## 3D VR Headtracking test

After the first successful test of my webcam marker tracking algorithm, it’s now time for the real deal.

The purpose of my experiment, is to be able to detect the position of my head in 3D space, by processing the webcam-captured frames, locating the 2 markers, and then performing an inverse projection from 2D space to 3D space. That information can be used to set the view-point of a 3D environment to follow the motions of the user’s head, thus increasing the user’s immersion in the 3D world considerably. Simple, natural motions of the user’s head, are carried along in the virtual world, making the screen act as a window into that 3D environment.

Of course the point tracking code from my previous test is the same. However, I modified my tracking program to accept local connections from client programs that need to use that tracking information ($x, y$ normalized position of each marker). Then I wrote a test program, that renders a simple OpenGL “world” (a bunch of balls and a couple of coordinate grids), and uses the marker positions from the other program, to calculate the user’s head 3D position, and set up the virtual camera to coincide with that.

Once again, you may watch the result at youtube. There’s still some way to go, and some details to be ironed out… I’ll keep you posted on anything new with this experiment :)

Oh, and of course, the code is always available at my subversion repository:

 webcam marker tracking program (server): svn://nuclear.dnsalias.com/pub/compvis/cam_test 3D environment test (client): svn://nuclear.dnsalias.com/pub/compvis/vr_test my webcam library (used by cam_test): svn://nuclear.dnsalias.com/pub/libwcam
Posted in hacks. 11 Comments »