The HiBall Tracker: High-Performance Wide-Area Tracking for Virtual  and Augmented Environments

Greg Welch, Gary Bishop, Leandra Vicci, Stephen Brumback, Kurtis Keller
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Deptartment of Computer Science
Sitterson Hall, CB# 3175
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3175 USA

D'nardo Colucci
Alternate Realities Corporation
27 Maple Place
Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

Our HiBall Tracking System generates over 2000 head-pose estimates  per second with less than one millisecond of latency, and less than
0.5 millimeters and 0.02 degrees of position and orientation noise,  everywhere in a 4.5 by 8.5 meter room. The system is remarkably  responsive and robust, enabling VR applications and experiments that  previously would have been difficult or even impossible.

Previously we published descriptions of only the Kalman filter-based  software approach that we call Single-Constraint-at-a-Time tracking.
In this paper we describe the complete tracking system, including the  novel optical, mechanical, electrical, and algorithmic aspects that enable the unparalleled performance.