Taps as Input on the Rift

"Felix12g" wrote:
I remember seeing a mention a couple weeks ago about tap and double tap events being captured with the DK sensors. (I think geekmaster mentioned grabbing them?) Anyways, I was reminded of that again this morning in a discussion on menu interfaces.

I have to admit I've been too busy to keep up with the forum of late, so I wanted to see if this went anywhere?

Events: Single and Double Taps, third? fourth?
Directions: Top, Bottom, Left, Right, Front

I will publish something soon. I need to spend more time with my nose buried in code than in forum posts, and I need to switch from input mode to output mode again. I have been studying a lot of "other people's" code for awhile now. I love learning what "makes it tick". I am fond of GPU programming (for my RasPi) and low-latency lock-free multi-core programming (for my Ouya and core i7) lately...

For tap and double-tap, you just need to high-pass filter the accelerometer axes and do gesture pattern recognition on the results. The deal is to plot your data, then code event discriminators for unique event-coupled patterns you see in the data...

I suggested before the idea of placing sticky rubber feet on the Rift in various spots, to act as tactile feedback for the places to tap that the software is tuned to recognize.

The sensor chip itself already has built-in tap and double-tap detection, but this is not proxied to the HID packets, and it is easy enough to do it in software just from the raw HID data provided by the Rift Tracker DK HID device, just as I described above. This code really needs an API though, perhaps with keyboard key-stuffing macro support so any program can use it...

It would be interesting to see just how many different virtual keys we can support this way.

Good to hear that the chip supports it rather than needing people to roll their own events.

Locations could be interesting, but I'm not sure how accurate you can assume without being able to see your hand. The rubber feet as locators would work, but you'd need to locate those first then do your tap/double tap. Hard to say how that would feel until you try it I guess.

Canopy is a local company here that rolled out the Sensus phone case in January. In short, its a touch interface for the back of your phone and a strip on the side.

Depending on the eventual setup with cameras on the front of the Rift, you might be able to go with a touch interface in addition to the regional tap inputs.