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FreeTrack Forum > FreeTrack : English Forum > Support : Tracking System > How to improve 1-point setup in lots of light situation

RSS >  How to improve 1-point setup in lots of light situation, IR vs regular LED
xxtraloud #1 10/08/2012 - 22h46

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I finally managed to get my setup working after countless hours of troubleshooting. I am using a 1-point for a hands free mouse setup. Free track is really the smoothest of all the software I tried, much better than many that use face detection and are dedicated to only mouse movement.

I am using one infrared LED the SFP, the problems I have are two though.

1. I have the new model PS3 Eye and I use three camera film in front of it, it works but it doesn't solve the problem completely because at some point I have to turn on some lights. I am facing the window so natural light it's not the biggest issue. I played a lot around with gain/exposure/threshold but if I increase expsoure I get other lights in or I get too small of a light from my led. If I remove the IR and keep using the film camera will it improve things?

2. I know people here keep saying that IR leds are preferred to regular LED but I had good results with a bicycle led light. Has anybody compared the two setups?
xxtraloud #2 11/08/2012 - 01h42

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I am just replying to myself in hope it might be useful to someone else.

I tried again the bike LED but it had a very limited angle.

Then I decided to take a risk and remove the IR filter on my PS eye, I was not sure if it was the "bad" or "good", I am still not sure even looking at that guy's blog with pics. Anyways I removed what I think it's the IR filter then I put the same film camera. Now I can increase the threshold and get a nice big dot from my IR Led. So maybe it actually worked. Tomorrow I will do more testing.
Steph #3 12/08/2012 - 19h13

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Has anybody compared the two setups?



Yes. Ir-LEDs are definitely the better solution. Mainly under difficult light conditions.
wormeaten #4 16/08/2012 - 02h12

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first of all turn of automatic set up and play a bit with gain and lightness in your camera set up in free track.

Also you should set up jiter too.

For me with IR LED even without removing IR filter from my PS3 Eye it is working great but need to set up every time I want to use it depend on light in room. Better working in darker room.

;)
xxtraloud #5 17/08/2012 - 11h52

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ok I can confirm that I have the "good" ps3 eye and what I removed was in fact the IR filter. Now the camera only sees the IR led and it's working great. very smooth, perfect tracking. Now the only problem I have is that since I use this as a mouse I have set sensitivity very high but I have the problem that every so often the skull goes to -160 degrees so I can't move any further in that direction, and I can't reach that part of the screen. Is there a way to set free track so it doesn't stop at -160 degrees?

thanks
Steph #6 17/08/2012 - 12h15

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Yes,
Under "Curves" the default output value of the curves are up to 160°.
Pull them up to 180° with left mouse klick.

Posted Image
Edited by Steph on 08/11/2012 at 10h16.
xxtraloud #7 02/10/2012 - 11h59

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Thank you steph. Your feedback is always precious. I finally managed to calibrate free track and now it works perfectly as a mouse. However now the biggest problem I have is with daylight. Unless I just change the batteries so my LED is very bright then I can set a high threshold daylight that reflects on objects is a problem. I have added three film camera layers and as I already said removed the IR filter. Is there anything else I need to do to reduce the daylight. Should I add more layers of film?
Steph #8 02/10/2012 - 12h53

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Hi,
finding a good Ir-pass-filter isn't that easy, (except buying one).
Some older electronics with remote control contains a build in ir-filter in front of the ir-receiver-diode, (piece of black plastique . This is the best filter I have found yet. Otherwise, combined colour-filter green, red, blue gives good results also. Simply put layers with felt pen coloured transparent plastic film together makes it also. It has to appear black for your eyes, but ir pass.
You do not need good optical quality because you only track dots with relatively low resolution.

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FreeTrack Forum > FreeTrack : English Forum > Support : Tracking System > How to improve 1-point setup in lots of light situation

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