Monday, February 25, 2008

Webcams

After much frustration with the PC I'm using for my project I managed to get a webcam hooked up to it. Unfortunately it seems that the webcam when placed at the back of the bookcase can only see about 1/2 of the screen width which is bad news. I'm going to try with a wide angle lens in front of the webcam (although I'll need to correct the distortion) or I might look into getting a wide-angle webcam (such as the Trust WB-6200p).

I still haven't managed to get my OpenCV application running on the computer as its configuration is a bit messed up, hopefully I'll be able to reinstall it soon which should fix things.

I also played around with the webcam whilst projecting onto the screen and discovered another, more fundamental problem. Most of the image picked up is of what's being displayed on the screen rather than through the screen which could present a real problem for my tracking. Using a webcam which has infra-red LEDs helped a little bit (and might be better if reflective tape was put on the finger) but it's not really an ideal solution.

The alternatives are to do the tracking from webcams which are outside of the bookcase (although I think I'll need 2 webcams in this case) or switch to an alternative tracking technology such as the Wiimote idea. Ideas on a postcard please...!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have an alternative idea which will work amazingly well for your project and also solve world hunger at the same time, unfortunately I don't have a postcard to send it to you on :P

I'm still against anything which means the user has to hold something else, it just doesn't seem right from the usability perspective. But I can see where your coming from on the camera front, looks like its going to be a touch one to solve :(. Infra red might be a good idea, in fact normal webcams can pick up infra red if you scrape a coating off of the lens (random fact of the day).