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NateroniPizza
Participant
June 11, 2014

Project Holodeck-Based Setup?

Hello, all!

I just recently returned from a 10-month-long period of time when I did not have access to my Rift. Upon returning, I tried a few demos, but wasn't very impressed (I had trouble getting immersed... I believe it's due to the low resolution and slow pixel switching). That is, until I tried this one (http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=18283). That demo blew me away... I've seen the general idea (using one Hydra controller strapped to the chest for positional tracking, and using the other for interacting with the world), but had never tried it. I got so focused on staying behind cover, and returning fire, that I pretty much forgot about the real world around me.

Needless to say, I am super excited about the idea of positional tracking. Because of this, I am looking into trying to set up a positional tracking system based on Project Holodeck (which, it looks like, is called Survios now).

At first, I looked into using some cheap webcams (due to not only my current financial situation, but also becaues I'll likely only get a couple months' use out of them, as I will not have access to my Rift for another ten months starting at the end of this summer) to track my motion. I asked on MTBS3D about this, but was pointed in the direction of a couple other options. One of which was the PS Move.

When thinking about possbilities for motion tracking, I had prematurely written off the PS Move (like used in Project Holodeck) as too expensive, even though I had never looked up the price (I had assumed the Move + Eye to be similarly priced to the Kinect, which I looked into a little last year). However, looking on Amazon, they are super cheap.

Because of this, I am looking for information regarding the setup that the Project Holodeck/Survios team is using/has used. I already have the Rift and Hydra, so at this point it sounds like I'd only need a PS Eye and one or two Moves.

Is there any place that they have documented their work in-depth? The best I can find is (http://www.projectholodeck.com/system), where they just list what they used. I also see on their website that they have the demos for download, but what hardware do they support? Is it only Rift + Hydra, or is it the full-blown thing they have been demoing? (according to (http://www.projectholodeck.com/zombies-on-the-holodeck), it sounds like it is the former). Also, it looks like on their new site, they don't have the updated version up yet. Any word on when they might release the latest build?

And lastly, how well would the PS Move + Eye work outside? I may be able to clear out an area that is 8x10 feet or so in our house, but if I could take it outside, my usable space would be huge.

Thanks!
ElectroPulse

    4 replies

    GoesTo11
    Up and Coming
    June 15, 2014
    I don't know about hooking up the Move directly to the PC but if you have the ps3 you can download the move.me software which will stream the 3D rotations and positions over a network. Here is the link: http://us.playstation.com/ps3/playstation-move/move-me/ They have sample c and c# code. If you are using Unity there is a plugin.
    lmaceleighton
    Up and Coming
    June 15, 2014
    Try Free Track, there are easy instruction on how to modify the PS move camera( I did it myself), which is removing the IR filter and adding another filter to get rid of ambient light. Then you can mount anywhere from 1 to 4 IR LED's, using diffusers work best(like the MS Move Ping Pong globes). Infact the best would be to do the mod to the camera and then pit IR LED in the move handheld devices. This works great for me.

    FreeTrack: http://www.free-track.net/english/
    Fredz
    Up and Coming
    June 16, 2014
    You can use the PS Move API. Here is a positional tracking test I did two years ago with minor modifications to the code (on Linux) :



    I guess it should have evolved a bit since then and that no modification to the code would be needed now.
    zalo
    Up and Coming
    June 17, 2014



    They're just using regular old blob tracking shining an LED into a jumbo ping-pong ball (the xy position of the ball corresponding to the xy position relative to the camera, and the radius of the ball corresponding to the distance from the camera (radius being sqrt(area/pi))). It's easy enough that it can be done in a single C# script in Unity in the webcam feed as I did above.

    To answer your question: Nope, it would not work well outside. The system relies on being able to pick out a cyan sphere that is brighter than the surrounding environment. In sunlight I'm afraid the light from a PSMove would be completely drowned out/overpowered.

    There's a trick you can try (though I've never tried it) if you want to build your own system:
    1) Get a super bright LED that shines at one particular wavelength.
    2) Get a optical Narrow Pass filter for that same wavelength and put it in front of the PSEye.

    So now you can filter out 95% of the ambient sunlight and hopefully see the light of the ball clearly.

    There was a short lived 3D system that relied on this technique (where there were two projectors, each with slightly different frequencies for red, green, and blue; and each lens on the glasses filtered out the other's reds, greens, and blues so each eye got its own full color image; it was nice because the effect didn't break when you turned your head).
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