Gaming machine
The present invention provides a gaming machine which allows a plurality of players to advance a game by indicating positions on a table screen which constitutes a game table using their hands. The gaming machine includes a game table display unit which displays an image corresponding to a game table, a position detecting unit which detects positions of indicators on the game table display unit, a player specifying unit which specifies players corresponding to the indicators based on the positional relationship between the positions of the indicators detected by the position detecting unit and the game table display units, and a control unit which performs a control of the game based on information on the positions detected by the position detecting unit and information on the players specified based on the player specifying unit.
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This application is based upon and claims the priorities from a prior Japanese patent application No. 2004-047114, filed on Feb. 23, 2004, in Japan, a prior Japanese patent application No. 2004-204651, filed on Jul. 12, 2004, and a prior Japanese patent application No. 2004-244124, filed on Aug. 24, 2004, in Japan, entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
This application is related to a co-pending U.S. patent application referred to as a prior Japanese patent application No. 2004-042697 filed in Japan on Feb. 19, 2004 and a co-pending U.S. patent application referred to as a prior Japanese patent application No. 2004-047166 filed in Japan on Feb. 24, 2004 and a prior Japanese patent application No. 2004-111401 filed in Japan on Apr. 5, 2004.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION1. Field of the Invention
The present invention mainly relates to a gaming machine, and more particularly to a gaming machine which specifies a position of a player's hand, performs a control of a game based on this position, and specifies the player by detecting the position from which the hand extends.
2. Related Art
With respect to a gaming machine which is installed in a game arcade or a gaming arena, recently, there has been observed the gaming machine which provides a game performed by a plurality of players using the same game table simultaneously such as roulette, poker, bridge or baccarat.
Such a gaming machine is provided with manipulating parts the number of which corresponds to the number of players and the players perform the game by manipulating the corresponding manipulating parts.
For example, in a gaming device which displays a gaming screen on a large-sized panel display, there has been proposed a gaming machine in which players indicate the game using terminal devices provided for respective players (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication 2002-301264 (FIG. 1, steps [0063], [0066])).
In such an indication, there may be a case in which it is necessary to detect which positions are indicated. For example, there may be a case in which a player wants to perform the indication of various image processing such as a highlight display or an enlarged display using the indicator as a trigger for supporting the understanding of the players. Here, the highlight display is a display which changes the color of a sentence pointed out by the indicator and the enlarged display is a display which displays a chart in an enlarged manner.
As a technique which satisfies such a request, there has been proposed a technique in which indication positions in an image region which constitutes an image displayed on a screen is detected such that the image region is photographed and an image obtained by photographing is subjected to edge processing (for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication 2002-301264 (FIG. 1, steps [0063], [0066])).
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONIn the gaming machine in which a plurality of players play a game using the same table simultaneously such as roulette or a card game, there has been a demand for a game in which a plurality of players advance the game by respectively indicating given places (for example, positions where chips are bet) using their hands on a common game table such as actual roulette or card game.
As a method which allows the plurality of players to use the common game table, there may be considered a method which specifies the players in such a manner that the playing order is regulated so that players play the game one after another. However, in such a method, it is difficult to provide a situation in which the plurality of players enjoys the game by extending their hands on one game table.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a gaming machine which can overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks and allows a plurality of players to advance a game by giving indications on a table screen which constitutes a game table using their hands.
Further, it is another object of the present invention to provide a gaming machine which allows players who advance a game by giving indications with their hands, wherein a result of the game or the like is reflected on a display relevant to the players.
The present invention has the following constitutional features as means to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks.
The present invention proposes a gaming machine which allows a plurality of players to perform a game using the same game table simultaneously. The players perform the game at positions arranged around a game table (for example, a betting table of roulette, a baccarat table of baccarat) provided to the gaming machine. The positions where the player plays the game are fixed by arranging chairs or the like to predetermined positions around the game table.
The gaming machine is characterized by including a game table display (an image display unit) which displays an image corresponding to a game table, a position detector (a position detecting part) which detects positions of indicators on the game table display, a player specifying unit (a player specifying part) which specifies players corresponding to the indicators based on the positional relationship between the positions of the indicators detected by the position detector and the game table display, and a controller (a game control part) which performs a control of the game based on information on the positions detected by the position detector and information on the players specified based on the player specifying unit.
