PS3 Head Tracking Software

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stephen700 said:
2 point head traking on the wiimote is very limited for depth perception - it is incapable of determining if you turned you head sideways (which gives the appearance of the 2 points becomming closer) or actually moved forwards or-backwards (which also gives the same effect ), - the software would have to make a guess - it's a cheap solution and not even in the same league as real camera based head tracking systems >>>.
Real camera based head tracking can do good Six Axis tracking of head position - take a look at Toshibas work with their digital mirror software running on the Cell this is remarkable. The PS3's Cell processor is over 3* faster than that used by toshiba. PS3 could do this with processing power to spare !.

PS3 Eye is just a high speed camera but with the CELL it's capable of far more than just taking photos or video clips.

I'm not entirely sure you read the thread before posting ...

As I've said both of these solutions have limited depth perception, and both face issues with the head turning. I also specifically mentioned that the camera methodology was the way the technology will work in the future as it has significant advantages, however I also pointed out the significant roadblocks currently preventing the facial recognition methodology from being viable in gaming.

Now it seems you've diverged from the topic a bit, you go off and talk about Toshiba's Digital Mirror technology and not the Eye. The Toshiba solution is extremely nice and does a whole hell of a lot more than either of these solutions but also happens to cost around $4,000 making it somewhat untennable as a gamming product until the price is dropped dramatically. Also note that this extreme price tag is indicative not only of the higher quality hardware used but I'm sure also includes covering the cost for the software required to make it work.

If I'm being honest I take exception to the way you wrote your post in an extremely missleading fashion. First you pointed out some of the flaws of both systems and only bothered to attribut them to the Wii-Mote solution when it's clearly true of the Eye solution as well. Next, you proceeded to refer to the Eye as "real camera based head tracking", by which you try to suggest that the Eye is somehow of equal quality to Toshibas technology. If you want to compare the Eye against the Wii-Mote that is one thing but surely you recognize that the Toshiba solution is far and away better than the Eye and doesn't even belong in this discussion as it is completely unuseable as a gaming product.

I wonder if the missleading nature of your post wasn't intentional. It certainly comes off as if you would like people to think that the Eye is capable of everything the Toshiba solution is. Perhaps I've missread this though and you can clear it up.

Finally, I think you've severely overestimated the capability of the PS3. It simply is not capable of running the robust Facial recognition software required to do half the things you think it can do while also rendering a game's graphics, calculating its phsyics, and handling AI. If facial recognition was just a matter of some cameras and a lightweight software package you would have already seen them in widespread use long ago. The software side of things is still a relatively new science and none of the existing practical applications involve any sort of rendered 3D environment much less a game. The closest I've seen is Toshibas solution which makes some real time modifications to a 2D image, but this is a world of difference from actually rendering a 3D scene.

If you think about it you are literally asking the box to both Render and Interpret two completely different 3D environments simultaneously. In the future this will be possible at a reasonable price, and as I said it will have some profound impacts on gaming but it simply isn't an economic possibility right now and that is precisely why the "cheap" solution of a Wii-Mote is viable right now...because its cheap easy and works on par with what would be possible through facial recognition system even on a significantly more powerful piece of hardware.