Well i selected the move cord. but i cannot align i to the floor in the video... look :

...

Looks to me like the entire calibration file is either the wrong one for the video, or wasn't done right from the beginning, you MUST set the camera 1 height off floor to the actual camera 1 real world height by measurement in meters.

At any rate, that cal file is incorrect and must be redone, if the cameras haven't been moved since the video was recorded, you can just re-record the light marker and re-detect it with the proper settings for Cam 1 height and you can not have a high level of misdetects in your calibration, or it will fail, even if it shows as perfect, but it shouldn't if things aren't close to right after running the calibration process.

There is also no way possible to have tracking work properly with wearing shorts, you MUST wear long pants and appropriate contrasting colors to the background.

You may want to better familiarize yourself with the Docs on PS Eyes usage, they are completely different than that of Kinect.

...

Yes you are right Snapz i think i took the wrong cal file...well i will have another try tomorrow because now its darkening .

Thanks a lot
funwithps3

well, the day starts rather good. I look at greenlaw:s tutorial with calibration 4 ps cams in a Little area. I tried to do exactly and i suppose I was lucky with the calibration… but as Always as a newbee there are a lot off problems during the Project:
In the Picture I tried to psn the actoar to fit myself and it starts good, but when i started to move my hands i had this failure:

I believe the Recorder (wKinect v2 at least) doesn't use the GPU at all- and leans almost entirely on the CPU. I'm using a $350 laptop (+$80 SSD) to handle my second Kinect v2 which manages 30fps (but sometimes falls to 27-29 which prevents me from recording for a very short peroid). Specs: Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM 15.6-Inch FHD Notebook (Intel Core i3-7100U 7th Generation , 4GB DDR4, 1TB 5400RPM HD, Intel HD Graphics 620, Windows 10 Home) which is probably the bare minimum.

I think your clothing choice is better than before- but the Lighting and Space around you could probably do with some improvement. Lighting = You want Photograpgy level of light- and that lamp is probably an issue. Space = Objects around you or behind you could be casting hard shadows which you don't want being picked up. Clothing = I was no better at this- but I don't know if wearing a white shirt is a good idea when you have a white wall (but im not entirely sure tbh). I had the same issues with my 4-6 PSEyes- but then I bought a second Kinect v2- and all those lighting, clothing, and a large portion of space issues disappeared into oblivion. Good luck!^

Thankyoy very much Fruitpex !
When i use my Kinnect v2 there is an option in ip4 "fast tracking" and checked my gpu gtx 980 ti and iit almost runs with 90 % but the result of tracking is not so good as i use the old algorithm option, ( the gpu is not working just cpu) ….takes long time but much better.
And Im also very gratefull that you shared your experience regading your laptop acer aspire because now I knew that it should not be that expensive to buy a laptop and another Kinect v2......very good indeed.

Regarding my exercises with 4 ps3 cams and 3 ps3 movers…. I today just used the light from the grey sky, and you are right, not so much shaddows make it much better. I also changed my clothing to just black.t-shirt and now the character almost follows :-)

Yes a second Kinect v2 and a cheap laptop is my next Project.....

All the best
funwithps3

...

I also believe in your scenario that dual Kinect v2 would work easier for you, you will have to use the V placement though, you don't have enough area for a 180 set up from your images, or if you do, you won't have much of a capture volume to move within.

Although it doesn't take much power to run the recorder, it must maintain very close to 30 fps for each sensor, or it is basically useless and a CPU should be over 2.0 GHz at least and always run on High Performance power setting, I can't confirm that a cheap model using only the integral video chip on the CPU will suffice, but I guess if a newer chip and CPU generation it may be ok, but 27 fps on one sensor and 30 fps on the other seems a lot off to maintain proper syncing without jumps in frame drops in the recording during tracking, though maybe Kinect recordings are more forgiving on this, or just letting it go for clean up later to smooth things, which you are going to have more clean up in the animation anyway with Kinect tracking, even with dual sensors.

I am sure you can find a cheaper used laptop model that will work, as you are only using it to record, and be sure it has DirectX 11 capability, as well as a minimum 2 GHz processor for best results, but even then that doesn't mean the Kinect v2 will run on it, as they require a minimum of 5 MB/s transfer rate to work properly.

Most users do give up on the use of PS Eyes, especially in small confined areas, due to the specifications are much more complex and must be maintained for proper tracking.

Even with a Kinect v2, or 2, your room area is still an issue as stated, the point cloud may still blend with the background, even if you use the remove depth from background option and loose tracking, so still a trial by error process for you.

