Rather unconventional input device POC

[oakdesign]

Having been a TC, PL, XO on the Leo2A4 and A5 for 15 years - after comming to SB - even so keyboard and mouse are completely fine I still miss the rotation and tilt when it comes to gunners input. 
Beeing a Software Dev by profession now and a tinkerer by passion I started to play around with different input methods and devices.
After the obvious mouse keyboard, started to setup my xbox360 controller with shifted layer so using one ministick as X and Y axis and remapping everything else through JoystickGremlin with a shifted layer so all in all 36 keyboard commands. The downside the Ministicks even with response curves need some severe practice to get used to. Same went with my second try my flight sim joystick which is a X65F (ForceSensing) so the stick doesn't move but reacts to pressure. Perfect for my FlyByWire flightsim but nothing for handling a tank turret. Next a convetional (moving) joystick closer but not yet. Racing steering wheel I had laying around perfet for rotation but elevation felt akward with either mapped the pedal axis. 

Already started to prototype to convert the Racing wheel into a gunner handle.

I remembered having used to play a racing game on my phone where steering was done by rotating the phone and acceleration deceleration by tilting the phone.

That said started with a POC to convert a phone,tablet into a input device for SB using Opentrack with FreePie as input receiver for the gyro and magnetometer sensor data from the phone and Joystick emulation as output. Even without having done any tuning on the input output axis mapping it feels completely natural to me and works pretty well. Combining that with using the phone as a secondary monitor and Helios to build button/keyboard touch inputs that might become my goto in the future. So instead of designing a full gunners handle I might go for only a self centering 3d printed gimbal system that would take the phone and can be attached to my desk

Edited October 7, 2021 by oakdesign