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Trackers + Base Station


hubbahubba

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Hey guys, I'm a robotics researcher interested in using the base station and tracker system to localize our robots. Is there any software support to interface with these sensors directly? The output I'm looking for would simply be a position and orientation. Thanks!

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@hubbahubba In order to use any SteamVR tracked device, it's a hard requirement per Valve that you use the SteamVR runtime. You must use the OpenVR/SteamVR SDK to interface with the runtime and decode the tracking data and query a pose estimate. You cannot interface with the hardware directly as the entire SteamVR tracking tech stack is proprietary to Valve - usage of the SteamVR/OpenVR SDK is required. Valve provides native C++ libs if you want to attempt a native integration into a custom app. Please see this guide from Triad Semiconductor for an example on how to use the tracker without an HMD. These days, you could also theoretically try to use OpenXR as your framework in early access (different from OpenVR) but it's still really early days with OpenXR.

Please note: From a Vive prospective, we do not officially support the usage of tracker without an HMD and we are unable to provide technical support for these advanced setups. Valve has designed the entire SteamVR UI/GUI is all designed around having an HMD at a bare minimum and things like roomsetup require at least an HMD but ideally an HMD and controllers. Point blank, you're going to save yourself so much time and frustration by having at least and HMD/Controllers and overall you have the added benefit of getting to play with VR.

I recommend anybody attempting to use SteamVR tracking professionally watch this video.

Please see my more detailed responses in the following threads:

 

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That was a really cool video! Thanks for sharing. We got this idea after seeing this company use the Lighthouse system using them to localize their object. Our application is not related to VR but we really like the Lighthouse technology (it's cheap) compared to other alternatives. Did these guys totally develop their own receiver with its own software?

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