Mgestyk Fusion: the Force is 6-degrees strong with this one

Everyone and their grandma loves the Wii. But even Nintendo's new dual-axis MotionPlus struggles in 3D space due to limitations presented by the sensor bar. Mgestyk thinks it can do better by marrying its interesting gesture processing technology to the sensor data received from devices like the Wiimote. Mgestyk Fusion replaces the sensor bar with a 3D camera and image processing to translate yaw, pitch, roll, forward/back, right/left, and up/down motions from the Wiimote connected to a PC over Bluetooth. Sure, it seemed to work reasonably well at slaying clones in the video, but we're more interested to see how it holds up to the live scrutiny of a public demo when it makes an appearance at the Montreal International Games Summit next week. Until then, you'll have to feed your awkward, down-in-the-basement, lightsabering fantasies with the clip posted after the break.

[MonkeyHood @ Nov 14th 2008 4:08AM]

Yeah, this is pretty cool but way too laggy. I know someone who wrote code for the guy (Mgestyk) who made this. Pretty neat.

[Dave Chappelle @ Nov 14th 2008 4:53AM]

hay its laggy but for like a fourth party developer its pretty damn good.

Imagine M$ gave us something like this for our PC's instead of Mouse: 'say goodbye to laser' bs which really should have said 'say goodbye to RED laser'...... i liked the Sith better anyway.

[SITEiNK @ Nov 14th 2008 5:32AM]

yep, strike it while it's hot though.


http://www.ROCKandREVIEW.com/

[Othello @ Nov 14th 2008 7:11AM]

Most likely this is beta or pre-beta development software. I would expect the final version to be more accurate.

[MonkeyHood @ Nov 14th 2008 9:49AM]

I'm not knocking the product at all. I'm just voicing my opinion that it's not ready for release. I use my computer a lot and cannot stand it when the mouse shows the least bit of lag. Programs? Their intensive. User input? I shouldn't feel a nanosecond of delay. :/

[Bo @ Nov 14th 2008 4:12AM]

the coolest part was when he FORCED those baddies away with his hand. jedi mind tricks man

[ilh @ Nov 14th 2008 4:14AM]

I fail to see the point in mentioning the sensor bar in either the post or the video. It has nothing to do with the "sensor" bar.

[Brandon @ Nov 14th 2008 6:35AM]

@ilh
It has nothing to do with the sensor bar, which is why they mentioned it. The wiis original sensor bar isn't able to track 3d motion because it uses an IR signal to track where the wiimote is pointing at the screen. They replaced the sensor bar with a 3d camera and now it looks like they can track 1:1 motion(or close to it) in 3d

[Anthony @ Nov 14th 2008 4:16AM]

buzzzzzz

[Brian @ Nov 14th 2008 4:21AM]

The force is strong with this one.

[thazlett @ Nov 14th 2008 4:41AM]

lol thats awsome i have that on my diamond, and my girlfriend has it on her ipod touch

[absinthe party @ Nov 14th 2008 7:09AM]

No you don't. Get a job, you freeloader.

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 14th 2008 5:47AM]

We need a hack for it that plays "I am your father" after a while.

[Technex @ Nov 14th 2008 6:11AM]

Starwars kid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE RETURNS!!!!

[AlDeezy @ Nov 14th 2008 7:06AM]

He was never gone in the first place, lol

[Technex @ Nov 14th 2008 8:28AM]

True, true, just felt a little empty without it, almost like a "First" post... ;)

[defferoo @ Nov 14th 2008 6:14AM]

why does every video related to the beating the wiimote have to say "no sensor bar." if they knew what the sensor bar actually did, there would be no need to put that statement in. sony also said "no sensor bar" when the sixaxis was announced, but do you see a sixaxis/ds3 with a pointer? no... and in this video... yeah, no sensor bar, but you have a camera. what's more expensive, 2 IR LEDs or a camera? btw, motionplus looks so much more responsive in videos than this...

[Othello @ Nov 14th 2008 7:23AM]

You clearly don't actually know what the sensor bar and Wiimote do. The bar emits IR light and the Wiimote, wait for it, has a camera inside that tracks the orientation of the IR LEDs. So instead of having the camera in the Wiimote you have it by the TV. The only real problem is it would only be able to track 1 Wiimote at a time without a unique visual identifier for each controller. That could probably be solved with some sort of colored band or a band with a colored LED on it. Also, I doubt you would be able to use the Wiimote's IR camera, as it's probably ultra low-res to save on cost and size.

[SKI @ Nov 14th 2008 9:25AM]

Defferoo is right, Othello, you need to read up on how the Wiimote works.

[dazjorz @ Nov 14th 2008 9:37AM]

I think a colored bar would be problematic, because it will mess up if there are other light sources around, which there usually are. A better idea may be to flicker the IR LED (which usually does *not* suffer from other sources around) very quickly and in a unique way or something like that. That way, the camera may recognise the Wiimote the signal is coming from.

[Nick @ Nov 14th 2008 6:22AM]

It could probally be used well in an operating system environment, maybe with some kind of glove and it can pick up the fingers, but using the wii remote as a light saber fighting multilayer wont work because there needs to be some kind of feedback. By that I mean if you hit the other person light saber you can't move it anymore which I can't think of a way too do it.

[fred @ Nov 14th 2008 9:26AM]

Yes, some sort of glove with the power to do this would work well.

A power glove would be awesome.

[Unique Gift Ideas @ Nov 14th 2008 11:43AM]

Of course that would be awesome, but for right now, wishful thinking.

[majortom1981 @ Nov 14th 2008 7:15AM]

I thought with the new wii motion sensor thing it does this also? With the new accessory i thought the sensor bar is mainly used to tell that the wii mote is pointing at the screen and for the mouse cursor movements.

What good could a camera do? How does the camera know the wii mote is pointing at the screen?

What happens if you have a wiimote thats not white?

[SKI @ Nov 14th 2008 9:23AM]

"But even Nintendo's new dual-axis MotionPlus struggles in 3D space due to limitations presented by the sensor bar"

This sentence does not make sense. The sensor bar is only used when aiming at the screen. And when aiming at the screen, it can easily tell where the Wiimote is due to measuring the distance of the LEDs. Did you watch Nintendo's E3 keynote? WM+ can tell the Wiimote's orientation and any movement in a 3d environment. The sensor bar isn't used in any WM+ applications.

[Linkman2004 @ Nov 14th 2008 11:28AM]

Actually, you're still partially incorrect. WM+ contains a gyroscope in it which will pick up the yaw, pitch, and roll of the device. The Wiimote's internal accelerometers are what pick up the movements which are then translated into spacial coordinates. WM+ allows the developers to filter rotation out of the accelerometer data so it can always identify the proper direction it's moving.

Of course, I could be wrong, too. :P

[EdgeOne @ Nov 14th 2008 9:58AM]

I watched that whole video waiting for SWK! lol
Cool stuff but too much lag.
I want to see Johnny Chung Lee's head tracking used in games
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

[Bryan Thornsberry @ Nov 14th 2008 10:21AM]

YAW PITCH, YAW!

[webterractive @ Nov 14th 2008 10:43AM]

Stop tormenting that kid, he apparently has physiological issues because of this whole Star Wars Kid thing.

[Technex @ Nov 14th 2008 9:46PM]

I think he did before....