According to the present invention, in the gaming machine which allows the plurality of players to advance the game by simultaneously indicating the betting positions or the like on the table screen which constitutes one game table, it is possible to specify which players perform the betting and which positions the players bet, and an amount (the number of bets) which the players bet.
According to the present invention, it is possible for players to advance a game while actually performing the indication on the game table with their hands.
Further, according to the present invention, in the gaming machine in which the plurality of players advance the game while indicating the betting positions or the like on the table screen which constitutes one game table simultaneously, it is possible to specify to which positions the players bet and the amount (the number of bets) which the players bet.
According to another mode of the present invention, compared to a case in which the number of bets is determined using the change of the positions of the indicators (for example, when the number that the player taps the table screen is treated as the number of bets, the vertical movement of the indicator is detected), it is possible to obtain the number of bets more accurately based on the inputting from the player terminal units and can be reflected on the advancement of the game.
Still further, according to another mode of the present invention, the result of the game is clearly recognized not only by the players but also by bystanders around the gaming machine thus promoting the desire of the bystanders to take part in the game.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention are explained in conjunction with drawings.
First Embodiment First of all, the first embodiment of the present invention according to the present invention is explained in conjunction with
The image display system 1 includes a focusing unit 10, a image control unit 30 which supplies image data, a projecting unit 20 which projects images to a front surface of the focusing unit 10, an image taking unit 40 which photographs the focusing unit 10 on which a shade PS of an indicator P is formed from a back surface of the screen unit 10, a position detecting unit 50 which receives image data of the back surface of the screen unit 10 outputted from the image taking unit 40, determines a position of the shade PS of the indicator P based on the image data, and outputs positional information. A player specifying unit 70 which specifies a player corresponding to the shade PS based on the image data from the image taking unit 40, and an main control device 60 which instructs an image to be projected to the screen unit 10 to the image control unit 30 based on the positional information from the position detecting unit 50 and the information of the player specifying unit 70 which specifies the player. The screen unit 10, the projecting unit 20 and the image control unit 30 cooperatively function as an image display unit 80 which displays an image such as a game table to the player.
The screen unit 10 has a light transmitting property and allows light from a front surface and a back surface thereof to pass therethrough. The screen unit 10 is, for example, a transmissive screen for a liquid crystal projector. When a user U observes an screen unit 10 from the front surface of the screen unit 10, an optical image which is radiated from the back surface side of the screen unit 10 by the projecting unit 20 focuses an image on the screen unit 10. As a result, the user U can observe an image corresponding to the image data which the projecting unit 20 radiates.
The indicator P is an object or a means which the user uses for indicating a desired position of the image displayed on the front surface of the screen unit 10 and is, for example, a hand (including an arm portion) of the user U himself/herself, an indicating rod or the like, for example. The indicator P is illuminated by a light source LS and hence, a shade PS of the indicator P is reflected on the screen unit 10. Since the screen unit 10 has the light transmitting property, even when the screen unit 10 is observed from a back surface thereof, the shade PS is observed. Here, the light source LS may be a lateral light source such as sunbeams or a lighting equipment which is provided in an environment in which the image display system 1 is arranged. Further, the light source LS may be a lighting equipment such as a fluorescent lamp mounted in the image display system 1.
The projecting unit 20 is an optical projecting system which is capable of projecting an optical image to the screen unit 10 based on the image data and is a liquid crystal projector (DLP (Digital Liquid Protector)), for example. The light source LS is preferably a light source which emits a white light. By allowing the white light to transmit screen unit 10, the shade PS of the indicator P is observed in black on the back surface of the screen unit 10 and, at the same time, regions other than the shade PS are observed in white whereby an image equivalent to a white/black image can be obtained.
The image taking unit 40 is a unit which generates the image data of the back surface of the screen unit 10 and is, for example, a digital camera, a digital video camera, a CCD camera unit, or the like.
