DIY motion capture rig uses 16 homemade cameras

Vtubing tech has long been more interesting than the personalities for some observers, and one YouTuber has pushed the hardware side further with a project called "Hollywood Motion Capture from Scratch." Made By Dennis built a full optical motion-capture setup using 16 cameras made from scratch to track retroreflective markers through space via triangulation.

To keep costs down, each camera uses the monochrome AR0234 sensor paired with cheap surveillance lenses and an infrared light ring; the 6.8 mm sensor plus lens comes to about $40, and the creator says the cameras can be made for less than $200 each. Monochrome sensors make sense for IR tracking, capturing clean motion data from the reflective dots.

The build also involved designing custom PCBs after suitable off-the-shelf boards proved too marked up, and the creator has shared designs and software on GitHub.

motion capture, vtubing, homemade cameras, ar0234, monochrome sensor, infrared ring, retroreflective markers, triangulation, custom pcbs, github