Help getting TrackIR 'stable' please

[martinlest2 58]

I have had TrackIR 5 for years, but gave it an airing yesterday for the first time in a very long time (like three years!). I soon saw why I stopped using it - it seems very temperamental. One minute it is OK, next my trying to look to the left causes the view to fly all over the place... I am constantly having to recentre the view and my default VC eyepoint ends up being somewhere like the back of the captain's seat,or whatever. I spent an hour trying to adjust the profile in the advanced settings to get something calm and usable, but gave up in frustration.

 

Rather than never use it, does anybody have some tips on getting TrackIR to function stably and not have the view skitter all over the cockpit? I have no or little extra light coming in to the pro clip.

 

I also wonder why they made the clip top fixed rather than able to rotate, so that you can secure it to a pair of glasses. I have never found a way to 'attach' it to my head that I don't find irritating pretty soon. I don't want to wear headphones. I bought a woman's hair band but I find it uncomfortable with the clip attached. What a 'design flaw' not to have made the clip in such a way that it will snap onto a pair of spectacles, which these days I have to wear at the PC in any case!

 

Thanks.

[Cargostorm 151]

Have you tried in a dark room? Sometimes TrackIR is irritated by daylight and this can cause that weird behaviour.

 

Playing with the profiles is one solution, but it can be a real mess. Just yesterday I realized that I have a weird behaviour with my TrackIR until I found out that some settings in the profile were changed. Luckily, I had a backup of my profile which I could use.

 

If you have an angle of attack (AoA) account, you could also look for a profile there (MD11 extras), which works nicely in the sim, or maybe have a look in the avsim library.

[martinlest2 58]

Updated the software to the latest version... and I downloaded a supposedly good profile for FS2004,

 

https://forums.naturalpoint.com/viewtopic.php?p=38618#p38618

 

but it's still got a mind of its own.

 

I don't want to run FS in a dark room - I can't read stuff I need with FS for one thing -  I do pull a curtain across, but I don't think light is a problem, the sensor is protected from any direct light falling on it. The lateral motion is OK with tweaking, but every time I look down the view suddenly flashes to the back of the cockpit.

 

And the programme hangs every time I want to shut it down:

 

https://forums.naturalpoint.com/viewtopic.php?p=38854

 

Plus I just find wearing some sort of headband and the wires etc trailing across my shoulder too distracting... Life's too short - I am putting this back in the cupborad where it came from! Pity, 'cos it wasn't cheap!

[CW46 101]

I agree with the dark room, find it difficult to use if any daylight gets to the camera. In P3D I almost prefer to use a controller hat switch rather than TrackIR and tend to suspend it when looking away from the screen.

[martinlest2 58]

I may have another go at night then! :Raised Eyebrow:

[scottb613 1,188]

A window with direct sunlight directly behind me and in the camera's field of view - wreaked the same havoc with me for ages until I figured it out... A dark window shade solved the issue for me...

 

Regards,
Scott

[MarkDH 234]

You need to narrow this down to what kind of problem you are having. It certainly doesn't sound like a profile issue so tinkering with the profile is probably a waste of time until you get it stable. The 'skittering all over' description suggests an unexpected light source confusing the camera, but other things you say suggest it's about you exceeding the angle of view the camera can see. For the latter, if you look too far up or down the camera will lose at least one of the three targets and you will see the behaviour you describe. Either way, the most useful fault-finding tool is the TrackIR 'camera view'. This will show you the light sources being tracked - you should see three well-defined green blobs that move with your head. If you see any other light sources, this is your problem.

 

As for the trailing wires etc., try the passive hat clip. It's much less hassle and works fine. You don't need to be in the dark, you just need to make sure there are no powerful light sources in the camera's FOV - again, use the camera view to check. Check out my video below to see this in action...

 

 

 

[slip-stream 5]

Funny story that Mark. Lol. I never use mine for complex flying, ie, 737 NGX but do for rotary where I can just fly and not worry about mouse clicks every 5 secs.

