This evening I did a little testing of IMUs (inertial measurements unit). Reason being is that I would like to explore the possibility of giving the chair it’s separate rotation from the HMD. Imagine that you want to look behind you to see if someone is catching up, that’s the kind of experience I’d like to facilitate for. Unfortunately, the rotation of the head is also the rotation of the horse in the current version. since the only IMU present is the one in the phone.
I got some great help from my good friend and colleague Gunnar (who is somehow both the best and the worst).
The G man have, literally, a box of IMUs always in handy. So I tried two, first MPU 9250 which relies on external code to do sensor fusion with its sensors. Didn’t really work for me, didn’t even say “hi”. So I was hooked up with the lovely BNO 055 with onboard sensor fusion. Easy piecy, locked and loaded. It is a bit tough to get a micro controller to converse with Unity, and in particular to a phone using Unity via pure, serial communication. So I’m doing a little hack around that, emulating a keyboard with the micro controller.
Finally, a little video of it sort of working. Looking forward to see whether it will make one completely nauseous when it turns the VR world.