From: Daniel Delgado Subject: Re: TECH: A 'how-to' for cheap headtracking Date: Sat, 30 Sep 1995 19:38:02 -0700 From: Daniel Delgado >From: Robin Hollands >What an intriging device! If you're feeling a bit braver, you might >try opening your mouse and having a look at the two slotted wheels >that turn between the opto-transmitter and receiver. In most mice, you >can unsolder these and put them and the slotted wheel in a remote >system, with long(ish) wires running back to mouse. You can then set >up a simple boom (just for ease of positioning) using, say, a large >standard lamp, or make your own. At the end of the 'boom' you simply >have two perpendicular linkages: Why thank you for the info! I will certainly look out for your book. You're right, getting into the workshop/garage/bedroom is what it is all about. I actually played along the same lines as you did; i.e. using a substitute for the slotted wheels in the mouse (sad to say, there is a little micey cemetary in my workshop/garage/bedroom ... sigh) but decided that the resolution would be too coarse without playing with the diameter of the substitute and thus making it too fragile mechanically. About the use to the lamp parts... well this has been done before and I actually was looking for something that would avoid the problems traditionally associated with boom mounts. The major one I saw was the weight of the unit and the fact that there is in some fashion or another on most boom devices.... a heavy base swivel. This by itself is unconfortable because it forces body motions _around_ this central base swivel. The tracker mouse avoids this by having no such constraint; i.e. one can yaw the head or the head/shoulders without feeling too much constraint. My rationale for making it, and for releasing it on the net, was to make something _incredibly_ ch eap and extremely easy to make.... busting up lamps and mice go against this design goal. I want something that people who are butterfingers might want to play with... besides its FUN to cut up foam core. If I was going to make any improvement on this ... it would be to switch to a optical mouse, yknow, the ones that travel on a pad with a matrix on it. Because it makes it even lighter and more accurate... with no friction problems due to the mouse ball. Anyway, thank you for your comments. If you or any other person interested is going to be at the Human Factor's conference next week in San Diego, please contact me there! I would love to interact with other people who are interested in VR and also Human Factors. Regards Daniel Delgado --TAA02204.812514746/eos.arc.nasa.gov--