Comments on: Simple tracking in 3D space

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 02:47:57 +0000

Good Hack dudes, nice. I’ll have to try out playing with capacitors like that….

By: threepointone

threepointone — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:50:02 +0000

oh and btw the way you play 3d tic-tac-toe on paper is to break it down into three individual 2D tic-tac-toe grids, and figure out the rest. The way you win first is pretty simple–take the very center piece, and it should be pretty damn obvious at that point how to win in 3-4 of (your) moves.

It’s an electric field, not a radio field (whatever the hell that is). Capacitive sensors have amazing resolution, if you design them properly (your digital calipers use capacitve sensing–if you took it apart the sensor is basically a single PCB with the approrpriate pattern), and they’re really cheap. The only thing limiting accuracy with this is probably the shape of your hand/fist.

By: threepointone

threepointone — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:18:54 +0000

ROFL 3D TIC-TAC-TOE!!!
I love that game. Especially if I’m first, and the other guy has never played it before. For those of you who haven’t realized it, the first person always wins if you know what you’re doing =)

By: Baggins

Baggins — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:55:28 +0000

You spelt resistor wrong.

By: Schoolmarm

Schoolmarm — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:39:59 +0000

Caleb, dude, check yer spelling. Two many “e”s in resist.. res.. the thing wot resists.

By: localroger

localroger — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:14:20 +0000

That is pretty cool considering the hardware. I bet if you used smoother/flatter plates (baking pans maybe) and instead of a hand, which is only approximately spherical, maybe a wand with a one inch diameter capacity probe, insulated handle, and very thin or shielded sense wire, you could probably get the resolution to under a centimeter with the same electronics.

By: Pro_Digity

Pro_Digity — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:01:01 +0000

Quite awesome how he managed to pull it off considering the parts he used,
I'm hoping that he'll manage to make it a bit more accurate though.

8.5/10

By: joel

joel — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:26:11 +0000

If I were re-modeling a family room (or building a home sound studio), I’d put chickenwire under the drywall of two walls & the ceiling to do larger-scale capture.

By: Kyle McDonald

Kyle McDonald — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:12:51 +0000

@5: 18 cu. in must be a typo — that’d be 2.5 inches on each side! I do have a bigger box that’s 18″ on each side though.

By: gally

gally — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:50:54 +0000

Surprisingly accurate.

By: pascal

pascal — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:44:48 +0000

a friend once built a robot, that would play 3D-Connect Four against a human, by stacking red and blue wooden blocks.
Great fun, actually, and everyone looses when playing the first time. And some also on the second or third time…

By: Kyle McDonald

Kyle McDonald — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:59:48 +0000

“Is there a way to create a 3d radio field like that” I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “3d radio field” — do you mean adding more sensors, or…?

“Thats going to be the next big craze” 3^3 is about as boring as 3^2, actually… lots of defense and not much strategy (I played it for a bit with a friend yesterday). Not until you get to 4^3 is it good (i.e., Qubic).

Also, I wasn’t clear, but the compositing was done after the fact. I was going to put the “real” and “virtual” videos next to each other but thought it would be easier to watch like this. Though, with the various webcam libraries available for Processing, it would be a

By: andrew

andrew — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:40:23 +0000

Saw this through the instructables RSS feed yesterday; I was surprised at the accuracy of this setup. He also claims to be able to work in an 18 cu. in “arena” with this setup.

By: John Harrison

John Harrison — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:25:54 +0000

You could do this with two wiiMotes and a single LED or with one wiiMote and two LEDs. Shouldn’t be too hard.

By: Bjonnh

Bjonnh — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:49:34 +0000

That's an hack! :)

Is there a way to create a 3d radio field like that ? (may allow multiple devices and maybe more precise detection).

But that's really fine!!!