Head tracking with Opentrack & AITrack

This is a quick article briefly discussing the use of Opentrack and AITrack. For those without TrackIR, an alternative may be an Opentrack/AITrack combo to provide head tracking. This is a very brief article as the installation and setup was very easy using a webcam.

Opentrack

OpenTrack configured for AITrack

Opentrack essentially provides TrackIR data to a TrackIR supporting flight sim like MiG Alley or Falcon BMS. From the GitHub page:

Opentrack is a program for tracking user's head rotation and transmitting it to flight simulation software and military-themed video games.

The latest versions are available from Opentrack GitHub releases.

One of the types of input available to Opentrack is a neural net face tracker. One such example which seems to work very well is AITrack,

AITrack

AITrack, the camera is off so as not to scare young children or the innocent!

AITrack can be thought of as the brains of the combo. AITrack is responsible for taking webcam video and using a neural network to identify facial features and convert head movement into data for OpenTrack.

The latest versions are available from AiTrack GitHub releases.

From the AITrack GitHub page:

AITrack is a 6-Degree of Freedom head-tracker designed to work alongside Opentrack for its use in simulators/games. AITrack uses its own tracking pipeline (based on neural networks) to estimate the user's head position with respect to the webcam and then, streams it to Opentrack, which in turn, transmits it to your games.

Installation and setup

Installation and setup is very straightforward, simply consult the AITrack Installing and running instructions. There is also a video tutorial to help out as well.

Using an old Microsoft LifeCam Cinema from 2010, I was able to get head tracking up and running in about 20 mins from plugging in the camera to testing it in a sim. It works well and this is with an old camera with the barest of tracking configuration. With a more modern camera and a bit of time spent tweaking response axes, you should see even better results.

Finally...

Credit and thanks to the developers of Opentrack and AITrack, not only have they created an excellent alternative to TrackIR, both products integrate seamlessly together, and are simple and easy to install and configure! Great work there!