Vr body tracking without external sensors

Abstract

Plural individual sensor assemblies are engaged with respective parts of a person's body. Each assembly may include accelerometers, magnetometers, and gyroscopes. Sensor data is fused together to get the orientation at each body location. To simplify, the body is assumed to consist of rigid bars of known length connected with ball joints so that once the relative orientations of all bars are given by the respective assemblies, body pose can be computed. Then the body pose is translated as a virtual body into a virtual world either by a ray cast method that anchors a foot of the virtual body to the ground assuming infinite gravity and infinite friction and then translating the other body parts to make the ground contact point fixed, or by implementing an approximate dynamics physics engine on the virtual body. The technique may be used in VR location-based entertainment and for motion capture.