Physical Play Piece Path Inference for Interactive Gaming
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current computer game interaction methods lack innovative ways to utilize physical play pieces to create dynamic and interactive game environments, limiting the depth of user engagement and creativity in game design.
Innovation Solution
A track-based play system that uses a set of physical play pieces, either active or passive, to create paths which are inferred by the game, allowing for the constraining of virtual or physical objects within the game environment, enabling dynamic gameplay and user interaction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If physical play pieces are used to create paths in computer games, then user engagement and creativity are enhanced, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a virtual copy of the physical path arrangement in the computer game. The camera detects the physical play pieces and their arrangement, then generates a corresponding virtual representation that the game uses for gameplay. This copying approach allows the complex physical interaction to be translated into a simplified virtual model, enhancing user engagement without requiring the entire system to remain equally complex.
Solution Approach 2:
The camera acts as an intermediary between the physical play pieces and the computer game. It captures the physical arrangement and translates it into data that the game can process. This intermediary component bridges the physical and digital domains, allowing users to interact with the game through physical manipulation while the game handles the complexity of path interpretation and game logic.
2Measurement precision
If physical play pieces communicate path information actively, then path detection accuracy improves, but manufacturing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces active communication mechanisms in the play pieces with passive optical detection. Instead of requiring play pieces to actively transmit their position and orientation data through embedded sensors and communicators, the system uses a camera to passively detect and interpret the physical arrangement. This substitution dramatically simplifies manufacturing while maintaining or improving path detection accuracy through visual recognition algorithms.
Data Source
AI summary
Track based play systems are described which comprise a set of physical play pieces and an associated computer game. In an embodiment, a user may arrange some or all of the play pieces in the set to form a path. The computer game is arranged to infer a virtual model of the path defined by the user-created arrangement of the play pieces. The inference may be based on data communicated by one or more the play pieces to the game or based on data from a local sensing device such as a camera which views the relative positions of the play pieces. Having inferred the path, the game constrains a virtual or physical object to the path within the game play and renders a graphical user interface showing at least a portion of the path.