The possibility of playing shooting games in the livingroom!

This is the beginning of a shooting simulator, in the phase of development. Play clay pigeon shooting or other realistic 3D games with a gun in your hand. Aim at your target on the wall and press the trigger.

The hardware needed to build the whole simulator is intended to contain the following: - Personal computer for executing a shooting game - Projector to show the game and targets to shoot on the wall - Replica of a real pistol with mounted laser pointer and trigger system - Camera with an optic bandpass filter to film the wall - Hardware for finding a point of a laser inside the video signal in "real time" and send coordinates to the computer The software needed for playing and calibration: - Exciting games - Calibration software that takes care of different angels and the 3D view from the camera

To read more about the simulator, visit the other chapters in the menu above.

Hardware
Here I will try to explain the hardware needed for finding a laser point inside the video signal and then send the captured coordinates.

Software
The calibration and other softwares developed to verify the hardware. One interesting program converts incoming coordinates to control the mouse pointer in Windows. This give the opportunity to use a standard laser pointer as a mouse.

Video
Basic information about composite video signals, like the one from the video camera. This information may help for understanding the hardware.

Optics
Information about optical filters and the results when using them. Very interesting pictures where you can see how obvious it is to find a point from a laser against a computer screen in daylight.


History

Summer 2004: With access to optical bandpass filters and better cameras new experiments could be done. The filter worked very well against computer and television screens. The downside was against the picture of DLP projectors.

April 2004: I had enough spare time to build a new better prototype of the hardware, Coordinates Rev 1. Some new features were added as a UART controller inside the CPLD and clamping of the videosignal before the comparator.

December 2003: Builded a prototype of the hardware on breadboard, wrote a Windows program to show the coordinates in action and to verify the earlier developed CPLD code. The whole thing worked very well and the coordinates from the laser pointer appeared on the screen. Now that my first thoughts about a shooting simulator were verified I could continue to develop a better hardware and the software needed on the computer.

2002 / 2003: The idea about the simulator. Some testings, learning about video signals and the first version of the CPLD code.