zip)
FREETRACK (http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/freetrack2.1.zip)
<O:p
AMCAP is very straight forward and is used to access our web cam settings. Put on your cap (Panhead) and turn it on. Start the AMCAP software after installing and select Options ---> Video Capture Filter. Here you need to reduce the exposure to zero, zero all other options and if available, turn off auto gain. This should make the viewing screen black and allow you to see the bright LED's. If not, don't worry, we can fix this in the tracking software by using the "threshold" slider. Exit AMCAP.
<O:p
Install the Freetrack software and start it. I now refer you to the software manual in PDF format for setting up and testing. It is very straight forward even after the translation from native French.
<O:p
MANUAL (http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/manuel2eng.pdf)
<O:p
Mine works fine after a 3 hour build time (as it is my first) and about 30 minutes tooling around with the sensitivity. I made a couple of customised profiles for myself as well, one specifically for LOMAC.
<O:p
Hope you have fun with this, and at a total cost of 10 quid, as I had everything except for the cycle light, it really is sweet. I think it rivals TrackIR and the only limitation is your imagination for mounting the LED's.
<O:p
This is merely a guide. I had fun making the cap my way. I am going to do another that is side mounted like the TrackIR Pro using another light or maybe an old Bluetooth headset.
<O:p
Enjoy, and gimme a shout if you need help.
<O:p
EXO<O:p
Aka MadCowMoo
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/panhead_logo.png
The Premise<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
I always enjoy learning or finding out how to do stuff that I know nothing about. So my interest was twanged when I saw that epoch was getting a TrackIR Pro gadget. Like most of you, no doubt, I work on a budget and do without more by circumstance than choice.
<O:p
The Pitch
<O:p
So, welcome to Project Panhead, my heartfelt attempt to bring TrackIR to the masses without all the fanfare and trappings. If you want a workable and, after much testing, highly useable and easy to make solution, allow me to take you on a journey of discovery, the likes of which you haven't experienced since finding that old and dog-eared copy of "The Joy of Sex" under you parents' bed!
<O:p
The List
<O:p
<O:p
1 Baseball Cap, standard design and if possible all one colour with an adjustable strap at the rear and air-vent holes stitched in to the dome, although not mandatory.
<O:p
1/2 regular Wire Coat Hangers, the sort you get with your dry cleaning.
<O:p
1 Roll of Electricians Tape, used to wrap wires and avoid short circuits. I used tape the same colour as my baseball hat, looks neater.
<O:p
Few Cableties, small to medium gauge which will be used to secure cabling to the baseball hat.
<O:p
Soldering Iron and small gauge Solder.
<O:p
Pair of Bull Nose Pliers to bend coat hanger in to shape and Pair of Cutters/Snips to cut the hangers.
<O:p
Small piece of Hand-Bendable Metal, I used one of the bits you take out of the back of a PC to allow fitting a PCI Card.
<O:p
6 lengths of Small Gauge, Single Core Electrical Wire. I used 3 lengths of Green for +I’ve and 3 lengths of Green/Yellow for -I’ve, but anything will do. Make sure the lengths are enough to run from the front of the hat to the rear and back again.
<O:p
1x CATEYE Cycling Light. The one I used is in the picture. It is powered by batteries, has 3 internal LED's and a clip on the back. It is a front light so the LED's are white. There MUST be 3 LED'. 3 is perfect, but if there are more we can disable them. Any type will do, as long as it contains LED's.
<O:p
Batteries for the CATEYE Cycling Light.
<O:p
The Boring Theory Bit
<O:p</O:p
<O:p
Motion detection and analysis can be broken down in to a few things:
<O:p
- Make something move
- Observe its motion on camera
- Interpret the motion
- Instruct something to reproduce the motion
<O:p
In Project Panhead, I will demonstrate how to twin these actions with the following tools:
<O:p
- Your head
- WebCam
- Software
- LOMAC Cockpit View (F1)
<O:p
The basic idea will be to play with the settings on our WebCam in order that it shuts out all natural and ambient light, and that it only reads light we are going to produce from 3 LED's we are going to mount on the baseball hat. The 3 LED's will act as a 3 dimensional model, with their rest point as a reference and as you move your head, you change the distances between the 3 LED's that the software can then interpret as motion in a particular direction.
<O:p
Easy, ehh?
<O:p
The Construction
<O:p</O:p
<O:p
Using the cutters/snips cut a piece of coat hanger 30cm long. Cut another 12cm long and straighten both lengths. Our "wire-frame" which will be mounted on top of the brim of the baseball hat is going to support 3 LED's facing towards our PC monitor where our webcam will be mounted on top.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2340.jpg
<O:p
Bend over one end of the 12cm length and fashion it in to a small loop, just large enough for the other 30cm to slide through.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2341.jpg
<O:p
Bend the ends of the 30cm length to look like the picture below. Your aim is to finish up with about 14cm between the 2 ends of the wire, but enough of a shape to slip on to the end of the baseball cap's brim.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2342.jpg
<O:p
Slip the ring you made with the first hanger piece on to the brim section and centre it on the crossbar.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2345.jpg
<O:p
Now, work on our piece of bendable metal. The idea is to make a support for the joint of the two hanger pieces, so that it enables the "ringed" length to go up at an angle. I bent mine in to a triangle type shape and used the pliers to bend the very ends of the metal around the hanger joint. See my picture below.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2346.jpg
<O:phttp://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2348.jpg</O:p>
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2349.jpg
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2350.jpg
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2351.jpg
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2352.jpg
The dimensions of the frame we are building are:
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/size.gif
<O:p
Wrap the electrical tape around this complete joint to make it sturdy. Use as much as you need, the sturdier the better.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2353.jpg
<O:p
Next we are going to bend forward the top few cm of our angled hanger piece so that it points forward and in the same direction as the 2 lower stems which will be on the cap brim.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2354.jpg
<O:p
Now, time to investigate the source of our 3 LED's and our power supply - our CATEYE Cycling Light. Remove the lens cover to get access to the 3 LED's. Note the orientation of the LED's in the light fitting. I simply looked to see which way the flat side of the LED's (+ive) was facing and marked that side of the circuit board/light fitting as FLAT SIDE (+ive).
