In August 2004, a few months before launch, the Gametrak was showcased at the 2004 Games Convention, where it won a "Best of GC" award for "Most Innovative Product". In the game, players move their hands to punch, block, dodge and wield magic against the on-screen opponent. In January 2003, Atomic Planet Entertainment was confirmed as a licensed developer for the Gametrak, developing the launch title for the peripheral, a first-person fighting game originally entitled Dark Wind. Myers stated that "the whole process took about 3 years to get right." After testing the concept, the developers worked on an implementation to make the device affordable, accurate, and reliable enough for a mass market. While pulling the cord out, Myers thought of combining it with a joystick mechanism to create a 3D control device. History Īccording to Myers, he arrived at the basic concept for the Gametrak while playing with a retractable washing line in a hotel bathroom. Haptic functionality was planned to be incorporated into future revisions of the original Gametrak, in which supplementary retraction forces on the tension cables would be dynamically increased or decreased to simulate various effects. The Gametrak includes special fingerless gloves, each with a fastener along the outside edge for attaching a tether cable, allowing the system to track both of a user's hands. According to In2Games, the mechanisms can determine position "to an accuracy of 1 millimetre anywhere within a 3m cube around the unit, with no processor overhead or time delay." īy tracking two positions, it is possible to independently track two different objects, or the position and orientation of a single object, such as a sword or baseball bat. The predetermined spacing and orientation of the mechanisms on the base unit allows the coordinate data gathered by the two mechanisms to be converted into positions in a unified space. From the distance and angle data, a three-dimensional position for the element is resolved. Through the ball joint and guide arm, the mechanism functions in a similar fashion as a gamepad analog stick to determine the angular direction from the mechanism to the track element. The distance of the tracked element from the mechanism is determined through components which measure the rotation of the spool drum for the retracting cable reel, and calculating how far the cable is extended. At the end of the cable is a fastener for connecting to the tracked element. The guide arm is articulated in a ball joint such that the arm and ball follow the angle at which the cable extends from the mechanism. Each mechanism contains a retracting cable reel and a small tubular guide arm from which the cable passes out. The base unit features two identical mechanisms, each of which can determine the three-dimensional coordinates of an associated element relative to the mechanism. The Gametrak uses a patented mechanical system for tracking position of physical elements in three-dimensional space in real time. and also features an attached foot-pedal input. The base unit communicates with the console or PC by Universal Serial Bus. The main hardware for the original Gametrak is the base unit, a weighted device positioned on the floor in front of the display. Myers founded gaming company In2Games around Gametrak in November 2000. The first Gametrak was invented in 2000 by Elliott Myers, who developed and guided the Gamester video game peripheral range for Leda Media Products and later Radica Games. Gametrak is a brand of 3-dimensional game control systems based on position tracking, designed for home video game platforms such as video game consoles and personal computers.
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