How can we play in the future?

This sounds a little bit degraded that how we can play in the future. But we have to admit nowadays the entertainment plays more and more important roles in our life. With the development of miscellaneous techniques, the possibility to enjoy a computer game is higher, no matter how old you are. And as a virtual reality and augmented reality fan, I have enough reason to trust that the future's entertainment will belong to VR and AR.

One of the most successful applications with VR is Wii, which is a home video game console released by Nintendo. Nowadays it's quite possible when you visit your friend, he is playing tennis with his girlfriend at home with an amazing stick in hands. It is liked more widely, regardless of the nationality, religion or race, particularly by the young guys. Wii is a typical Virtual Reality application, with a rotation tracked stick which is called Wii Remote served as a primary controller for the console. A build-in accelerometers and infrared detection lead to the realization of position estimation in 3D space. Of course the cool and dazzling animations are also significant for the enjoyment.

While last year, Nintendo announced that they have developed a new plug-in set for the expansion device of Wii Remote which is able to implement a more accurate and more complex motion capture -- Wii Motion Plus. The device incorporates a dual-axis "tuning fork" angular rate sensor, which can determine rotational motion. The data achieved by the angular rate sensor can then be used to distinguish true linear motion from the accelerometer readings. With this characteristic it is able to increase the motion capture ability. And below is the video of the release demonstration of Wii Motion Plus, very nice demo.

But because of the technical construction of Wii, it is just able to detect the relative linear motion and rotation values, unfortunately can't be used to detect the object position in 3D space. This drawback determines the application area of Wii is just Virtual Reality. Because its lack of real world location estimation, the animated image or video couldn't be superimposed onto the environment. But Sony has solved it by their sony motion controller plus Playstation Eye.

PS motion controller(handheld wand)

PlayStation Eye

The PlayStation motion controller is a motion-sensing controller in development for PS3 video game console by Sony Computer Entertainment. With the help of PlayStation Eye webcam, the wand's position could be tracked. The principle is not hard to understand, either. It is obvious that at the end of the wand there is a huge orb glowing in any of a full range of colors according to the RGB color model using LEDs. With the PnP theory which was explained well in the previous articles in my homepage, we can obtain the 2D projected coordinate from the camera sensor, if we want to achieve the 3D position in the space, the only key is the depth of the controller relative to the camera. Because the orb is big enough for a high precision and accuracy sensor to determine the size of a projected image. And the uniform spherical shape size as well as the focal length of camera are known, so with a simple perspective calculation the distance between the wand and the PS Eye camera is able to be achieved. Besides an inertial sensors can detect the controller's rotation and motion with a similar principle as Wii Remote. Therefore the PS Motion Controller is able to detect the position of Controller in the 3D space and motion during playing. This is a proper device which could be used for Augmented Reality technique. While this amazing wand is not released yet, we have to wait until next year spring. Seem not so long, right? Here is an amazing video of the PS Controller Demonstration. Truly COOL!

Posted in: Augmented Reality,Videos,Virtual Reality