Lykta and Move.Me
Lykta would not be possible without the Move.Me tracking technology. Among the different solutions we've tried, it's by far the best and most reliable.
In summary, we like it because it's
Very fast! There is almost no delay between input and the movement showing up on screen.
Accurate! Positioning is accurate down to a centimeter, and orientation to fractions of a degree.
Reliable! During the exhibition at Vetenskapsfestivalen the system never needed to be manually recalibrated due to drift.
(Relatively) easy to use! The API consists of commands sent over network and is therefore easy to integrate with a variety of hardware. The 3rd party Unity plugin by Xun Zhang made life even easier for us.
However, as with everything there are a couple of cons.
Closed source. There is no way to poke around in the algorithms used for tracking, and the control commands are comprehensive but not complete. Hopefully the open source PSMove API will be able to compete in robustness in the future, for when a more flexible solution is needed.
Limited tracking range. Move.Me cuts tracking at 3.5m from the camera (see Project Holodeck’s tracking area picture). I would gladly see added range at the expense of accuracy. That said, the tracking range is still better than e.g. the Razer Hydra, a similar product that instead uses magnetic tracking.
Requires line of sight. Obscuring the glowing ball of the controller will lead to a temporary loss of positioning, and there are applications where such a prominent glowing sphere would be less than ideal. Good tracking camera positioning can help a lot with the former problem though.
Limited availability. For some inexplicable reason, the Move.Me server software on the PS3 is only available in the US, and for $100. For those of us with European Playstation Network accounts, the only way to access the download is to apply for an academic licence, and these may (or may not) be in short supply.
