The camera tracks the FOVE 0 headset position at 100Hz using the infrared lights on the headset’s exterior. The outer plastic is transparent to this band of IR. It is then is augmented with acceleration and rotation values from the internal IMU at 1000Hz.

The head-tracking camera comes with the FOVE 0 headset, but is not required. Without the camera, only 3DoF tracking is available instead of 6DoF. When the head-tracking camera is not in use, the USB 2.0 cable from the FOVE 0, which lights the headset’s external IR LEDs, does not need to be plugged in. This reduces the necessary cables by two: one from the camera and one from the headset.

The camera's telemetry data is available via the SDK (and thus the Unity plugin, etc.) via fove_Headset_getPositionImage. The computed coordinates are available in the headset pose. Both sets of information (image and computed pose) can be viewed in real time with the FOVE Debug Tool, which is included as part of FOVE's standard software distribution.

positiontracking.png

You can watch the following video for a better understanding of how the headset tracking software works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeg8eGr2CCc

Technical specs of the headset tracking camera are below:

Category

Category Item Specification
Lens Lens composition 1/7'', 5 elements (4 plastic lens + 1 IRF, AOET 1LS0815L)
Field of view 94.1° ± 5 % (Mech)
82.9° ±5 % (Opt)
EFL 1.26mm ±5 %
F No. F2.0± 5 %
Focus mode Fix focus (FF)
Focus area (DOF) 13cm~infinity (focus at 3M)
TV distortion ≦1.5% (LENS spec.)
IR band-pass filter CWL 850nm ± 5 %
Interface ISP interface USB 2.0 high speed, UVC
Image sensor CMOS image sensor 1/7.5'' sensor (OV7251)
Active array size 640 x 480
Pixel size 3μm x 3μm
Pixel data output 10bits RGB RAW or BW
Frame output 1-lane MIPI/LVDS serial output
Pixel rate 640x480 @ 100fps
Backend IC Controller CMOS sensor controller (Realtek RTS5838)
Image format output YUY2, MJPG
Other Power supply Supply range 3.3Vdc ±5%
Operating temperature 0 to 45 degrees C