[Bright Room? Want track Ir? Read on....]

My Freetrack setup works in brightsunshine in a rather large rooms (my family bought an old schoolhouse, my room is an old classroom). I used to have problems with light interference with my old setup, but since I swithched the lightsource from green to IR leds my problems was solved, and I can play anytime of day whatever the ambient lighting. The track ir emits an IR lightbeam, which is reflected onto the camera, some freetrack users use the same setup, but with a webcam with IR leds attached to it and reflective dots.

The problem is that a camera cannot distinguish between the reflected light and ambient Infrarred light. This is where the magnetic disc (the storage part) of a floppy disc (3.4 inch I believe, I've got about 200 ones I do not/ cannot use)

The goal is to prevent ambient IR light to interfere with the reflected IR light. The magnetic disc of a floppy disc attached infront of the lens of motion capture device (the track IR unit) will negate visable, and to a great extent ambient IR light.

To salvage the magnetic disc is rather easy.

1. find a suitable floppy disc to be sacrificed (sounded a bit more ritualistic in my head...)

2. Pry off the metal sliding cover at the bottom of the disc. The black thing inside is the disc you want (the 1.44meg storage area)

3. pry off the plastic sides that contain the inside disc (the outer square cover). There might also be a loose small spring, that forces back the metal cover when the computer is not reading the disc (very painful to walk on with bare feet)

4. use a pair of scissors to cut out an appropriate size to cover the lens.

5. attach with tape to hold it to the camera (track IR device). Be sure to not to cover the lens with tape as that will destort the picture (a few pieces around the edges should be enough)

6. Test the tracking capability in the software, you may have to change your threshold for how much light is detected by the device.

Additional layers may be needed if you have large amounts of ambient light.

As the reflected IR light will be stronger than the ambient light, the reflected light will pass through the improvised filter(floppy disc centre) but the ambient will not, hence making the device fully functional, regardless of ambient lighting.

I hope this proves to be useful. I do apologise for any lack of clarity in the above post, I am writing this while I am quite tired and have a pretty severe headache. I wish you the best of luck and if you need any help, you know where to find me (on BGs six waiting for twenty seconds, wait a minute I should not have written that)

Ps I do realise I use a lot a parentheses (almost as many as C.S Lewis)

[Physics Jam]

A bit nerdy, but I quite enjoyed it, a proof that science can be fun.

[external hard drive]

I have a 500gb Western Digital Mybook, and I love it. got it for about 70£, and it words flawlessly. not only is it pretty quick, but also looks good, black shiny finish with a blue lights on the front to indicate use and power. It is also shaped like a book, so it can be hidden on a bookshelf if you want.

[Seaplane Base on Dogfight Map?]

There is a seastart on the Malta dogfight (Op Husky) I got with the 352nd mod pack, the eastern most one I think for the allies on Malta. How to enable it I do

[The day that chocked Sweden and Swedish Airforce... 1992]

I've seen that video before. Didn't that pilot plow another one into the ground?, or maybe that was the test pilot earlier. The old news on TV4 certainly raises some memories.

[Famous Catch Phrase Game]

The leader of the penguins in Madagascar.

"The horror, The horror" (in a raspy slightly weesing voice)