The image control unit 30, the position detecting unit 50, the main control device 60 and the player specifying unit 70 are respectively constituted of a device which includes a central processing unit (CPU), a main memory (RAM), a read only memory (ROM), an input/output device (I/O), and an external storage device such as a hard disc device or the like when necessary. That is, these units may be formed of an information processing unit such as a computer, a workstation, an LSI chip or the like. In the above-mentioned ROM or the hard disc device, a program which allows the information processing device to function as the image control unit 30, the position detecting unit 50 or the main control device 60 is stored. By storing this program in the main memory and by allowing the CPU to execute this program, the image control unit 30, the position detecting unit 50 or the main control device 60 can be realized. Further, the above-mentioned program is not always necessary to be stored in the storage device in the inside of the information processing device and may be provided from an external device (for example, an ASP (a server of an application service provider or the like)) and may be stored in the main memory.
The image control unit 30, the position detecting unit 50, the main control device 60, and the player specifying unit 70 may be respectively realized by individual information processing device or one information processing device may be configured to function as the image control unit 40, the position detecting unit 50, the main control device 60 and the player specifying unit 70.
The image control unit 30 stores a plurality of image data to be displayed to the user, wherein the necessary image data is read out in response to a command from the main control device 60 and is subjected to the image processing when necessary, and is provided to the projecting unit 20.
The position detecting unit 50 receives the image data of the back surface of the screen unit 10 from the image taking unit 40, detects the position of the shade PS of the indicator P by performing the necessary image processing on the image data, and outputs the detected position as the positional information. As the image processing, threshold value processing for performing the region extracting of the shade PS, the edge detection for extracting a profile of the shade PS or the like is considered. The position detecting unit 50 generates the positional information of the shade PS by making use of the coordinate positional information of pixels of a shade region or a profile line obtained by these threshold value processing or the edge detection.
The main control device 60 has a function of controlling the operation of the whole image display system 1, wherein the main control device 60 instructs the image data to be outputted and the timing at which the image data is outputted or the like the image control unit 30 and, at the same time, instructs the image control unit 30 to change the image data in response to the positional information of the shade PS from the position detecting unit 50.
The player specifying unit 70 checks whether the shades PS fall within regions for specifying the players, wherein the regions are predetermined on the table screen for respective players (also referred to as “player specifying regions”). Thereafter, the player specifying unit 70 specifies the players corresponding to the shades PS as a result, and outputs the information indicating the players. When the player specifying region is a region in which the indicator never fails to pass when the player indicates on the input region on the table screen allocated to himself/herself with the indicating poriton P, that is, the region which is determined based on the sitting position given to the player, the shape and the size of the gaming machine, the expected player's physical structure of the player and the like.
Modification of the First Embodiment
According to the above-mentioned embodiment, in the gaming machine which allows the plurality of players to advance the game while indicating the betting positions or the like on the table screen which constitutes one game table simultaneously, it is possible to specify which positions the players bet.
Next, the specific embodiments according to the present invention are explained First Specific Embodiment
The gaming machine 300 according to this embodiment includes a table part 301 and a front display 302 which is mounted on a rear portion of the table part 301.
Table part 301 houses the optical system and information processing equipment which constitute the image display system 1 therein. An opening is formed in a center portion of an upper surface of the table part 301 and a transmissive screen 303 which constitutes the screen unit 10 is extended over the opening. The transmissive screen 303 functions as an upper display (hereinafter referred to as “table screen 306”) which constitutes the image display unit 80 which displays the game image to the users. Here, an upper portion of the transmissive screen 303 is protected by a transparent plate member such as a glass panel thus preventing the transmissive screen 303 from being broken or smeared even when the player touches the table screen 306 with his/her hand which constitutes the indicator P.
Fluorescent lumps 304A, 304B which constitute the light sources LS are formed both ends of an upper portion of the front display 302 and hence, the shade PS of the indicator P is projected on the transmissive screen 303. Here, the arrangement position of the fluorescent lumps 304A, 304B is not always limited to the mode shown in
To a center portion of the table part 301, the transmissive screen 303 is fixed in a state that the transmissive screen 303 is protected by a glass plate or the like. A mirror 401 is arranged in an inclined state below the transmissive screen 303. At a position which faces the mirror 401, a digital liquid crystal projector (hereinafter referred to as “DLP”) 402 which corresponds to the projecting unit 20 and a digital video camera (DVC) 403 which corresponds to the image taking unit 40 are fixed. The mirror 401 reflects the image radiated from the DLP 402 toward the transmissive screen 303 and the distance between the mirror 401 and the DLP 402 and an angle of a reflection surface are adjusted so as to project the image with a desired size. In the same manner, the mirror 401 is arranged in a state that the mirror reflects the image of the back surface of the transmissive screen 303 toward the digital video camera 403 and the distance between the mirror 401 and the digital video camera 403 and an angle of a reflection surface with respect to the transmissive screen 303/the digital video camera 403 is adjusted such that the digital video camera 403 can photographs the back surface of the transmissive screen 303.
