Investing in Open Source solutions: EasyTrack

Once again I'm making available one of the tools I've developed for my research. In this case I do it by posting also all the source code  so anybody is free to use it and  work on it if they want to. easyTrack is NOT just another visual tracking tool (just like AnTS). This one I have specially developed for some of my game-like interactive applications for stroke patients. In fact, easyTrack is a virtual joystick controller for your applications. With this software and a computer webcam you can turn any single colored rectangular shaped object into a joystick with 5 degrees of freedom. It maps the position of the object in 3D to 3 independent joystick axis, as well as the orientation and the inclination (tilt) of the object. Check the video to see how this mapping works.

In essence, easyTrack is a very simplified version of AnTS that does exclusively tracking of a single solid colored object. The nice thing about it is that with one mouse click on the object it will automatically segment the object to be tracked and calibrate the system. Additionally, you have 2 sliders that you can use to further fine tune the tracking depending on the noise in the image and sensitivity that you expect from your system. The code uses (almost) exclusively the openCV library, what means that it is basically multi-platform (MS Windows, Linux and MacOS). However, the joystick controller is only supported under Linux at the moment.

In the research business, although it is highly competitive, the use of collaborative tools and open source software has allowed us to easily build on top of what others have done, being able to push the envelop just a little bit further. With this I do not mean by any means that developing this software is rocket science!! but if you plan to do the same thing from scratch... it will take you some considerable effort. Thus, I have made easyTrack a google code open source project (http://code.google.com/p/easytrack/), meaning that you are free to download all the code, mess around with it and use it for you own projects. If you want to further improve on it you can request developer privileges in google code and you will be able to submit patches and upgrades.