Simon Rushton However, as I note below, I'm simply posting this for information, I've
_zero_ financial interest in, or connection with, this company.

Maybe you could encourage others to post out useful information on
technology, equipment or techniques?

simon

--------------------------------

Yesterday, between the end of my holiday and the return of
undergraduates I took a quick trip to Brighton (UK) to see this firm:

http://www.animazoo.com/

I'm familiar with optical and electromagnetic position trackers but had
never come across this stuff (though the Gypsy 18 sensors will be
familiar to those of you that use Intersense trackers), I stumbled
across the company by chance on the web. The company design and sell
their 'Gypsy' systems for the computer games and film industries and
don't have a clue how useful their technology could be for
perceptuo-motor research. I was really impressed by the system (if you
use magnetic trackers imagine having no noise to deal with and if you
use optical trackers imagine having no line-of-sight problems) - if you
watch the 3rd video clip on the page below then thats exactly what its
like when they do the demo in front of you.

http://www.animazoo.com/demoreels/index.htm

I have absolutely zero financial interest in this company but it does
seem advantageous for me to tell other people, especially other
researchers, about them: If research became a market for them it would
presumably encourage them to build systems that are designed around us
- provide matlab interfaces, characterise and minimise latencies, build
partial systems - eg head and a single arm.

So, if you have any interest in reaching, head movements, locomotion,
posture, gait, interception etc, you might want to take a look (they
have North American and other area distributors they should be able to
redirect you to). Do also ask them questions as their website is not
exhaustive - for example, yes, they can and have integrated their
system with optical systems so that you can get absolute position, and
yes, they can and have integrated their system with datagloves if you
want to record finger movement as well - maybe they could be encouraged
to add the answers to another page of FAQs for people like us.

I'm assuming I'm the first person to come across this company but if
anyone reading this has bought or used one of their systems it would be
really useful to hear.

simon