From: kpc@panix.com (Kevin Centanni)
Subject: Re: TECH: Cheap video tracker update
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 92 15:56:14 EST



In article <1992Feb4.002455.2022@watserv1.waterloo.edu> dstamp@watserv1.
waterloo.edu (Dave Stampe-Psy+Eng) writes:

>Well, the cheap video tracker PC card I've been working on is working
>(in hardware, the software's in early stages) but it looks great.
>This is a card for 286, 386 and 486 PCs that accepts camera input
>(inexpensive monochrome cameras work best) and extracts pertinant edge data
>in realtime. 
>
>Silhouette input:  Plenty of VR work is being done with gesturing in
>front of white screens.  This board was able to pick out all the fingers
>on my hand even though it only covered about 1/2 inch on the VGA monitor.
>This was under nonideal whitescreen situations, including substantial
>sidelighting.
>
>Can anyone think of other applications?  It's going to a market review
>in a month or so, and I'd like to have a few more ideas to present.

My company designs exhibits that are used in museums and tradeshows.  We
currently have an 'artificial-reality' system that's used at medical
conventions.  It uses 2 VGA-equipped PC's to digitize/track people and
to draw the required graphics and control laser discs and audio hardware.
 
Right now, we are using a $300 black-and-white 8-bit digitizer card from
a compnay in PA called IDEC.  We're luck to get much more than 10 frames
per second out of the card.  The person playing the game wears a YELLOW
glove - we found that the color yellow shows up very well on one of
the outputs of our chroma-keyer.  Ideally, we'd like to be able to
track a persons' hand without them having to wear a glove.

I'm sure that we'd be interested in such a board.  What are the current
projected availability dates????  Cost???
 
I've been told that our 'v.r.' system will be written up in the April
issue of AVC magazine.  (shameless plug)

Thanks...


Kevin P. Centanni
Corporate Communication Group
212.268.2100
kpc@panix.com       {cmcl2,apple}!panix!kpc