Personalized Game Piece Printing with Asymmetric Borders
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current gaming experiences lack personalization, where players cannot easily customize game pieces to represent themselves, limiting engagement and creativity in board games.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus that uses a mobile device with a camera to capture images, apply augmented reality layers for game character costumes, and print these images with an Instax printer, creating personalized game pieces with unique borders for handling during gameplay.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional board game pieces are used, then the game can be played, but players cannot personalize or customize the game pieces to represent themselves
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple functions into a single mobile application: camera capture, augmented reality overlay display, image processing, and printer control. This integration allows players to personalize game pieces using existing consumer devices without adding physical complexity to the game pieces themselves, resolving the contradiction between personalization capability and system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The mobile device serves multiple purposes: it acts as a camera, a display for the augmented reality overlay, an image processor, and a controller for the printer. This multi-functionality enables personalization using ubiquitous devices that players already own, avoiding the need for specialized equipment and thus maintaining low system complexity while achieving high adaptability.
2Adaptability or versatility
If augmented reality overlay is applied in real-time, then personalized game pieces can be created, but processing time and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The augmented reality overlay is prepared and displayed on the mobile device screen before the actual photo capture. This allows players to review the personalized appearance of their game piece in advance and make adjustments if needed, ensuring satisfaction with the customization before committing to the print, thus reducing the need for re-shoots and saving overall time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses a digital copy of the player's image with an overlay applied, rather than requiring physical manipulation or complex real-time processing during capture. The overlay is rendered as a digital layer that can be quickly composited with the captured image, significantly reducing processing time compared to physical customization methods.
3Ease of operation
If standard border sizes are used around game piece images, then printing is simple, but handling during gameplay becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different border widths to different portions of the image, with larger borders at the top and bottom and smaller borders on the sides. This local variation in border quality provides optimized handling areas where players need to grip the piece, while maintaining a clean appearance in the central image area, thus improving handling ease without significantly complicating the printing process.
Solution Approach 2:
The border design uses asymmetric dimensions, with vertical borders being larger than horizontal borders. This asymmetric configuration is specifically tailored to the typical way players hold and manipulate game pieces (usually with vertical orientation), providing better grip areas where needed while keeping the manufacturing process relatively simple through automated border generation in the mobile application.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and apparatus for generating a game piece are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method comprises launching an application on a mobile device that has a camera; selecting a game character using the application; displaying an overlay for the selected game character in an image from a field of view of the camera, the overlay being an augmented reality layer; capturing an image of an individual in the field of view of the camera; sending the captured image to a printer that is coupled to the mobile device; and printing the captured image with a border of unequal size around the image, wherein printing the capture images comprises printing the captured image upside down to cause a border area larger at a top of the image than around other portions of the image for use in handling the image when using the image as part of a game piece.