[martinlest2 58]

Thanks a lot for the posts... I will look at this again when I get the energy back, maybe tomorrow, I got a bit fed up with it today after an hour or more.

 

A typical problem was looking down, as I say - to test I moved very slowly, and hardly at all, the view started to to move too, but before I had got very far at all the view would suddenly flip to the back wall of the cockpit.

 

I also need to find a less irritating way of fixing the clip to my head than the hair band I use now - it's really uncomfortable, which taps my patience before I even start... So stupid the clip isn't compatible with a pair of reading glasses!

 

I'll post back with any (or no) progress soon!

 

Thanks again.

[slip-stream 5]

Hi Martin. I use a baseball cap on my head, loose.

 

I think you have your sensor too close to the clip. I know the sensor is supposed to sit on top of your monitor but if, like me, you sit quite close, then you need to position the sensor further back. I placed a small shelf on my wall in the mid-distance and all is well now.

I would suggest a distance of roughly 2 metres.

[ark 1,288]

If you can't look down "far enough" with TrackIR, another thing you can try is looking a bit higher when you hit the center key. Usually when the camera can no longer "see" the three light sources (or reflections in my case) the view will freeze. 

 

BTW, I use the passive three reflector "hat clip" on top of a baseball cap and it works great. And, of course, there are no wires to deal with.

 

The camera should be at about eye level, see the trackIR manual regarding camera position. As suggested above, a good test to run is to put the TrackIR Camera view on the screen and watch the green dots as you slowly move your head. It will show you at what head positions you loose one or more of the green dots -- you need all three for proper operation.

 

My camera is about 36 inches from my eyes.

 

Regarding TrackIR hanging on shutdown, I find I have to first shut down FSX, then TrackIR will shut down OK. I also have to start TrackIR before FSX.

 

I would find it hard to fly without something like TrackIR.  I think it will be worth your time to get it operating as intended.

 

Good luck,

Al

[molleh 451]

Like MarkH said above, you need to look at the Camera View window of the TrackIR app while moving your head around. There are 3 main issues that cause these types of quirky TrackIR behaviors:

 

1. Extraneous IR light sources the camera picks up. Like MarkH's video shows, it's not just a "source" but also anything reflective can cause this. In fact, at one point I discovered my own Track Clip Pro was causing issues because the camera was actually picking up glints of light reflecting off the black plastic "stems" of the clip itself. The Camera View will show these types of errors. To fix, correct light sources/reflections. You can also reduce the IR light sensitivity. Since the Track Clip Pro uses LEDs, you can get by with pretty low IR sensitivity before the camera starts having trouble seeing the LEDs.

 

2. The three LEDs getting "out of order" from the camera's point of view. In other words, depending on how the camera is positioned relative to your Track Clip Pro (height, distance, and side to side position) you might discover, for example, the top LED is crossing over the middle LED from the camera's POV. This causes the software to flip out as the maths for calculating your head position suddenly get thrown all out of wack. To fix, adjust position of your camera and/or your clip to avoid the dots getting "out of order."

 

3. One or more of the Track Clip Pro's LEDs are going totally out of the camera's POV. You might need to aim the camera up/down or side to side (or move its position completely) to avoid this. Again, check the Camera View to see if this is happening or not.

[RW1 615]

Make sure that if your using EZdok or OpusFSI camera you will need to disable 2 files in the Trackir folder. simconnect.manifest and simconnectsp2.manifest.

[Steff 0]

For me it's the software: with ver. 5 the view jumps all over the place. Ver. 4 no problem at all. The hardware is Trackir 5.

[martinlest2 58]

Haven't really started going through advice here yet (I will, in detail!) but I wondered if the fact that I need reading glasses and wear them when at the PC is an important factor. Googling this, it seems that some people put down their TrackIR issues to this.. I am simply going to attach the clip to my glasses with some small elastic bands.

 

Anyone else find v4 software much steadier than v.5? I could try it (assuming I can find it)..