Custom Pan/Tilt Input device and Unreal Gaming Engine

Question

I have an augmented reality project I'm doing for a museum, using Unreal Engine. I've begun designing the controller (a pan and tilt visor you look through and move around). Originally, I was designing the input device to emulate a standard mouse output, but because it's augmented reality, will need really good absolute positioning. So I'm looking into absolute encoders for output- it needs to work as soon as you power on with no calibration required.

The question is two parts: if I start building my own input device which outputs discrete coordinates, rather than incremental x and y movement (as a traditional mouse controller chip does) 1) Can I get that data into Unreal Engine? 2) Can I control the camera rotation with that data?

The bigger question is- Is there a better way to do this? All I'm looking to do is build an Unreal Scene with a fixed virtual camera that is controlled by an external Pan/Tilt mechanism.

Many thanks for your input. Ha! Get it. Input.

Answer 1

Was searching for the same. Seems you have two options:

1. You can use DLLBind
2. Create native classes

If you have a full license the second approach is preferred according to the description in the link above. But this probably doesn't apply to you because the "full" license seems to include source code access to the Unreal Engine that is intended for full-feature development studios. See Licensing.