Gym ball

I now have the gym ball, the main controller for the game. During code development I have been using an AIBO ball, as it is very similar in terms of hue and saturation. The AIBO ball has been extremely useful, not only because of it’s colour related properties, but also because of it’s size. The AIBO ball is far smaller than the gym ball and is therefore easier to use when sitting at the computer working on the code.

The larger gym ball will be used for the game, as planned, as I believe it offers the player a more interesting gaming experience than playing with the AIBO ball. Playing with the larger ball requires the player to stand further from the screen on which the game is displayed and in turn offers the opportunity to include more players at one time as the ball can be moved anywhere within the cameras viewing range.

Image Processing

I've started to code the game by working on the image processing needed to capture the video signal from the web-cam, turning this into a binary Hue and Saturation image and also creating a flipped copy of the video image in it's original state.

The binary image is used to calculate the weighted-centroid of the bright pink colour of an AIBO ball. The AIBO ball is being used during development, whilst I wait for the larger pink gym ball to arrive.

The copy of the video image has been flipped and will used as the background for the game board, so that players can see themselves, as well as the gym ball. The players will be able to see that the way in which they move the gym ball has an effect on the paddle used in the game.