Real-time head-tracking control of animatronic skull

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By Sean Michael Ragan
Posted 2009/10/16 @ 11:49 am
Category Electronics, Home, Robotics

Cool video from the folks at MonkeyBasic.com who are selling an add-on to Brookshire’s Visual Show Automation (VSA) package. The software is tracking the head movements of an operator wearing a special IR-active headpiece, and translating them into real-time motions of an animatronic skull.

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3 Responses to Real-time head-tracking control of animatronic skull

Rich on October 16th, 2009 at 12:59 pm said:

Positively creepy. Totally cool.

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- Anonymous on October 16th, 2009 at 1:25 pm said:
  
  I’m confused as to what they claim to have created here. The IR-tape on the hat confirms that the head-tracking device being used is called a “TrackIR”, made by NaturalPoint. This device, already in use in hundreds of games and software packages, has a full API that can be used with relative ease to design software for the 3D-tracking device. So I suppose all they’ve really done here is translate the API’s movement instructions in to actuator controls to move the skull. It’s neat, but they didn’t real “do” anything that has to do with tracking head position. All the hard work here, in my opinion, was done by a $120 piece of hardware that I have on my monitor as well.
  
  Reply ↓
  
  MonkeyBasic on October 18th, 2009 at 8:16 am said:
  
  You are correct… I am using the TrackIR API to do the dirty work, but the software also has a lot of other features, such as Joystick motion capture and export to VSA for later use. To see all that TrackSkull can do, please visit monkeybasic.com.
  
  Also, this software is provided for FREE!!!
  
  Reply ↓