POSITION DETECTION SYSTEM, POSITION DETECTION METHOD, INFORMATION STORAGE MEDIUM, AND IMAGE GENERATION DEVICE

• US 20110014982A1
• Filed: 09/29/2010
• Published: 01/20/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Namco Bandai Games Inc. (BANDAI NAMCO Holdings Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Namco Bandai Games Inc. (BANDAI NAMCO Holdings Inc.)
• Inventors: HIRAISHI, Hiroyuki
• Application Number:
  US12/893,424
• Publication Number:
  US 20110014982A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/36
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/213 comprising photodetecting means, e.g. cameras, photodiodes or infrared cells A63F13/219, A63F13/655 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/219 for aiming at specific areas on the display, e.g. light-guns
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/245 specially adapted to a particular type of game, e.g. steering wheels
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/42 by mapping the input signals into game commands, e.g. mapping the displacement of a stylus on a touch screen to the steering angle of a virtual vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/837 Shooting of targets
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/1062 being specially adapted to a type of game, e.g. steering wheel
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/1087 comprising photodetecting means, e.g. a camera
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/1093 using visible light
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/6045 for mapping control signals received from the input arrangement into game commands
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8076 Shooting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0321 by optically sensing the absolute position with respect to a regularly patterned surface forming a passive digitiser, e.g. pen optically detecting position indicative tags printed on a paper sheet constructional details of pen-shaped pointing devices G06F3/03545, G06F3/03542, G06F3/037
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0428 by sensing at the edges of the touch surface the interruption of optical paths, e.g. an illumination plane, parallel to the touch surface which may be virtual sensing beam interruptions in a planar beam grid of an optical touch-screen G06F3/0421

Abstract

A position detection system includes an image acquisition section that acquires an image from an imaging device when the imaging device has acquired an image of an imaging area corresponding to a pointing position from a display image generated by embedding a marker image as a position detection pattern in an original image, and a position detection section that performs a calculation process that detects the marker image embedded in the acquired image based on the acquired image to determine the pointing position corresponding to the imaging area.

Claims

1. A position detection system that detects a pointing position, the position detection system comprising:

an image acquisition section that acquires an image from an imaging device when the imaging device has acquired an image of an imaging area corresponding to the pointing position from a display image, the display image being generated by embedding a marker image as a position detection pattern in an original image; and

a position detection section that performs a calculation process that detects the marker image embedded in the acquired image based on the acquired image to determine the pointing position corresponding to the imaging area.

2. The position detection system as defined in claim 1,

the display image being generated by converting each pixel data of the original image using each pixel data of the marker image.

3. The position detection system as defined in claim 2,

the display image being generated by converting at least one of R component data, G component data, B component data, color difference component data, and brightness component data of each pixel of the original image using each pixel data of the marker image.

4. The position detection system as defined in claim 1,

the marker image including pixel data having a unique data pattern in each segmented area of the display image.

5. The position detection system as defined in claim 1,

each pixel data of the marker image being generated by random number data using a maximal-length sequence.

6. The position detection system as defined in claim 1,

the imaging device acquiring an image of the imaging area that is smaller than a display area of the display image.

7. The position detection system as defined in claim 1,

the position detection section calculating a cross-correlation between the acquired image and the marker image, and determining the pointing position based on the cross-correlation calculation results.

8. The position detection system as defined in claim 7,

the position detection section performing a high-pass filter process on the cross-correlation calculation results or the marker image.

9. The position detection system as defined in claim 7, further comprising:

a reliability calculation section that calculates the reliability of the cross-correlation calculation results based on a maximum cross-correlation value and a distribution of cross-correlation values.

10. The position detection system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

an image correction section that performs an image correction process on the acquired image,

the position detection section determining the pointing position based on the acquired image that has been subjected to the image correction process by the image correction section.

11. A position detection method comprising:

generating a display image by embedding a marker image as a position detection pattern in an original image, and outputting the generated display image to a display section;

detecting the marker image embedded in an image acquired from the display image based on the acquired image;

determining a pointing position corresponding to an imaging area of the acquired image; and

performing a calculation process based on the determined pointing position.

12. The position detection method as defined in claim 11, further comprising:

performing a game process including a game result calculation process based on the pointing position.

13. The position detection method as defined in claim 11, further comprising:

generating the display image by converting each pixel data of the original image using each pixel data of the marker image.

14. The position detection method as defined in claim 13, further comprising:

generating the display image by converting at least one of R component data, G component data, B component data, color difference component data, and brightness component data of each pixel of the original image using each pixel data of the marker image.

15. The position detection method as defined in claim 11,

the marker image including pixel data having a unique data pattern in each segmented area of the display image.

16. The position detection method as defined in claim 11,

each pixel data of the marker image being generated by random number data using a maximal-length sequence.

17. The position detection method as defined in claim 11, further comprising:

changing the marker image with a lapse of time.

18. The position detection method as defined in claim 11, further comprising:

calculating a cross-correlation between the acquired image and the marker image in order to determine the pointing position; and

determining the reliability of the cross-correlation calculation results, and changing the marker image based on the determined reliability.

19. The position detection method as defined in claim 11, further comprising:

changing the marker image corresponding to the original image.

20. The position detection method as defined in claim 11, further comprising:

acquiring disturbance measurement information; and

changing the marker image based on the disturbance measurement information.

21. The position detection method as defined in claim 11, further comprising:

outputting the original image in which the marker image is not embedded as the display image when a given condition has not been satisfied; and

outputting an image generated by embedding the marker image in the original image as the display image when the given condition has been satisfied.

22. The position detection method as defined in claim 21, further comprising:

generating a position detection original image as the original image when the given condition has been satisfied; and

outputting an image generated by embedding the marker image in the position detection original image as the display image.

23. The position detection method as defined in claim 21, further comprising:

outputting an image generated by embedding the marker image in the original image as the display image when it has been determined that a position detection timing has been reached based on instruction information from a pointing device.

24. The position detection method as defined in claim 21, further comprising:

performing a game process including a game result calculation process based on the pointing position; and

outputting an image generated by embedding the marker image in the original image as the display image when a given game event has occurred during the game process.

25. The position detection method as defined in claim 11, further comprising:

determining the pointing position based on the acquired image acquired from the display image when a given condition has been satisfied.

26. A computer-readable information storage medium storing a program that causes a computer to implement the position detection method as defined in claim 11.

27. An image generation device comprising:

an image generation section that generates a display image by embedding a marker image as a position detection pattern in an original image, and outputs the generated display image to a display section; and

a processing section that performs a calculation process based on a pointing position when the marker image embedded in an image acquired from the display image has been detected based on the acquired image and the pointing position corresponding to an imaging area of the acquired image has been determined.