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From: mmachlis@athena.mit.edu (Matthew A Machlis)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Cheap head tracking
Message-ID: <1991May20.053159.18067@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 20 May 91 04:01:16 GMT
Article-I.D.: milton.1991May20.053159.18067
Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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I just thought I would relate my experience with head tracking:

I was using a Polhemus system with VPL Eyephones helmet mounted display,
but decided that the delay with the Polhemus was unacceptable.  So I spent
about a month and a half designing and building a mechanical arm which is
fixed to a base at one end, with the other end attached to the person's
head.  It has six joints, the angles of which are measured by potentiometers
fed into an a-d board in a PC-clone.  This gives 6-DOF head state, with
virtually no delay.  If the arm is well-designed, it is almost unnoticable
to a person wearing the Eyephones.  One problem is calibrating it if you
need very high accuracy, but if not it seems to be a good solution.

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Matt Machlis
MIT Space Systems Laboratory
(617)253-2272