3D Finger Mouse Project

[TheChosenLnE]

Hey guys! Been a while since I've been on the forums, but I'm finally back. This summer, I'm hoping to conquer a project I've been meaning to do for about a year and a half now but have been too broke/lazy/tiedup to do; a 3D mouse more or less that uses your finger! Woah!

I saw the idea for this posted a couple years back, and thought it was amazing, but didn't have the drive to actually do it, and now I want to. Here's the idea summed up:

Equipment:
3 IR Receivers
1 IR Light
1 Ring
1 Arduino Board?

Put the three IR receivers on three corners of your monitor, detecting the IR light that is on a ring on your hand. Then, using the distance from each receiver, calculate it's location in space (1 radius for a sphere, 2 for a curve, 3 for a point in space?). Use the X and Y coordinates to place the mouse on the screen, and the velocity in the Z direction to make clicks, drags, pressure, etc. Put this all into an arduino board, and output the readings into a program that can handle whatever you need it to do. I guess I had a few questions about this before I began messing around with everything:


1) Is an arduino board the best choice for a project like this? Is there something less sophisticated that handle the job? Which board (if arduino is appropriate) should I look into?

2) What kind of IR sensors should I get and where can I get them? Is their distance measuring ability reliable and accurate enough that I could make fluid movements with my finger and get the same result on the screen? Is IR the best way to detect distance?

3) Would a dZ/dt approach be the best way to do clicks? Could this be reliable enough? or should I add a second control for the other hand to control clicking?


I think that's about it guys, Much Appreciation,
The Chosen ln(e)

[Sizik]

How are you going to determine the distance between the light and the receiver?

People have done things like this using wiimotes, as they contain IR cameras and the "sensor" bar is just two groups of IR LEDs. The camera determines distance by how close together the LEDs appear.

[TheChosenLnE]

How are you going to determine the distance between the light and the receiver?

People have done things like this using wiimotes, as they contain IR cameras and the "sensor" bar is just two groups of IR LEDs. The camera determines distance by how close together the LEDs appear.

http://arduino.cc/playground/Main/Inter ... nceSensing

There are a few IR pieces that can measure distance:
"Simple IR distance sensor using a Panasonic IR sensor and IR led using the IR sensor and led from the boe bot kit."

I'm just wondering if anyone who has any experience with something like this has an input on it's accuracy.

So an alternative then, buy an extra sensor bar and remote from some parts store? could i put wires from the bar onto the board? and would the wii mote (which i would disassemble as much as possible) need a Bluetooth receiver on the board?

[Sizik]

So an alternative then, buy an extra sensor bar and remote from some parts store? could i put wires from the bar onto the board? and would the wii mote (which i would disassemble as much as possible) need a Bluetooth receiver on the board?

The way people usually use the wii remotes for stuff like this is to have it stationary, and have IR sources moving around. For example, this project, which is very similar to what you want to do, has an array of IR LEDs around the wii remote on top of a TV, and reflective tape on your fingers.

It's basically being used as a bluetooth IR-only camera.

[WizenedEE]

One of my friends used an unmodified wiimote with an led taped to a pen body to emulate a smartboard (basically using the pen to click) with a projector (no other materials; I watched him set it up). It doesn't require direct contact because the led was pointing at the screen. Putting the ir led on a ring would be trivial.

I have no idea how well it would do with the z dimension, since neither his program nor the wii itself could track it.