Track IR Alternative at less than half the price
-
I just wanna say that I’ve had mine for around ten years and haven’t had to replace anything! I’m so glad I made this purchase and got away from the plastic TIR stuff that I kept replacing. It was such a good purchase so many years ago.
If you’re wondering if it works as well, I’m here to tell you it works better in my opinion.
-
@16th-ACCW-Android do you still use the TIR camera and software … or PS3 camera or something else, with OpenTrack?
-
@16th-ACCW-Android I was aware of TIR since TIR 3 but wasn’t in a position to buy one until TIR 5. I got it with the LED clip. When I couldn’t buy a TIR, I toyed around with OpenTrack and webcams or PS cameras and it just wouldn’t work. Mind you, this was maybe 18-20 years ago so the hardware and software has definitely gotten better so I can see where current OpenTrack advocates come from.
However, my TIR simply worked from day 1, no hassles, and considering how much I use it, it’s maybe fractions of a penny per hour in cost at this point. Having said that, the LED clip is poorly designed and can’t take much abuse, if any. I pretty much bought a 3rd-party wireless option straight away, and never looked back. Wireless headset with a wireless LED clip setup simply means freedom!
I did consider the Delan Clip but didn’t like the exposed design at the time. Currently considering the GrassMonkey option or I read somewhere that you can put a Vive puck on your head and OpenTrack + Vive trackers can use that too.
-
Great to hear! Back when I got TIR5 (over ten yrs ago) it was the only option with any consistent precision, and being a young, dumb and impatient almost-30-year-old, I sprung for expedited shipping because apparently I had more dollars than sense back then… Of course, it arrived in two days, as it would have regardless, because the return address for the TIR headquarters and distribution center is literally TWO TOWNS OVER FROM ME!! <sigh>
Since then, I broke my first TrackClip Pro, and it was NOT cheap to replace at $40 - on top of that, I had to mod it myself to make it wireless with a rechargeable battery pack. That being said, the GUI and software are fully featured, leaving nothing to want (at least in my case), so I say IMHO the tiny sleek physical form factor and the software GUI are the only reason to purchase TIR over any other more affordable or even free options.
So glad that Delan Clip has continued to remain available as an alternative! PC gear NEEDS alternatives, and competition drives innovation.
-
@Atlas said in Track IR Alternative at less than half the price:
@16th-ACCW-Android I was aware of TIR since TIR 3 but wasn’t in a position to buy one until TIR 5. I got it with the LED clip. When I couldn’t buy a TIR, I toyed around with OpenTrack and webcams or PS cameras and it just wouldn’t work. Mind you, this was maybe 18-20 years ago so the hardware and software has definitely gotten better so I can see where current OpenTrack advocates come from.
However, my TIR simply worked from day 1, no hassles, and considering how much I use it, it’s maybe fractions of a penny per hour in cost at this point. Having said that, the LED clip is poorly designed and can’t take much abuse, if any. I pretty much bought a 3rd-party wireless option straight away, and never looked back. Wireless headset with a wireless LED clip setup simply means freedom!
I did consider the Delan Clip but didn’t like the exposed design at the time. Currently considering the GrassMonkey option or I read somewhere that you can put a Vive puck on your head and OpenTrack + Vive trackers can use that too.
Yep agreed with TIR5 and GrassMonkey “trackclip”! Working great for me, wish they had a wired passthrough like Naturalpoint’s since I still use wired headsets.
-
@Atlas I can vouch for GrassMonkey. The Joseph II Puck is my first headtracker so take what I say with a grain of salt, but it’s really good so far. Really smooth and no problems with it.
However I don’t personally know how other headtrackers perform.
It definitely needs some tweaking on OpenTrack, It has some preset profiles for some games, like DCS, MSFS, X-Plane and other sims. But I don’t think that it will take more than an hour or two to set a basic profile since you have experience with TIR. After that you definitely will have to do some minor personal tweaks but it’s not much work. Certainly not plug and play though.
Personally, I searched here for OpenTrack profiles and took Fish’s profile, saw how I liked it and have made my personal mini-tweaks as time goes by.
-
@unkindled @Snake122 either of you gentlemen know what the difference is between the Puck vs. the Odyssey?
At the moment, I’m really more interested in a different solution. My current PC setup means that if I look towards my left side, there is a point where the LEDs merge and TIR loses tracking so if a bandit is in a specific location relative to my jet, I will lose tally/padlock as TIR has a mini fit. I wish there was a “center” option or something like how TIR can work with the reflective strips, but with the LEDs.
@SemlerPDX My TIR5 is about 13 years old at this point. There was a time when my Track Clip was held on by blutac and modelling putty…
-
@Atlas I also would prefer some sort of inertial sensor … seems like if they’re good enough for VR headsets they’d be stable and accurate enough for head tracking.
-
@Atlas Nothing other than their shape as far as I know. Maybe Puck is also lighter, but the difference is probably insignificant.
As for the LED merging, I’m sure you’ve probably tried it but has sitting a bit further away from the sensor helped in any way? Grassmonkey claim 60° FOV for their sensor, so a bit more than the TIR5 iirc, but still maybe not enough.
-
@unkindled I can’t really move further/closer as a limitation of my pit setup and monitors. It is when looking upwards that the bottom LED covers the middle LED so it is understandable for TIR to get confused.
@airtex2019 IIRC there is also an option to use a mobile phone’s accelerometers for this but I’m sceptical about it.
-
Gyroscope with proper smoothing would be cool.
I’m gonna try OpenTrack face tracking (NeuralNet tracker) some more. I’ve tried once it with my laptop cam once and result were good enough.
I bought unmodded PS3 EYE cam, with some tweaks to the profile tracking was quite smooth, once light source was in front of me rather than behind my back. It don’t have to be strong, just good enough to lit face. It worked even better in daylight and it wasn’t susceptible to light spots behind me, unlike trackir-like solutions.
Nice thing is you don’t have to wear silly looking attachments to your hat/headset and you don’t have to worry about led markers going outside of cam fov.
Absolutely worth giving a try. -
@Xeno said in Track IR Alternative at less than half the price:
try OpenTrack face tracking (NeuralNet tracker) some more
I did try this, it was surprisingly effective. I like the idea that the NN work is offloaded to phone or laptop. But there was some definitely some lag… not sure if due to network packets or if the processing was intensive.
On similar note I discovered this new(?) product… AimXY I don’t know if the hardware is just a cam and they do the NN in software (consuming CPU) or if the hardware is doing most of the work.
One of the video reviewers is a popular VR channel and the guy clearly expected to hate on it, but basically loved it, lol
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aimxy+head+tracking
-
@airtex2019
?? I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing. OpenTrack NeuralNet tracker uses local camera to track face movement.
Its only downside I found so far, is higher cpu usage. 60FPS camera used 100% of one of the threads, which is double of what freetrack tracker did. -
@Xeno oh I thought you could run it on laptop and connect to OpenTrack via udp connection…
perhaps I conflated it with this app, for iOS / Android devices
(there are a few others, all similar)
I hear the iPhones with FaceID work particularly well, but I haven’t tested that myself yet.