Motion Tracking with a Webcam

In the worlds of 'virtual reality' and 'augmented reality' one of the important technologies is 'head tracking' ... knowing the orientation of the users head. If you want to create an artificial world, or add an object in the field of view of the user, you often want that object to 'sit still in space' allowing the user to move around the virtual object. In the past many of the systems were based on gyros, or accelerometers, or even some 'base station' that the user is near.

In recent years there is a lot more work going on with 'video head tracking' or the use of a camera attached to the head of the user, and using software analysis of the image being sensed to determine movement and rotation. I have seen some amazing demonstrations of using this technique in the wearable computer realm, and the software is becoming more and more available.

This article caught me off guard as the develop is now using this same technique to create a virtual version of the 'wooden labyrinth' game. This is an impressive application of the technology ... all implemented on off the shelf hardware! What you can do with a Tablet PC, a Webcam, and some software!

Casey hacked a Tablet PC with a Webcam to recreate wooden labyrinth game.

I had to get this one in. Phillip Torrone wrote me and said this Tablet PC hack is something I had to check out. I'm glad I did. Casey Chesnut did /cameraFlow. I wanna see this working.

Awesome.

[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]