"scientific" gesture / movement research ?

I suggested that some one open up a wii mote  and re-assemle the parts into a suitable form factor.  we still need a visible light photocell though, and cant use  line of sight, so that solution is also clunky...

We need a good versatile engineer to own this project and work with the MP group.

And strategically in June I'd like to define a non-hobbyist grant to NSF/NSERC/FQRNT parallel to an MP grant to do a gesture/movement tracking research project that meets different interests around the TML -- MP, Adrian (+Wessel), MM, Satinder.   I'll propose this  to my EU colleague as well.

Xin Wei


On 2011-05-30, at 6:43 PM, Michael Fortin wrote:

This might be a jaded comment.... 

I'll call it an advanced WiiMote (WiiMote just tracks the x-y-rotation, they have some idea of angle and distance to the display which the WiiMote doesn't have).   (Morgan -- WiiMote has vibrotactile feedback)

Speaking of odd remotes, there's this unrelated interesting toy; http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/dads/cf9b/

Cheers,
~Michael();


On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 03:55, Sha Xin Wei <shaxinwei@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Adrian, and scientific researchers,

Raising the stakes and thinking ahead to more robust and precise instrumentation, here's the

NaviScribe 6-DOF 3D wand by Electronic Scripting Products, Inc. (ESPi) in Palo Alto

The exclusive patent describes a  6 DOF, x,y,z + euler angles    The company's founded  by a physicist friend from Stanford: Marek Alboszta.  Not productized yet.  "Commercial" co-development would require O(100K) USD.  I've not discussed how to enter into actual relation with this company, but we could perhaps work out a deal.  This would make sense in a real NSERC/NSF  co-development grant.

Shall we think about this in context of a scientific gesture research proposal, along with high FPS cameras, and EONYX etc?  Let's discuss this in June.

Xin Wei


On 2011-05-20, at 9:32 PM, Marek Alboszta wrote:

Hello Xin Wei,

We can definitely do everything you ask (briefly - up to 100 Hz and better with all degrees of freedom (6DOF) reported in compact stream (right now not compressed), requires at most 120 MIPS to do everything (during periods of a lot of activity) - unit is small so can be in a ring or glasses or headgear or whatever you choose - we give you intervals so you can compute your derivatives, resolution in 3D space is considerably better than 1 cm (in plane it's down to 0.2 mm and better)).  I can't do wireless unless somebody gives me money to properly design a wireless beta unit (it is not a problem of technology but pure resources).  
...

Is your party ready to pay for this work ...?  If not then we should reschedule for when they are ready to commit resources for technology development (or if they/your side wants to do the work).  Anyway, we can talk about it if the allocation of resources is a given - let me know.

warm greetings,
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_____________________
Marek Alboszta



On May 20, 2011, at 10:08 AM, Sha Xin Wei wrote:

Hi Marek,

For a memory & place experiment, we would like to give people a wand that they can hold that can report position, euler angles, and their time derivatives.  Ideally at better than 30 Hz for the entire 12-vector.

We need it wireless, range of say 10m suffices.

Spatial resolution is important, for tracking "pointing" at virtual objects that people infer by indirectly mapping position & angle to a vibration motor that will be embedded somewhere on their body.   I expect any pen-based input device has more than adequate time-space resolution.

We would also like to be able to have a "wand" small enough to fit anywhere attached to the body in some not too obstrusive way.

We can write our own code to parse the data if you tell us the format coming in some standard protocol, serial or ethernet/port stream.

The person may be free to wander around the room and point in any direction whatsoever.
Does the wand needs to see an IR array in "front" ie be constrained to a half-sphere, or can it be pointed in any direction provided a set of IR beacons ...

Cheers,
Xin Wei