Optical tracking: General

The subject or object that shall be tracked is equipped with markers. Markers can be light reflectors (passive Markers, retroreflectors) or light emitters active markers, LEDs). Intelligent tracking cameras, scanning a certain volume, detect the light that comes from the markers and calculate 2D marker positions (image coordinates) with high accuracy: a mean accuracy of 0.04 Pixels is standard in A.R.T. tracking cameras.
These data are handed over to a central PC, which calculates 3DOF Positions of single markers or 6DOF positions of rigid arrangements of several markers („rigid bodies“, „targets“). I.e., the result of each measurement are coordinates that describe the position of the markers, and hence the position of the body carrying the markers.