Large Tracking Hall (TrackingLab)

The TrackingLab in the Cyberneum was a large (12.7m x 11.9m x 6.9m) free space equipped with 26 Vicon high-speed motion capture cameras. In December 2014, the existing setup of 16 Vicon MX13 cameras (1.2 megapixels) was expanded by 10 Vicon T160 cameras (16 megapixels) to double the tracking volume for aerial robotics research and improve head tracking quality for immersive VR research.

This tracking system allowed us to capture the movements of one or more people by processing the images of configurations of multiple infrared reflection markers in real time. The calculated position and orientation information could be wirelessly transmitted to a high-quality mobile graphics system that updates the simulated virtual environment according to the person's position and was able to generate correct egocentric visualization and/or auditory simulation. Participants could navigate freely throughout the entire area of the tracking hall, either carrying the backpack or letting the experimenter carry the backpack and follow it in the lounge. In order to suppress interference between real and simulated environments as much as possible, the laboratory was completely dark (black with the ability to blank out all light) and acoustic panels along the walls largely reduce acoustic reverberation. The tracking setup also enabled the tracking of several objects, such as flying quad copters, as well as the recording of whole body movements (e.g. for the analysis of sports performance, e.g. gymnastics, or for the animation of virtual figures).