Re: separating compass heading from orientation?

Hi Dean,

Thanks for your comments. I understand the problem you describe, but
I'm not sure that moving the absolute heading to a different property
is the right solution.

> However, I think that we should NOT require the alpha to be a compass heading,
So how would you define alpha? I think you're suggesting that alpha
should only be determined from a gyroscope, but the idea of the spec
is to be independent of the underlying source of data. The UA should
use whatever data sources it has to provide the best possible values
to JavaScript.

> All of a sudden, the compass decides that my heading has changed (a source of interference has been removed).
 > What should the system do? If it changes the DeviceOrientation
events, the player might jump off a cliff even
> though I didn't move. But it can't ignore the change in heading.
If the UA has access to both a gyroscope and a compass, I'd expect it
to filter the two sets of the data to take advantage of the increased
accuracy of the gyroscope while using the compass data to counter
drift in the gyroscope data. This should avoid the value of alpha
jumping around due to compass noise. Have you tried this? If the UA
has only a compass, I don't think there's any way to avoid the
problem.

Steve

-- 
Google UK Limited
Registered Office: Belgrave House, 76 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9TQ
Registered in England Number: 3977902

Received on Monday, 16 May 2011 16:06:57 UTC