Mobile HMD - best head tracking solution?

[apollon01 25]

Hi Captains,

Few days ago I decided (too) to get into the world of low-cost VR flying experience (and yes, since then I fly less and tweak & test more) - using my android smartphone and a cheapo adjustable HMD.

My question to you - more seasoned VR users - is what works best for you in terms of head tracking? I tried out the following:

1) Connection: I connected PC and smartphone through wifi hotspot (my smartphone does not connect via USB as the connector is damaged ; fortunately it still charges) - OK.

2) 3D effect: Depth3D reshade effect (free) - it needs some tweaking and setting but gives a nice not-too-exaggerated 3D effect - OK.

3) Streaming to smartphone: Moonlight (free) for my Nvidia card - OK.

...and now it comes...

4) Head tracking smartphone side:

   4.1) HeadTracker (free) from Google Play - drifts quite a bit - not OK.

   4.2) FreePIE IMU (free) as part of OpenTrack - could not get this one working neither with OpenTrack nor FaceTrackNoIR - not OK.

   4.3) Trinus VR (time limited demo for free) - used only for head tracking; drifts a good deal less than HeadTracker - almost OK .

5) Head tracking PC side:

   5.1) FaceTrackNoIR (costs few euros; with HeadTracker on smartphone) - drifts as mentioned before and moreover FaceTrackNoIR does not support more than +/- 50 degrees (real) head rotation (for VR I need 1:1 head tracking of course) - not OK.

   5.2) OpenTrack (free; with HeadTracker on smartphone) - drifts quite a bit - not OK.

   5.3) Trinus VR (with Trinus VR on smartphone and OpenTrack on PC) - I settled on this one so far as, though complicated, it gives the best results so far; Trinus VR on my smartphone feeds PC based Trinus VR with head position data and PC based Trinus VR feeds this data to OpenTrack that communicates to the sim - it still drifts but not so much as the two solutions above - almost OK .

 

Well... as you can see the solution is quite cumbersome and complicated to set up but the result is there... except for a precise head tracking. I suppose that my smartphone (far from being a high-end one) is to be blamed as well but I could not check with another one to be sure. It drifts. When I move my head a lot, it drifts more. Drift kills immersion.

 

What are your solutions for head tracking (and on which smartphone)?

Do you also experience drift?

How about Rift and Vive - do they drift as well?

 

Thank you for any feedback on this one.

Regards,

 

Milan

[HiFlyer 9,343]

 

 

[apollon01 25]

Thanks HiFlyer, 

Nolo VR looks good (a bit pricey though) but it can't do rotation tracking. It provides position tracking only and leaves rotation tracking on the smartphone (susceptible to all the flaws described above). 

Nolo v2 should be coming out in some time. Worth keeping an eye on them I think. 

Milan

[apollon01 25]

Maybe an inside-out motion tracking would be a solution? In a simplified language, it is about using your phone camera to generate 6DOF tracking data from what the camera sees in the real world. Great idea and very interesting indeed! Getting this to work with OpenTrack would make the trick  I will try to get in touch with the OpenTrack developer to see what he thinks...

https://community.arm.com/graphics/b/blog/posts/mobile-inside-out-vr-tracking-now-on-your-phone-with-unity