Wiimote projector whiteboard Hack (Video)

posted on and by: Johnny Chung Lee-Wii-Projects

I’m actively building this page, so hopefully you’ll see it change in the days/weeks to come. I intend to put a list of project ideas with the wii remote and provide downloadable software for running these demos on your own computer. NOTE: Any software on this page is primarily meant for developers and may not run without proper the development tools installed. Downloading and installing this software is at your own risk, and no support or guarantee is provided with this software.

Tracking Your Fingers with the Wiimote

Using an LED array and some reflective tape, you can use the infrared camera in the Wii remote to track objects, like your fingers, in 2D space. This lets you interact with your computer simply by waving your hands in the air similar to the interaction seen in the movie “Minority Report”. The Wiimote can track upto 4 points simultaneously. The multipoint grid software is a custom C# DirectX program.

Software
To run the grid program you see in the video:
1. First, follow this walkthrough on using the wiimote with C#. You may need to download a copy of Visual C# Express to compile/run this sample if you don’t have it yet.
2. Download a copy of the DirectX SDK. You may not need this to simply run the sample grid program, but you will need it if you want to make any changes to it.
3. Download the Wiimote Multipoint Grid sample program. Make sure your wiimote is connected via bluetooth, and then run the “.exe” shortcut in the main folder.

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Low-Cost Multi-point Interactive Whiteboards Using the Wiimote

Since the Wiimote can track sources of infrared (IR) light, you can track pens that have an IR led in the tip. By pointing a wiimote at a projection screen or LCD display, you can create very low-cost interactive whiteboards or tablet displays. Since the Wiimote can track upto 4 points, multiple pens can be used.

Software
The calibration and mouse cursor emulation software is available for you to download and try yourself. Note: My mouse emulation code isn’t perfect. If any of you are programmers and can get it working with Alias sketchpad, drop me a line.
1. Connect your wiimote to your PC via Bluetooth. If you don’t know how to do this, you can follow this tutorial
2. Download the Wiimote Whiteboard sample program. Please read the “READ ME.txt” file first! Make sure your wiimote is connected via bluetooth, and then run the “.exe” in the main folder.

Multitouch: The multitouch demos are custom C# DirectX programs. You may download the source code, but this is provided for developers without support or documentation. The code is built on top of this Wiimote library. Unfortunately, multi-touch capable applications are currently extremely rare. Hopefully, that will change as more developers explore its potential.

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