Magnetometer reference point?

"kwaegel" wrote:
According to the SDK docs, the rift only uses the magnetometer for yaw correction when the rift is facing "somewhat close" to a predefined reference point. Does anyone know the reason for this facing direction requirement?

Probably so you do not get queasy when it does a yaw drift correction, rotating your viewpoint outside of your own control.

It would also be possible to do such corrections in small steps while you are turning above a certain threshold speed, making such corrections difficult to notice.

I know in half life 2 there seems to be a lot of drift while playing in my favorite control mode (6), but I'm not sure if they use the yaw correction even?

Correcting on fast movements seems like a good idea since everything is a blur anyway. I could see people developing a habit of shaking their head to recenter themselves in games. :)

As long as it's not a technical issue, it should be an easy change.

I'm a PhD student down at UNC-Chapel Hill, and my research group (EVE) has done a lot of work on redirected walking. We regularly turn people 180° without them noticing, so subtle yaw correction should be easy enough. There have already been several papers studying the rotation detection thresholds for stationary vs. turning heads.

I may eventually end up doing something more sophisticated, such as implementing an AHRS filter.