Performance Comparison: Optical and Magnetic Head Tracking

Tracking also called Position and Orientation Tracking or Position Tracking and mapping, is used in VEs where the orientation and the position of a real physical object is required. Specifying a point in 3-D requires the transition position, that is the Cartesian coordinates x, y, and z. However, many VE applications manipulate entire objects and this requires the orientation to be specified by three angles known as pitch (elevation), roll, and yaw (azimuth). Thus, six degrees of freedom (DOF) are the minimum required to fully describe the position of an object in 3-D. Head tracking is basically related to the head movements and is used for updating the head moves. They provide accurate provide information to the flight computer about the orientation of the head of the pilot with high degree of accuracy and extremely low impact on helmet mounted display (HMD) weight, size, and packaging. This paper compares the performance of head tracking utilizing optical and magnetic tracking techniques.