Storage medium storing breath blowing determining program, breath blowing determining apparatus, breath blowing determining method, storage medium storing game program, game apparatus, and game control method

• US 20060107824A1
• Filed: 11/18/2005
• Published: 05/25/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nintendo Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Nintendo Company Limited
• Inventors: Kawamoto, Koichi, Iwamoto, Daiki, Bando, Taro
• Granted Patent: US 7,498,505 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 84/616
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/1075 using a touch screen
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/301 using an additional display connected to the game console, e.g. on the controller
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2210/046 for differentiation between music and non-music signals, based on the identification of musical parameters, e.g. based on tempo detection
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2220/135 Musical aspects of games or videogames; Musical instrument-shaped game input interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2220/361 Mouth control in general, i.e. breath, mouth, teeth, tongue or lip-controlled input devices or sensors detecting, e.g. lip position, lip vibration, air pressure, air velocity, air flow or air jet angle
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2250/031 Spectrum envelope processing
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/00 Speech or voice analysis techniques not restricted to a single one of groups G10L15/00 - G10L21/00 muting semiconductor-based amplifiers when some special characteristics of a signal are sensed by a speech detector, e.g. sensing when no signal is present, H03G3/34
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/09 the extracted parameters being zero crossing rates

Abstract

A game apparatus includes an operating switch and a microphone. A player operates a player object through intuition by the operating switch or inputting a sound. The number of zero crossings contained in waveform of a sound input through the microphone is detected, and also individual interval times between the zero crossings are detected. Then, it is determined whether or not the distribution of the interval times, i.e. the frequency distribution matches the distribution of interval times (frequency distribution) related to a breath sound stored in advance. If there is a match between the two, the input sound is recognized as a breath sound, and a game process based on the breath (wind) is carried out. For example, a game screen depicting the breath or wind is displayed on an LCD.

Claims

1. A storage medium storing a breath blowing determining program for a breath blowing determining apparatus that is equipped with at least a microphone and determines whether or not a sound input from outside through this microphone is made by a breath, wherein

said breath blowing determining program allows a processor of said breath blowing determining apparatus to perform the following steps of:

an input sound detecting step of detecting a sound input from outside at each unit of time;

a time measuring step of measuring individual times between zero crossings in waveform data of the sound detected in said input sound detecting step are measured; and

a sound determining step of determining whether or not said sound detected on the basis of the individual times measured in said time measuring step is made by the operator'"'"'s breath.

2. A storage medium storing a breath blowing determining program according to claim 1, wherein

said sound determining step includes a frequency distribution detecting step of detecting a frequency distribution of said waveform data based on the individual times measured in said time measuring step, and a frequency distribution determining step of determining whether or not the frequency distribution detected in said frequency distribution detecting step satisfies a preset requirement.

3. A storage medium storing a breath blowing determining program according to claim 2, wherein

said frequency distribution detecting step includes a time length classifying step of classifying lengths of said individual times into a plurality of groups,

in said frequency distribution determining step, it is determined whether or not the numbers of the time lengths classified into said plurality of groups fall within respective ranges preset for the groups, and

when it is been determined in said frequency distribution determining step that the numbers of the time lengths classified into said plurality of groups fall within the respective ranges preset for the groups, it is concluded in said sound determining step that said detected sound is made by a breath.

4. A storage medium storing a breath blowing determining program according to claim 1, wherein

said breath blowing determining program further allows a ratio detecting step to be performed of detecting the ratio of maximum value to minimum value of time lengths of said individual times, and

in said sound determining step, if the ratio detected in said ratio detecting step is equal to or more than a first predetermined value and said maximum value is equal to or more than a second predetermined value, said input sound is concluded to be made by a breath.

5. A breath blowing determining apparatus that is equipped with at least a microphone and determines whether or not a sound input from outside through this microphone is made by a breath, comprising:

an input sound detecting means for detecting a sound input from outside at each unit of time;

a time measuring means for measuring individual times between zero crossings in waveform data of the sound detected in said input sound detecting step; and

a sound determining means for determining whether or not said sound detected on the basis of the individual times measured in said time measuring step is made by the operator'"'"'s breath.

6. A breath blowing determining method for a breath blowing determining apparatus that is equipped with at least a microphone and determines whether or not a sound input from outside through this microphone is made by a breath, including the following steps of:

(a) detecting a sound input from outside at each unit of time;

(b) measuring individual times between zero crossings in waveform data of the sound detected in said step (a); and

(c) determining whether or not said sound detected on the basis of the individual times measured in said step (b) is made by the operator'"'"'s breath.

