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Wiimote Turns TV into Touchless MS Surface
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Jan 23, 2008 11:11 AM
from the now-thats-what-i'm-talking-about dept.
from the now-thats-what-i'm-talking-about dept.
RemyBR writes "User interface project allows you to control objects on a display using gestures, working like Microsoft's Surface but without touching the screen at all. Inspired by Johnny Chung Lee's work, the system requires you to wear Minority Report-style gloves equipped with infrared emitters on your fingertips. A Wiimote on top of the display keeps track of these IR LEDs, while the software can read the motion down to two-finger pinching gestures for image zooming."
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Games: Wiimote as Multi-Touch Display Controller 107 comments
Tmack writes "While hard-hacks with the Wiimote are somewhat old news, this particular implementation is quite interesting. Using the infrared camera on the Wiimote, pens with LEDs instead of ink, and an LCD projector, Johnny Chung Lee of Carnegie Mellon University has created software to use them as a (relatively) cheap multi-touch display. Any surface onto which you can project becomes an interactive multi-touch display, as demonstrated in the video at the link. He has the software available for download, along with some other neat projects.
Lee has also documented another impressive Wiimote hack.
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Hardware: Head Tracking w/ the Wiimote 169 comments
mrneutron2003 writes "This guy just doesn't know when to stop. Johnny Chung Lee graces us with yet another one of his inventive Wiimote projects. This time it involves using the Wiimote and a pair of inexpensive LED safety goggles (with the standard LED's replaced with InfraRed ones) to allow positional head tracking , achieving an effect similar to what is experienced with three dimensional displays and CAVE systems. The video dramatically illustrates the effect. Game developers take note. This simple little variation on infrared tracking could allow for some seriously immersive gameplay in the future." This guy deserves a medal.
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What style gloves? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What style gloves? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:What style gloves? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Bring Back the Power Glove! (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Glove [wikipedia.org]
You could have a very large vocabulary of gestures by using finger positions like modifier keys. Apparently, the native resolution of the Power Glove is 8 bit. This might not sound like much, but with a smoothing function like the one used for SmartNav head pointing devices, you can emulate much higher resol
Stop the Wii shipments!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Table (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I think it sounds like a great idea... I wish I had the parts and time to try things like that.
Potential issue: Dust, fingerprints, etc... Wouldn't they also cause the same effect?
Maybe there's a material that causes IR light (or even all light) to reflect (or reflect differently) in an area where force is applied?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
from tfa: it kinda works (Score:4, Informative)
Wiimote (Score:3, Interesting)
Touch and Feel User Interface (Score:4, Interesting)
What I'm waiting for is a thin memory plastic layer over a touchscreen, that can raise bumps and edges defining onscreen GUIs. Vibrating gloves could be good for simulating textures, but there's no tech for simulating tensile or inertial force in virtual objects. Maybe some kind of eccentric gyroscope, but I've never seen one.
Updated video posted (Score:3, Informative)
Where is the software (Score:4, Insightful)
They aren't worth a damn though unless you have something to use them with. Where is the multitouch picture organizing software that I can display on my coffee table and let me family sort through the pictures. Where is the multitouch D&D program that will let me and my friends move our characters through a dungeon with miniatures? Where is the multitouch coloring book that I can put a bunch of kids on? Multitouch math races? Multitouch Chemical Compound manipulation?
We need software. We have ways to interact now. We need things to interact with.
Two words (Score:5, Insightful)
Two words: tired arms.
Unfortunately, these sort of interfaces suffer from the same problems that doomed touch screen and light pens 20 years ago ("They can just touch the screen! How easy is that??") Users liked them at first, but holding your arm up is tiring. Try reaching out to your monitor and trace your Slashdot window for five minutes and see how long you last. It's *hard*.
There's a reason people in the Old Days wrote on flat tables, and didn't write on easels. That's also why artists who do use easels typically do "stroke and rest" (and why cartoonists use a flatter table)
A touch table is far superior for this sort of thing for that reason.
Rumble (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't Microsoft Surface! (Score:3, Informative)
Not. (Score:4, Interesting)
Who Cares??? 3D VR!!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
urgh (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If only we could control Slashdot with a Wiimot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because I didn't think it was worth discussing on Slashdot? Perhaps because in the past when I've submitted what I thought was pretty cool shit it was rejected within minutes or rejected and then posted a few days later by someone else instead that had, what I felt to be, a lame writeup?
But most of all it's because I can't stand the fact that some of the writeups are nothing more than blog advertisements that link
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)