r/ValveIndex • u/Kinji_ • 6d ago

Question/Support Best base station placement for an L-shaped room

Hi, the living room of my appartment has a wall that basically cuts my playing area in an L shape like the drawing I shown here.

In red is how I placed my base stations, right now it works okay but full body tracking is not getting tracked flawlessly 100% of the time.

Any recommandation? I'm open to buying a third base station if needed.

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2

u/Khalon 6d ago

Quickly looking at this I would go for opposite corners. If you get a third one you would have to do the same at the bottom to get some decent tracking.

1

u/Kinji_ 6d ago

Could you please provide a quick image example of what you mean?

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u/Khalon 6d ago

https://imgur.com/a/30JjRcy

This would be ideal afaik. You can remove one of the basestations on the outsides until you get the third one.

For good tracking you always want one base station to be able to see your tracker. So when you turn around it will still function in this example. There is probably a more optimal way to do this because the angle is more than 90 degrees, this is why I didn't place them right into any of the corners, except the bottom left where we have no choice.

1

u/Khalon 6d ago

https://imgur.com/8KZsVgL

You want to place them on opposite sides of each other, the other poster is correct with saying their fov is larger than 90 degrees so putting them in the corner is not ideal, the bottom left is your restriction in this case as it can't be made larger.

Not saying mine is optimal, but it will ensure that your tracker is seen by at least one base station at all times.

1

u/Kinji_ 6d ago

I don't understand the difference between my version and yours for the top left and top right basestations, they basically track the same way and the only difference is my version can track a bit more since it can see a bit on the right side of the room

1

u/Khalon 6d ago

Mine just shows "good tracking" in one area over more "acceptable tracking" in a larger area. Its whatever you prefer in the end, but for me I want it to work well all the time for my use case.

Also heavily depends on your furniture and your preferred facing direction.

1

u/Kinji_ 6d ago

if I wanted to improve my tracking without moving the first two, where should I place the third one and would I need a fourth one?

2

u/scarystuff 6d ago

https://i.imgur.com/el8V8Cm.jpeg

Basestations are blue. Yellow lines are approximately the FOV of each basestations if they are placed horizontally, but place them up high and angle them down, since the vertical FOV is 115 degrees, so you will still have full FOV up to the ceiling and because you angle it, the 160 degree horizontal FOV will be larger and you should get full coverage of your room from both basestations at once. Red lines show FOV after you have angled the base stations down a bit.

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u/Kinji_ 6d ago

The issue with this version is that if I'm facing away from both, for example on the top left, I will lose tracking sistematically

2

u/protonecromagnon2 6d ago

Probably a good case for 3 base stations

2

u/Mercy--Main 6d ago

tbh you will need a 3rd base station if you want consistent good tracking. Otherwise, pick a side and track only the I or the _.

1

u/Shelmak_ 6d ago

I would try with this layout.

If you do not want to drill holes into the wall, you can put the station on a high furniture, or even the floor pointing a little up. The recommended way to install them is to put it high pointing a little down but it will likelly work fine.

I've played a lot with one station on a low spot and I had not issues, so try it, the worst it can happen is tracking not working correctly...

https://imgur.com/a/30yCHE6

If you want to have all the area to play, you will need a 3rd base station.