WII REMOTE INTEGRATION IN MULTIMEDIA APPLICATIONS
Chloe Fan, ‘09
The release of the Nintendo Wii gaming console in November 2006 revolutionized the video game industry with its novel game controller, the Wii remote, or “Wiimote.” Shaped and held like a TV remote, the Wii remote provides motion sensing capabilities that support intuitive interaction methods beyond normal joystick-style game play, such as the ability to emulate 3D gestures, which are user-friendly and attractive to both gamers and non-gamers. As a 3D human-computer interaction (HCI) device, it is also salient to researchers in HCI, computer science, artificial intelligence (Guo et al, 2008), medicine (Gallo et al, 2008), and art (Lee et al, 2008) because of its usability, availability, and potential for new methods of user interaction. One of the Wii’s features is the ability to play online Flash games using the Wii remote. According to a recent survey, Flash is available to 99% of internet viewers (Adobe, 2008). With the Wii remote application programmer interface (API) WiiFlash, Flash’s popularity makes it an ideal platform to create and share applications and demos using the Wii remote without having to own a Wii console.
This research project involved connecting a Wii remote to a PC computer using Bluetooth, and perusing several libraries and APIs to gain familiarity with Wii remote programming. An investigation of Wii remote functions in Wii video games and related current research was conducted to understand existing types of interaction. Our investigation included using the Wii remote to create several demos employing two Wii remotes, covering simple game programming (Pong), motion sensing with the Wii remote’s infrared camera, and gesture recognition using the Wii remote’s 3-axis accelerometer. These demos were created in Flash (using the WiiFlash API) and Shockwave (using a Wiimote Director Xtra) to cover both smaller online applications and larger educational applications. Also explored are 3D Flash applications using the Papervision 3D engine as the first step to creating collaborative, artistic demos using gesture recognition and 3D models.
Advisors: Professor Panagiotis Metaxas, Computer Science and Media Arts & Sciences, and Professor Orit Shaer, Computer Science
Funded by the Office of the Dean of the College
References:
Adobe, Adobe Flash Player Statistics, June 2008,
Gallo, L., De Pietro, G., Marra, I., 3D Interaction with Volumetric Medical Data: experiencing the Wiimote, Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Ambient media and systems (Ambi-Sys ’08), February 11-14, 2008, Quebec, Canada.
Guo, C., Sharlin, E., Exploring the Use of Tangible User Interfaces for Human-Robot Interaction: A Comparative Study, CHI 2008 Proceedings, April 5-10, 2008, Florence, Italy.
Lee, H.J., Kim, H., Gupta, G., Mazalek, A., WiiArts: Creating collaborative art experience with WiiRemote interaction, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction (TEI’08), Feb 18-20, 2008, Bonn, Germany.