7. A storage medium storing a game program for a game apparatus that carries out a game process based on a sound input from outside, wherein

said game program allows a processor of said game apparatus to perform the following steps of:

an input sound detecting step of detecting a sound input from outside at each unit of time;

a time measuring step of measuring individual times between zero crossings in waveform data of the sound detected in said input sound detecting step;

a sound determining step of determining whether or not said sound detected on the basis of the times measured in said time measuring step is made by the operator'"'"'s breath; and

a game processing step of, when it is determined in said sound determining step that the input sound is made by the breath, carrying out a game process in accordance with the breath.

8. A storage medium storing a game program according to claim 7, wherein

said sound determining step includes a frequency distribution detecting step of detecting a frequency distribution of said waveform data based on the individual times measured in said time measuring step, and a frequency distribution determining step of determining whether or not the frequency distribution detected in said frequency distribution detecting step satisfies a preset requirement.

9. A storage medium storing a game program according to claim 8, wherein

said frequency distribution detecting step includes a time length classifying step of classifying lengths of the individual times measured in said time measuring step into a plurality of groups,

in said frequency distribution determining step, it is determined whether or not the numbers of the time lengths classified into said plurality of groups fall within respective ranges preset for the groups, and

when it is determined in said frequency distribution determining step that the numbers of the time lengths classified into said plurality of groups fall within the respective ranges preset for the groups, it is concluded in said sound determining step that said detected sound is made by a breath.

10. A storage medium storing a game program according to claim 9, wherein

said game program further allows a continuation state determining step to be performed of determining whether or not a state in which the numbers of the time strengths fall within the preset ranges for all the groups continues for a predetermined period of time or more, and

when it is determined in said continuation state determining step that the state has continued for the predetermined period of time or more, it is concluded in said sound determining step that said detected sound is made by the operator'"'"'s breath.

11. A storage medium storing a game program according to claim 7, wherein

said game program further allows a number-of-zero crossing counting step to be performed of counting the number of said zero crossings, and

when it is determined that the number of said zero crossings falls within a preset range, it is concluded in said sound determining step that said detected sound is made by the operator'"'"'s breath.

12. A storage medium storing a game program according to claim 11, wherein

said game program further allows a strength setting step to be performed of setting the strength of a breath based on the number of the zero crossings counted in said number-of-zero crossing counting step, and

in the game processing step, a game process is performed according to the breath strength set in said strength setting step.

13. A storage medium storing a game program according to claim 12, wherein

in the game processing step, a game process is carried out in such a manner as to make a change to the range affected by a breath or wind in the game space, according to the breath strength set in said strength setting step.

14. A storage medium storing a game program according to claim 7, wherein

in said game processing step, a game process is carried out in such a manner that a character of the game performs the action of blowing a breath.

15. A storage medium storing a game program according to claim 7, wherein

said zero crossing is a boundary point at which the amplitude value of said waveform data changes from minus to plus levels or from plus to minus levels.

16. A storage medium storing a game program according to claim 7, wherein

said game program further allows a ratio detecting step to be performed of detecting the ratio of maximum value to minimum value of time length of said individual times, and

When the ratio detected in said ratio detecting step is equal to or more than a first predetermined value and said maximum value is equal to or more than a second predetermined value, in said sound determining step, said input sound is concluded to be made by said operator'"'"'s breath.

17. A game apparatus performing a game process based on a sound input from outside, comprising:

an input sound detecting means for detecting a sound input from outside at each unit of time;

a time measuring means for measuring individual times between zero crossings in waveform data of the sound detected in said input sound detecting step;

a sound determining means for determining whether or not said sound detected on the basis of the individual times measured in said time measuring step is made by the operator'"'"'s breath; and

a game processing means for, when it is determined in said sound determining step that the input sound is made by the breath, carrying out a game process in accordance with the breath.

18. A game control method for carrying out a game process based on a sound from outside, including the following steps of:

(a) detecting a sound input from outside at each unit of time;

(b) measuring individual times between zero crossings in waveform data of the sound detected in said step (a);

(c) determining whether or not said sound detected on the basis of the times measured in said step (b) is made by the operator'"'"'s breath; and

(d) when it is determined in said step (c) that the detected sound is made by the breath, carrying out a game process based on the breath.