During the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2017 earlier this year camera specialist OptiTrack showcased its new Active Tracking VR technology designed for free-roaming arcade area systems. The company isn’t stopping there as this week’s SIGGRAPH 2017 event will see two new advancements in VR tracking make their debut.

The first is a full-body motion traking system in a similar vein to how some developers are using the HTC Vive tracker. Designed for VR arcades, its aims to deliver accurately moving avatars for each of the participants in a multiplayer VR videogame, using OptiTrack Active pucks that are attached to a players hands and feet. The pucks deliver real-time animations so that players can see each others position, orientation and skeletal pose.

The other technology is a Self Calibrating Tracking system to reduce the overall complexity of setting up. Removing the needed to ‘wand wave’ everyday to recalibrate, following initial installation no further calibration maintenance is required and there is no deterioration of the calibration over time claims the company. This also reduces the need for staffing expertise in running the arcades.

“Full-body motion tracking and self calibrating OptiTrack systems have been at the very top of the list for all of our VR arcade customers,” said Brian Nilles, OptiTrack’s CSO in a statement. “The lack of a full-body tracking solution has been a glaring problem for consumers, who with today’s VR experiences often see no avatar at all, or at best, a crude animation of others activity in the play area. This market needed a high quality human tracking solution, with very little additional hardware on each participant, which makes OptiTrack Active the world’s first all-in-one tracking solution for out-of-home VR.

“The introduction of self calibrating OptiTrack systems is a huge benefit for all of our customers, but is vitally important to location-based VR because it dramatically reduces the time and steps to prepare the experience each day, and of course, can now be operated by arcade staff rather than experienced technician.”

There’s no confirmation on when OptiTrack might be rolling out these latest advancements, when further details are released VRFocus will let you know.