Main > Lightguns
LCD Lightgun
patrickl:
Talk about coincidence, just now my girlfriend starts complaining about the ledstrips on the TV in the livingroom ::)
TheAdMan:
LOL, I'm tellin' you man those LED strips are hideous - they're chick repelants.
MAME cabinets are chick magnets tho, marlborroman's got the right idea with the cabinet in is bedroom. "If you build it they will come":cheers:
I kept that clean.
AndyWarne:
In terms of positioning technology, the Wiimote renders everything else obsolete. I am assuming the Topgun uses a simple system whereby each LED is lit in turn and the response measured at the gun and the position calculated. This is not going to be all that accurate and requires the hideous LED bars.
This system was used by Sega on some games and was never considered very good although to be fair they might have worked on it and improved the system to an acceptable level of accuracy.
The Wii uses a camera in the front of the remote. This looks at the screen and surrounding area and then the image is real-time processed to pick out the LED bar (which only needs to be small) from the image.
The LED bar is just permanently lit by a voltage source.
The camera chip has the image processing built-in and sends an X-Y position back to the CPU for each LED detected on the bar. Only one LED is really needed for a gun since rotational motion is not required.
Expect to see this kind of chip available sometime. At the moment it is not available as it was a custom chip by Pixart for Nintendo. Once a similar chip becomes available all current designs will be obsolete overnight.
There is always the possibility of buying a load of Wiimotes and removing the image chips and integrating into a design. I have actually thought about this (mainly after a few beers hehe) but the cost would be rather high and not sure about the legal situation.
The standard Wiimote can be used as a gun of course and it is wireless too (bluetooth) and works on a PC. Not very gun-like in appearance though.
Andy
Fozzy The Bear:
--- Quote from: AndyWarne on June 08, 2007, 09:17:24 am --- I am assuming the Topgun uses a simple system whereby each LED is lit in turn and the response measured at the gun and the position calculated. This is not going to be all that accurate and requires the hideous LED bars.
--- End quote ---
Actually Andy no.... I thought that it might work that way before I got sight of one. Sega and Namco developed the system for arcade use. pretty much everyting beyond the first House Of The Dead uses it. HOTD 1 to 5, Ghost Squad, Time Crisis 2 to 4, etc etc.....
The Sega and Namco arcade systems actualy calculate position from being able to see at least 3 of LED's out of the ten groups at the top and bottom of the screen. They're not pulsed they're on constantly.
The same applies to the LCD Topgun. It's just an IR source. The difference with the Topgun is that it has to be able to see all of the LED's all of the time, to be able to do the calculation, and it also has a poorly chosen lens system on the off the shelf camera module. Which is why it suffers slightly with the distance range compared to the arcade version.
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
Lilwolf:
A little late to the discussion... but...
I would only be interested in it if...
1) two player support... Even if we have to play games with it to get it to work. But if thye can give a joystick version that would be great for other games... but dual mice would be great.
2) wireless would be GREAT (handle is a great place for some batteries).
3) Camera is small... or can be taken out of the case and still work to fit behind a marquee or something.
4) works well with a slanted monitor. Many monitors are on an angle (gauntlet cab) but the marquee is vertical (where the camera would probably have to go. BTW, I don't care if this isn't the easiest thing to setup... but as long as it CAN be setup.
5) The setup sticks around. I dont' want to calibrate it ever few days. I would MUCH prefer a harder configuration that will be perminent.
the distance isn't a big deal to me (I have the other lcdtopgun... and would love to get closer)...
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