another gun option for mame

[Dillthegreat]

http://home.pacbell.net/ajmoir/LightGun.htm

i found this optical gun option which someone is working on and it sounds like a great idea, not just for mame games but also for other emulated options. anyone else seen work on this idea ?

what do your people think ??

[Regis Maltais]

Hi,

I think is quite a big project...

I think that the the person that try to acheive this need to do the following:

- Set another Pc to handle the QuickCam

- Make some programming to detect the red spot that
  the laser will make on a screen

- The game must be projected on a wall or he must
  use  a very big TV

- The information need to be transmitted to the PC
  running Mame and tell Mame that the cursor was seen
  at coordinates X,Y (may be through the parallel printer
  port through a direct link cable)

- Mame display games in differents resolutions so the
  start point 0, 0 is not all the time on the same area.

  (like a game like Pacman that uses normally a vertical
  screen and a game like Defender that uses a
  horizontal one), so the Pc running the camera need to
  know before runnnig a game where is the 0,0
  coordinate so the calculation for determining the gun
  position is still accurate.

- The accuracy of determining the gun position is directly
  linked to the camera resolution...

thanks
Reg

[DIllthegreat]

I agree with you on all points except why does it have to be projected on a wall
why cant i use my tv and use quckcam to do the rest ?

[Regis Maltais]

Hi,

The reason I have written that the image need to be projected is the laser (red dot) will have less risk to be reflected.

If you use a regular TV or a monitor, there is more chance that the laser reflect on the glass of the tv and or the monitor.  

This reflection can lead to a loss of precision because the camera that will look for a red spot will see more that one, and will try to calculate not one red spot but may be two or more...

so the calculation can lead to more that one coordinate and playing a game will be very hard to do.

thanks
Reg