New features including the following have been added to Vicon Tracker 3.

Offline processing

• Location: Resources pane > Recording tab > Playback section

  

In Vicon Tracker 3.2, the playback of offline data has been completely reworked to provide better performance and closer simulation of realtime tracking. You will find this feature useful for simulating a live system, for example, if you are developing and/or configuring your own software that requires Tracker data as input. You can also use this feature to perform offline analysis of Tracker data with your own software tools.

If you change the filtering of the offline data, click the Reprocess Trial button to recalculate your saved data.

To use offline processing:

1. On the Recording tab, in the Recording section, ensure that the relevant Location setting is selected (Shared or Private), depending on the option chosen for the trial you want to load.

2. In the Playback area, click Load Trial to locate the last saved trial. If you want to load a different trial, browse to the appropriate location. Click Open.

   The recorded trial is loaded, a time bar appears beneath the view pane and Tracker automatically enters Offline mode (if this was not already selected).

3. If required, on the time bar select the range that is of interest.

4. On the time bar, click the Play button. To stop or pause the replay, click Stop or press the space bar on the keyboard. To view a particular part of the trial, drag the slider along the time bar, or to move through the trial, press the forward or back arrow keys.

   A progress bar is displayed while the file is processed.

   Objects are tracked and data is output from Tracker as if it were coming from a live system.

5. To export the data to your chosen format, in the Export CSV section, select the required options and click Start. For more information, see CSV export.

CSV export

• Location: Resources pane > Recording tab > Export CSV section

  

The new CSV (comma-separated values) export feature enables you to export saved trial data to a plain text file, saved in CSV format.

To export processed Tracker data to a CSV file:

1. Ensure you have loaded and processed the required data, as described in Offline processing.
2. On the Recording tab, expand Export CSV, display the Advanced parameters and change their settings as required:
   • Flename Do one of the following:
     • Accept the default Current Trial setting; or
     • To use a different path and/or filename, click the ellipsis (...). You can then browse to another location and/or enter the required file name, including its extension, for example my_trial.csv.
   • First Frame and Last Frame If required, change these to specify the range that you want to export.
   • Delimiter Do one of the following:
     • Click to choose the delimiter of the exported data, selecting either commas, tabs, or line feeds/carriage returns; or
     • To use a different delimiter, click the downward arrow and clear the Macro check box. You can then edit the Delimiter field to specify a combination of ASCII characters (maximum of two characters).
   • Local Numeric Format If you want the exported data to use the local language float number format, select this check box.
   • Devices for Export Do one of the following:
     • Click to choose to export either no objects (None, the default option), only the selected objects, or all objects; or
     • To select from a list of available devices, click the downward arrow, and clear the Macro check box.
   • Objects: Do one of the following (active objects only):
     • Click to choose to export either all objects (All, the default option), only the selected objects, or none.
     • To use the wildcard * to specify all objects, click the downward arrow and clear the Macro check box. You can also edit the Objects field to provide a list of objects (use the object names that appear in the System tree), separated with commas.
   • Unlabeled Trajectories: If selected, unlabeled marker trajectories are exported.
3. To begin the export, click Start.

You can examine the exported data in your spreadsheet program.

New sensor windowing display

• Location: Options dialog box (F7) > Camera Limits option > Sensor Window property; or
• Location: Camera view > Display camera sensor window buttonThe windowed area is indicated by a rectangle within the Camera view, showing the size and position of the active window on the camera sensor.

  

  The windowing display is visible in the Camera view, in the 3D Overlay view and in Rotated view.

Using Tracker 3.2 with Vicon Vantage or MX T-Series cameras, you can now view the windowing that occurs at higher frame rates.

To toggle the display of windowing:

• On the Camera view toolbar, click the Display camera sensor window button.

  

• In the Options dialog box (F7), click the Camera Limits option and in the Properties pane, select the Sensor Window property

  

You can gain instant feedback on the area that is captured and save room on the screen by zooming in to the sensor window.

Note: For captures made in versions of Tracker before 3.2, zooming in to the sensor window applies to Live mode only.

To zoom in to the displayed sensor window:

1. Ensure sensor windowing is displayed (see above).
2. In a Camera view, from the View menu, select Zoom to Window.

   

To turn on Zoom to window for all windows:

• Press the hot keys: Ctrl+Shift+Z.

Improved floor plane calibration

To ensure that your coordinate system is accurately aligned with the floor of the capture volume, you can now adjust the position of the floor plane, using markers in the volume to automatically define it.

To calibrate the floor plane:

1. Scatter a quantity of the same size Vicon markers across the floor of your capture volume. If you want Tracker to automatically recognize these markers as floor plane markers, ensure that they outnumber any other groups of markers (e.g, markers on a wand or markers that were used to focus cameras, etc).
2. Complete the usual system calibration procedure to set the volume origin.
3. On the Calibrate tab, expand Set Volume Origin and display the Advanced properties.

4. Next to Set Floor Plane, ensure that the options are as required:

   • Auto detect: Markers are automatically detected, based on the marker group that defines the plane with the most markers. If, when you click Start, the wrong markers are selected in the 3D Perspective view, you can add or remove markers in the volume until selection is as required. To ensure that the tolerance setting (in mm), which specifies the height of the group of markers that define the floor plane, is as required, click the drop-down arrow next to Auto Detect.
   • Offset: Set the amount (in mm) by which to adjust the floor plane (default is zero) in X Y and Z planes. The offset is applied after you have set the origin using the Set Floor Plane setting.

5. Click the Start button in the Set Floor Plane line.

   The button toggles to its Stop setting.

6. After a few seconds, click the Stop button.

   In the 3D Perspective view the cameras shift as a group slightly along one or more rotation axes to better reflect an average of the markers scattered across the floor.

   Your Vicon cameras are now calibrated and ready to capture data.

Track mode now auto enabled

• Location: Resources pane > Objects tab> Object Tracking Mode section

  

Track mode was introduced in Tracker 3.0 (see New Track mode minimizes output latency). To save you from having to turn Track mode on and off, it is now on by default when objects are activated or created (including when Tracker is started if active objects are present).

It is off by default when no active objects are present.

If this behavior is undesirable (for example, if you are creating multiple objects), you can toggle tracking off or on by clearing or selecting Auto Enable.

Instant auditory feedback

• Location: Windows menu > Sounds option (or press F6) > Enabled option

Tracker 3.2 provides you with the option to plays sounds through your PC's speakers to alert you when a Tracker event has taken place (for example, operation completion, system status, and issues). This keeps you informed of system status while you're still in the volume, so that you don't have to spend time returning to the PC to look at the screen.

When sounds are enabled, by default Tracker uses speech sounds to alert you to the following events:

• Calibration start
• Wand Wave complete
• Calibration complete
• Calibration failed
• Origin set
• Capture started
• Capture ended
• Capture failed
• Camera bumped
• Pipeline ended
• Pipeline failed

Tracker is supplied with a set of default sound files (.wavs). You can modify the sounds that are used for each event and you can enable all sounds or enable sounds individually.

To enable sounds and change these settings:

1. Press F6; or

   On the Windows menu, click Sounds.

2. In the Sounds dialog box, select Enabled.

To choose one of the other sounds supplied with Tracker, click the drop-down arrow and select the required sound from the list.

To substitute your own sounds for those supplied with Tracker, click the relevant ellipsis (...) and enter or browse to the location of the required .wav files.

To disable one or more sounds, click the relevant drop-down arrow and select (None) from the list.

To disable all sounds, in the Sounds section, clear the Enabled check box.