New Head Tracking Solution

[jon_rogan]

There is a new smart phone app just out which tracks your head position using the phone camera, and feeds it to Opentrack via wifi. Its called SmoothTrack and sells for $9.99 / £9.99

After a bit of usual tweaking of Opentrack settings I have got it working really well on BOS. Very impressed. No wires / headsets / LEDs / special cameras and very cheap. Would recommend it.

 

Here are the links:-

 

http://inflightassistant.com/smoothtrack/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpTF89_fCyc

[56RAF_Roblex]

How good is it at tracking you when your head is turned a long way to check your six or looking straight down or Straight up?    Does it struggle at all when you are in a scissors and whipping your head around rapidly?  Be honest.

I found TrackIr sometimes struggled with both of these so I gave up and got EDTracker instead.

[jon_rogan]

I have no experience of other tracking solutions. However to me it seems pretty good. I can check my six easily by leaning either left or right and at the same time turning my head. My experience is that fine tuning Opentrack is the key, and maybe took me an hour maximum of trial and error before I got the movement I needed. You need to set your default head position in the cockpit first and press F10 before starting Opentrack and SmoothTrack. I hadn't done this as I thought I could adjust my default head position using SmoothTrack/Opentrack but I was wrong. To be honest I wouldn't now try any of the other head tracking solutions. Next step would likely be VR?

[RNAS10_Oliver]

Yeh same situation/question as Roblex. Does this need to see your face to function? Also how does the lighting conditions in the room affect it?

 

Tried out some facetracknoir and homemade trackir and them needing to see my face and loosing tracking when my head was turned (webcams viewpoint no longer seeing my face) annoying.

Also using edtracker also though which has served me well. Despite the limited 3 degrees freedom (pseudo 6 degrees freedom) and some drifting sometimes as downsides.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Oliver88

[jon_rogan]

Yes it needs to see your face to function. I have found no issues with lighting. Works with daylight and with lamp light at night. It doesn't seem to lose track when your head is turned. It gets confused a little when I take a sip of my beer, but quickly recovers as soon as the bottle is put back on the desk :). This system also has true  6 degrees of freedom.

[norsetto]

Do you know if this would also work through usb?

[jon_rogan]

From the information I have, its seems to be only set up to link to your PC via wifi. Into your phone you input your PC's IPv4 address and the port number used by Opentrack.

[56RAF_Roblex]

I might give it a try.  EDTracker works well and there is kind off a workaround for faking 'sliding sideways' and 'sitting up and slouching' but if this app gave me those extra directions properly and was as reliable as EDTracker when it comes to not losing track or lagging then it would be good.  OTOH,  most of  the rave reviews on Google Play are from MSFS which is very undemanding on tracking and I have seen some four star reviews comment on lag.    Shame there is not a 30 day trial as £10 is a reasonable amount to spend on something that does not work out.

[jon_rogan]

Seems pretty good at not losing track but I wouldn't know about lagging as I haven't the experience with the other systems.

[marcobona]

I purchased SmoothTrack for iPhone just yesterday. Tested in several hours of play, and I must say that it does its duty very well! After spending time and money to set up the best webcam and Tracking Clip this system is much simpler and much less expensive (it costs only 11.99€).  Just follow the online guide here to configure it to work in conjunction with your PC. No more cables, webcams, tracking clips hanging annoying everywhere; it's all much quicker and easier. Also online you can find ready-made configurations for IL-2. The only small problem is the battery consumption of your smartphone, since the camera and the program constantly turned on take up a lot of resources. In two hours of play my battery dropped from 100% to 80%.

Edited October 29, 2022 by marcobona

[richard23]

Hmm.. Over a year since the last post on this subject but I thought I'd add my own, which MAY be of some help to anyone struggling with getting things running (as I did)..

 

Having just completed a new pc setup and bought a decent set of wireless earphones, I wanted to try SmoothTrack so I didn't have to be tethered to the rig or have a clip strapped to my head. 

 

Getting SmoothTrack set up on my phone was simple, as was installing Open Track on the pc.. Getting them both to communicate with each other, had me beat for three days!.. Whatever I tried, that damn octopus refused to move and the "NO VIDEO" message mocked my efforts.

 

Now, when it comes to computers, I'm the first to admit I understand very little. I can hold my own with the hardware bits but the software side is where I really struggle. I was fairly certain I'd set everything up correctly but something was wrong. When I set Open Track to test itself, it worked perfectly so I connected back to the 3 point clip system and again, it worked just fine but connecting back to my android phone and changing to the correct input setting, still produced nothing.

 

A bit more thinking and I realised that although my phone is connected to the home broadband router, it should also be connected to my pc to work.... (And here the fun started)... Following the on screen prompts, made obvious by Microsoft for linking your phone to their organisation, linked my phone to every other pc and laptop in the house for notifications, etc but still wouldn't get a twitch from the octopus..

 

By this point, I had every sympathy for all the people who's comments I'd read on different forums, saying it just wouldn't work. They'd followed the instructions to the letter, tried all the suggested fixes and in the end, given up in frustration and gone back to 3 point tracking.. Except, logic told me that there is nothing wrong with my pc, Open Track or the SmoothTrack app, so it HAD to be a connection error.. A deeper look inside the pc settings menu and it slowly dawned on me that I (or anyone else) don't need to link their devices through Microsoft, you just have to make sure the actual pc you're using and the phone are linked. Microsoft want you to follow their prompts and try to hide other methods. I'm not sure how I got there but I eventually opened up a file which let me link my phone directly to that one pc, NOT the whole home network.. 

 

Success!. At last the octopus was moving as I moved my head in the camera window on my phone!.. As previously stated, I'm no techno wizard and all the above may well be blindingly obvious to many but for anyone reading this who, like myself, is ready to throw in the towel because they're sure they've set everything up correctly and it refuses to work, don't give up. Even if this doesn't get it running for you, the problem is far more likely to be a simple input error somewhere than an issue with the software itself.