Motion tracking within an installation.

houghtond's icon

First of all, I have minimal max experience, and I am fairly new to Jitter, so sorry if these questions seem mundane and trivial (I have actually done some searching, but the yielded results either weren't exactly what I was after, or I had further questions and the threads were years old)

Anyway, on to my problem.

For a university project, I am creating an installation based around using motion tracking to interact with visuals which will be projected onto a screen.

I've done some research, and it's come down to either two forms of tracking - IR or Ultrasonic, although I get the impression the latter is better for locationing rather than actually tracking movement.

So, to say I settled on the idea of infrared tracking, what would be the best way to implement this? An infrared webcam? Actual infrared sensors (from the likes of phidgets)?

The final product will hopefully be something similar to the Adobe Interactive Wall which was also done with an infrared camera (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a-NRdyUx8Lc for those who haven't seen it) - the motion tracking doesn't have to be immensely precise, just so a similar effect to the video is obtained. (Also, this needs to be on a student budget as well!)

All advice will be greatly appriciated!

Anyway, again apologies is this is trivial, I guess I just need it in Layman's terms.

sinusjog's icon

The cam isn't your biggest problem. You'll need a stable light environment. This is where you'll need the infra red light.
It will allow you to track a movement day or night.
(you can build your own infra red light projector using collor filters and lamps, this works fine but you'll need to experiment with the degree the light falls in on your object in order to track your object and not his/her shadow)
Off course afterwards you'll need a cam, and idd best an infra red one, to see where and when the movement is.

read up about these objects, they will allow you to build what you need:

- jit.dx.grab
- jit.op @op absdiff
- jit.scissors

have fun !

Dg's icon

Does anybody know a place somewhere on the web that explain these
infra red light camera tracking and projector systems?

jazmatajz's icon

i think there is a lot of explanation on the web but you have to be more specific what you want.Because there is also lot of different approaches. Step by step.

Background subtraction might be the one(no need for ir camera). Also look at jit.cv.