Hopefully you can get it worked out soon, Good Luck!

...

Thankyou Snapz !

Today i had luck with my animation with 4 ps cams and 3 movers. The character almost followed me. I made a little calibration area and calibration showed green for all cameras and the right positions regarding space between cam 1 and cam 2 and also heigth of cam 1.

But you are right.. in this Little calibrated area almost 1.5 x 1.5 M with four markers on the floor i can do a 360 deg turn on the same place :-) ...so i need of course more space esp now when i got six cams.

But i se a difference vs Kinect v2 namely tha charctaers hands are shaking a Little bit to much after the jittering process.
And it takes very long time until the char fits in position. Ive tried at least 15 times until he stayed there. As I moved the char in one cam to fit it didnt fit in Another cam and so on... so im a Little confused how to fix positions ? I suppose that i have to stand in the middle of every cam..

Well regarding the 2 Kinect v2 sensors i will buy Another one..they are rather cheap and easy to handle…. and now when you shared your experince abt a laptop, i take the Kinects sensor to a computer shop we have here and ask if i might test....

All the best
funwithps3

Did Kinect v2 sensors come down in price? For a while, the prices got really crazy when MS announced discontinuation. Luckily, I had purchased 4 of them back when they first came out so I'm set, but I wonder if should get another backup if they're 'cheap' right now. I'll check this evening but what's the typical price right now?

TBH, I'd rather look into something new to replace my v2 sensors if and when they eventually go bad. Unfortunately, most of current crop of alternative depth sensors are apparently comparable to v1 sensors, not v2.

Has anybody tried any of the higher-end Kinect-alternative sensors yet?

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

...

As to the alternatives G, they are kind of expensive, some in the range of a new Kinect v2, some even more pricey brand new, used if can find them would be cheaper of course.

You can look at the comparison videos of each on YouTube and correct, none match the point cloud of the Kinect v2, which is also best recommended by iPi.

To the jittery hand issue of previous poster, the PS Eye full processing path must include the running of the "Refine" process, either forward, or backward for the entire ROI you are tracking and the Move data must be applied always as the final step, before playback review, or export of the animation.

This process should also be run even with Kinect v2 tracking for best results, but many leave it out, as it takes extra time to run it, though it is much faster with Kinects.

PS Eyes are more of a Prosumer set up, things should be much more tightly respected, as far as the room, lighting, clothing, space, colors of all corresponding parameters, just much more consistently followed, not just a plug-n-play set up as easy as Kinects, and even if all parameters are followed the calibration must be very good and the iPi Actor set up correctly, but once this is all realized it is an excellent solution for mocap, and I would put my animations up against any other budget solution available now, though it isn't a real-time solution, but in my personal experience far less clean up in the exported animations than most real-time solutions, especially now with v4, for standard sized human figures anyway, it gets a bit tricky to act as if you were a non-standard character, but not impossible, if you know in advance what character you are performing for.

Of course not all users want to put in the time to get good results, they would rather get an instant recorded export and spend hours upon hours cleaning it up, more power to them, but I handle 90% of this right inside iPi Studio very quickly before export, especially since the recent updates to fix the upper arm twist issue, but of course you have to know what to look for and how to fix it to do this efficiently, and I at least know my motions are very close to what was performed, because I am tracking and can see the actual video reference while running it through.

Until you really satisfy all the necessary parameters to run a PS Eye set up efficiently, you are just going to be disappointed in the results, that is why I believe you would be better off with dual Kinect v2, even though it takes a compatible 2nd laptop to run a second sensor, but even that set up has its limitations.

If your calibration is well done, you should really only need to align the iPi Actor in one camera, usually camera 1, or the best viewing camera anyway, then on refit it will snap into proper position in all cameras, if it doesn't, then the calibration is off, even if you got the notorious "Perfect Green" showing.

It is very hard for someone else to explain, so it is really just a trial by error until you figure it out to get the best tracking results you can with a PS Eyes set up and some users just have better luck than others.

With the new tracking algorithm, it is much more accurate and full tracking loss should be at a minimum with PS Eyes, so if it isn't, there is something not quite right that you will need to track down and fix, that's just how it is, or you can use another solution for mocap and deal with a whole different set of specifications for its performance.

Just starting out with this program, or any other, you need to learn the curves for better results, many have been explained throughout this forum and can be searched by issue with the search function in the top ribbon.

Not much more can be said, especially for the area you are trying to use, but if you stick with it and follow the correct requirements it does work well, in my sole opinion of course.

...