It has taken several years but it looks like this technology might finally be ready for general commercial use. Hopefully, we can use it for more than gaming.
From the article I could not figure out how it determines the full XYZ position of the retro-reflective object. Clearly it is possible to determine the ray along which the retro-reflective object will be, but how does it determine its depth? I do not see the article mention anything about time-of-flight measurements for the laser or that you need a stereo setup that will triangulate the position.
The article shortly mentions needing two retro-reflective objects to determine the XYZ. But do you then need two lasers, or does one laser quickly alternative between the two objects?
Edit: just re-read the article. The idea is indeed to use two base stations or a second marker.
That makes me wonder about the scalability of this solution. What about the typical HMD + 2 6DOF controller setup? 6 Base stations?
I was wondering the same things. He said that adding a second marker would be easy, so I suppose the idea must be to alternate between the objects.
Three markers and one base station ought to be enough to get 6DOF tracking, but of course a practical system will need many more to handle the user facing the other way, and that may not be practical.
http://blog.leapmotion.com/orion/
It has taken several years but it looks like this technology might finally be ready for general commercial use. Hopefully, we can use it for more than gaming.