<O:p
Using the soldering iron, heat the solder on the legs of each LED and remove all 3 of them from the circuit board/light fitting. Strip the insulation off the ends of all 6 pieces of electrical wire and carefully solder them to the legs of the LED's.
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2356.jpg
As I said, I used one colour for one leg and another for the other. I made sure all the FLAT SIDE legs were soldered to GREEN WIRES and the other legs soldered to GREEN/YELLOW wires. Make sure that there is no contact made between the legs of each LED and carefully wrap electrical tape around the soldered areas, with a piece between the legs to prevent contact/shorting out.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2357.jpg
<O:p
Using electrical tape, mount the 3 LED's on the 3 ends of our wire frame, all facing forward.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2358.jpg
<O:p
Mount the wire frame on the brim, make a couple of holes in the brim and use cableties to secure the frame to the baseball hat. I used a large cabletie to secure our elbow joint to the brim to increase stability of the frame.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2361.jpg
<O:p
Continue wrapping tape around each set of 2 wires, binding them around the wire frame. When you reach the brim for the lower 2 LED's, stop and make a couple of holes through the brim at the edge where you can poke through cableties to neatly attach the wires to the brim edge.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2360.jpg
<O:p
I used a cap that has ventilation holes in the dome section so simply fed our LED cables through them at the front and out through the back, leaving enough slack so the wires fit snugly against the inside of the dome. A couple of cable ties help as well.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2363.jpg
<O:phttp://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2362.jpg
</O:p<O:p
Time for more soldering. The idea is to trim the ends of all 6 wires short enough to comfortably enter our cycle light fitting but allow movement for us to adjust the cap strap or replace the batteries. First, I drilled 3 holes in the cycle lights lens cap and slipped the lens on to the 3 pairs of cables.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2365.jpg
<O:p
Strip the ends of all 6 wires and carefully solder them on to the points where the legs of the LED's used to be. REMEMBER THE ORIENTATION - FLAT SIDE IS +IVE SO ATTACH THE WIRE FROM EACH FLAT SIDE LEG TO THE FLAT SIDE OR +I’VE SIDE IN THE LIGHT. That's why it was important to note the orientation earlier.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2366.jpg
<O:p
Insert the batteries, snap back the lens cover and clip the light on the rear adjustable strap of the baseball cap.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2370.jpg
<O:p
Turn the light on and voila, you should be all set. I also filed the ends of the 3 LED's flat. This increases their angle of light dispersal and makes it easier for the software and web cam to see them. My light has a 3 position switch function, lights flashing, lights steady, and lights off. Make sure you always use a light steady on state.
<O:p
http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2374.jpg
<O:phttp://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2375.jpg </O:phttp://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/DSCF2376.jpg
Plug in your webcam, not all work with this system, but the majority do. Stick it on top of your monitor in the centre, facing you.
</O:p<O:p
The Software
<O:p
<O:p
Download:
<O:p
AMCAP (http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/amcap.zip)
FREETRACK (http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/freetrack2.1.zip)
<O:p
AMCAP is very straight forward and is used to access our web cam settings. Put on your cap (Panhead) and turn it on. Start the AMCAP software after installing and select Options ---> Video Capture Filter. Here you need to reduce the exposure to zero, zero all other options and if available, turn off auto gain. This should make the viewing screen black and allow you to see the bright LED's. If not, don't worry, we can fix this in the tracking software by using the "threshold" slider. Exit AMCAP.
<O:p
Install the Freetrack software and start it. I now refer you to the software manual in PDF format for setting up and testing. It is very straight forward even after the translation from native French.
<O:p
MANUAL (http://www.madcowmoo.com//tutorials/freetrack/manuel2eng.pdf)
<O:p
Mine works fine after a 3 hour build time (as it is my first) and about 30 minutes tooling around with the sensitivity. I made a couple of customised profiles for myself as well, one specifically for LOMAC.
<O:p
Hope you have fun with this, and at a total cost of 10 quid, as I had everything except for the cycle light, it really is sweet. I think it rivals TrackIR and the only limitation is your imagination for mounting the LED's.
<O:p
This is merely a guide. I had fun making the cap my way. I am going to do another that is side mounted like the TrackIR Pro using another light or maybe an old Bluetooth headset.
<O:p
Enjoy, and gimme a shout if you need help.
<O:p
EXO<O:p
Aka MadCowMoo