You're trying to re-invent the wheel here....... Namco and Sega, have both been developing and using real world systems using LED IR emitters around the monitor, for several years now. Simply because they are the most accurate and reliable way of positioning the gun. The camera system you describe as being placed as a single camera above the monitor will not work because it is not multi aspect and therefore can not accurately place an object in 3D space in front of the monitor nor can it determine exactly and accurately, where the object is pointing.
actually this camera system is unique for that reason, it detects 6 ranges of motion, zoom, pan, vert & horz position, & swivel & tilt rotation.
The company is Naturalpoint -
www.naturalpoint.com (and I don't work 4 them, trust me I'm not getting paid for this - although maybe I should) , the developers of the TrackIR head tracking system used for flight sims - it allows you to look around while flying by just turning your head- in any direction your head can possibly move. check out some demos:
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=trackir&search=SearchAs for coming in here to get us to do your FREE market research for you, because you're either too lazy or too cheap to go do the job properly, DREAM ON! You don't apear to have made any posts except for this one and will more than likely disappear again afterwards.
Can you try not being a
for once in your life. I'm just asking a question trying to get support for a product that I want for my own system. This is my first post, but I frequent this site - I just dont have the time or money to build my own MAME machine so I just lurk - probably should have kept it that way.
Anyway the people at Natural point have been very receptive and polite and I think they have the technology to pull it off - I thought I would find support for such a product on a forum like this since most casual users are too cheap to spend money on a quality product.
Here are excerpts from my discussions with the folks at Naturalpoint (if ur interested)
-----------------------------------------------
naturalpoint.com wrote:
Hi,
Before I babble at length let me ask you a couple questions that we'd really
appreciate your insights on:
- How much would be willing to pay for a precise light gun that works with
any TV? What is the highest/painful upper end price point you would
consider?
- Any guess at the number of PC users (specifically) who are eagerly
awaiting a light gun?
- Can you suggest any sites focused on this, where we could discuss with the
community?
* Business Issues:
It has been our minds for a while. But past marketing guys who've passed
through our company have used light guns specifically as an example of how
specialized peripherals never do well on console game platforms (not enough
developers/games support them, so not enough people buy them).
Plus, most console peripherals are stuck in this vicious cycle of cheapness.
So they feel they need to sell it for less than $40 (because people don't
trust third party peripherals). So to get costs down, they manufacture tons
of them, and use the cheapest parts. (plus console guys usually have patents
on the proper way to make their controller components, so third party people
are forced to use crappy workarounds that don't work as well.) But only like
5 games will support the light gun peripheral. And classically, people have
preferred to buy periphals on a store shelf (instead of online), because it
suggests the company is legit (rarely true though). And getting your product
on store shelves is a very dangerous business gamble (delivering half a
million to walmart for example, and having to buy back any that don't sell).
So when not enough people buy it, that company goes out of business. And the consumers feel burned, and other companies grow more afraid of trying the same thing. So from the business side of things, there is concern.
But we're all about R&D so we are still interested.
* Technical issues:
- TrackIR currently has a range of about 1 foot minimum to 5 feet max (a
question of camera resolution mostly. You'd need LEDs in the gun, which
means a power source. If you try to use reflective material on/in the gun,
then a serious issue with illumination pops up).
Anywho, current TrackIR range means you'd have to be far too close for tv
use. We have new tech (in our OptiTrack product line), with a range up to 20
feet, but we sell these cameras for over $500, so it's doubtful we can bring
that to TrackIR/gaming at the roughly 100 price that gamers want.
- We can do precise 6DOF tracking very well. But figuring out exactly where
the user is in relation to the TV is tricky. We have to figure out how big
the TV is (if I turn the gun 1 degree, that means very different amounts of
target movement on a 17 inch monitor verses a 60 inch tv. And how far I am
from the TV also makes a big difference. And we'd need to figure whether our
camera is mounted flush with the tv screen or not. Etc.).
Usaully people use extra markers to establish a "ground plane" (by laying
something on the floor, or placing strips on the tv as you mention, or the
old LEDs you had to strap to your tv for the powerflove, etc.) to help the
camera figure out what kind of space it's dealing with.
We could get around this by asking people to enter data into software to
indicate exactly how big their tv is, and where the camera is mounted.
(maybe simplify it down to asking people to shoot at the 4 corners of their
screen so we can define it) But both of these solutions require work from
the user who just wants to plug and play, and require more development from
us to minimize the work from them.
Anywho. We appreciate your email, and are interested in this, so I wanted to
share most of our current thoughts on the idea. Please let me know if you
have any other questions, comments, or suggestions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
After explaining that I was specificly talking about a lightgun for PC (and MAME) I replied:
A power cable connecting the gun would not be a problem, most lightguns use cables.
1-5 feet is a perfect distance for most users, even on my 32" TV/Monitor I wouldn't want to sit more than 5 feet away, that was the major complaint with the LIK-SANG Topgun.
At the moment most lightguns have to be calibrated to the monitor, usually multiple times in one sitting, this would be nothing new, the question would be how well does the gun stay callibrated.
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