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RSS >  Freetrack strange behavior, can't look right
Habu #1 30/08/2008 - 21h05

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I am having issues with my freetrack previously not experienced. My old hard drive had a perfectly working Open Falcon profile but a virus infected the HD so I had to wipe it clean. I am now making a new profile but running into severe problems. For some reason I can look very smoothly to the left. However, when I look right and down, the freetrack becomes extremely unstable and it either crashes or the "virtual head" looks 180 degrees backward and is pointing straight down? Why am i experiencing issues when looking right?
Ben #2 31/08/2008 - 10h59

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Hey,
You should try to tweak the curves.
Habu #3 31/08/2008 - 17h26

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the curves have been tweaked. When I turn my head to the right the tracking is fine. When I turn my head to the left the tracking becomes horrible and becomes ballistic. Why is this?
Chris0382 #4 06/09/2008 - 12h19

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When you turn left, free track or the camera may not see the LEDs properly and any loss of sight of the LED's (even just for a second) will cause a stutter in the viewing.

You may have to readjust so the LED's appear brigthter to the camera. I find my self doing this quite often as the lighting in the room changes.
Habu #5 07/09/2008 - 05h05

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hmm very interesting. I will try and play with my webcam sliders. Please note that the LED's appear very distinctively on the freetrack program. The 3 dots (cap design) are very distinct and have a stable cross on each LED. The following is what happens.

When freetrack is activated I try and look down and yaw left and right. When I turn my head to the right it works fine. When I turn my head to the left, this is what happens:

Posted Image


Posted Image

Posted Image

Posted Image


at this point freetrack locks up or it crashes.

This does not happen when I yaw my head to the right and pitch down. This only happens when I yaw my head to the left.

This situation escalates whenever I look farther down.
Edited by Habu on 07/09/2008 at 05h08.
Chris0382 #6 07/09/2008 - 10h45

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Looks like it lost view of the LED going left-down. Is your camera on the side of you monitor pointing to you at an angle.

Try and get the camera closer to you and maybe make adjustment to threshold and gamma of your web cam.

I had the same issue and wasnt solved until lots of tweaking.

Those 3 green dots on the lower right of the program window; do they turn red when you look down-left. They should stay constantly green to show 100% view of LEDS.
Habu #7 07/09/2008 - 18h04

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no, my camera is straight in front of me. I did check to see if the 3 LED's on the bottom left of the freetrack program would go from green to red. When I looked down right, the 3 LED's would rapidly flicker red and then go green again. Sometimes it didn't appear to go red at all. Despite all of this, the freetrack "head" still ended up like the pictures I posted. This problem does not occur when I go up right, but rather down right.

These are my camera settings:

Brightness=33
Contrast=1.00
Gamma=1.00
Hue=0
Saturation=0.00
Sharpness=7.99
USB Bandwith=7
Auto Exposure=0 and off
White Balence=Disabled
Indoor mode
Flicker=60 Hz
Backlight Comp and B/W mode are disabled

Threshold setting is around 40% of the bar
Left being 0%, Right being 100%

Could you give me your threshold and camera settings so I can try and emulate a successful freetrack camera profile?
Edited by Habu on 07/09/2008 at 18h12.
Chris0382 #8 07/09/2008 - 21h03

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Im always adjusting my threshold depending on day night etc. so it never stays the same.

Lets start off with what camera are you using.
What LEDs did you get.
What is the characteristics of you circuit.
How if you did, did you modify your camera.
Habu #9 07/09/2008 - 23h40

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I'm using Microsoft LifeCam VX3000

LED's are the OSRAAM IR LED's

3 LED's Cap Design.

Series Circuit with 14 ohms resistance ( I dont remember.. I could be completely wrong)

I modified my camera by popping open case, unscrewing the lens, taking out IR filter, rescrewing the lends, and putting cover back on. I have a floppy disk circle to cover the external lens to prevent ambient light.

It is important to note that on my old hard drive freetrack was working perfectly with my model and webcam and I was not having the "inability to look right and down" issue. Please see these videos that I made to see how well it was working.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wQ6dpkhi_c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTmg1y0iXko
Edited by Habu on 07/09/2008 at 23h41.
Chris0382 #10 08/09/2008 - 00h38

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Before re-installing. Can you manipulate the manual focus by screwing the lense in or out. I had an issue until I did so with mine.
Habu #11 08/09/2008 - 02h52

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yes I am able to manually screw the outside of the lens in and out. I have gotten my Freetrack to be relatively stable when looking right but I am still having problems if I try to look all the way behind me and to the right.
Chris0382 #12 08/09/2008 - 11h10

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Just another suggestion then. Have you adjusted the curvs all the way to the right upper corner so little movement means lots of response so you don't have to turn you head as far tp look back ?

Im out of suggestions at this point and hope others can help.
Habu #13 09/09/2008 - 05h06

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are u saying that all my points on the graphs need to be on upper right of the graph?

right now most of the graphs look like Radical X  graphs. With the points on the 0 value of the X axis and increasing on they Y axis.
Chris0382 #14 09/09/2008 - 11h10

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Actually a perfect straight line from lower left to upper right to begin with.
Habu #15 11/09/2008 - 02h17

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I could try that but then I would be negating the freetrack's function for Open Falcon since I would have to keep my head extremely still and thus fatiguing my neck. Could you summarize why this issue is happening to me (assuming you know the facts of my freetrack) and what you did exactly to fix this?

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