Next, an electrical constitutional example of the gaming machine 300 is explained.
As shown in
The front display control part 504 outputs image data of the image to be displayed on the front display 302 (hereinafter referred to as “front image data”) in response to the instruction from the game control part 502. The front display 302 receives and displays the front image data. The image displayed on the front display 302 informs, in cooperation with the image displayed on the transmissive screen 303, that is, the table screen 306, the situation, the progress and the like of the game to the users.
In this embodiment, a dealer of a baccarat is displayed as a moving image on the front display 302.
Next, a screen example displayed on the table screen 306 (transmissive screen 303) is explained.
Further, the table screen 306 includes regions 704, 705 to which the dealer 601 distributes cards of BANKDER and PLAYER and images of cards are displayed on these regions 704, 705.
Returning back to
To the game control part 502, a plurality of player terminal parts 5051 to 505N are connected. Each player terminal part 505 is a terminal which receives coins, bills, prepaid cards, credit cards or the like and changes them to credits (medals/coins) which can be used in the gaming machine 300. The player terminal part 405 also has a delivery function of paying out the credits which the player terminal part 405 possesses in response to the payout indication from the player at a point of time that the payout indication is made and a bet inputting function for determining the number of bets, an amount of money and the number of credits in the game. The player performs the game using this player terminal part 505 and the indicator P.
Next, the processing which detects a position of the user's hand which constitutes the indicator P based on the back surface image data of the back surface of the transmissive screen 303 is explained.
When viewed with naked eyes, there may be a case that the image which is displayed on the front surface of the transmissive screen 303 shown in
First of all, the screen back surface photographing processing is performed (step S901). That is, the video camera 403 photographs the back surface of the transmissive screen 303 by way of the mirror 401 and outputs the image as shown in
Upon receiving the back surface image data, the position detecting part 503 performs the binarization processing of the back surface image data (step S902).
Next, the position detecting part 503 performs the position detecting processing based on the back surface image data after the binarization processing (step S903). The position detecting part 503 obtains the coordinates value (x, y values) of pixels which have black values based on the back surface image data after binarization processing and generates the positional information based on the obtained coordinate values. The positional information may be the coordinate value of the pixel which constitutes a peak of the distal end portion. Alternatively, an average value or a center value of the coordinate values of all pixels which possess black values may be selected.
Next, the player specifying part 506 performs the player specifying processing (step S904).
Returning back to
Finally, the position detecting part 503 outputs the positional information generated in step S903 to the game control part 502 and the player specifying part 506 outputs the player identifier generated in step S904 to the game control part 502 (step S905). The game control part 502 performs the necessary game processing based on the received positional information. For example, the game control part 502 performs a control such that the game control part 502 determines the positional information as the designation of anyone of the regions 701, 702, 703 for betting to “BANKER”, “PLAYER”, “DRAW” and displays the image of the designated pile of chips 706 in the inside of the region. Further, the piles of chips 706 are displayed in color which corresponds to the identifier in accordance with the player identifier.
[Player Specifying Region]
Next, the player specifying region is explained.
The gaming machine 300 is provided with stools 1101A to 1101E which allow five players at maximum can sit and the region that each player's hand can reach is limited. In front of the sitting positions of the respective players, player terminal parts 505A to 505E which are incorporated in the table part 301 are provided. Each one of the player terminal portions 505A to 505E is provided with a betting button, a canceling button, a payout button (not shown in the drawing) and receives an inputting instruction from the player.
Regions 1102A to 1102E shown in
In respective regions 1102A to 1102E, the player specifying regions 1001A to 1001E are respectively set in end portions of the regions close to the player side. It is sufficient so long as the player specifying part 506 stores the positions and shapes of the player specifying regions 1001A to 1001E as coordinate data and it is unnecessary that the player specifying regions 1001A to 1001E are actually displayed on the table screen 306.
According to this method, by respectively setting colors (for example, red, blue, yellow, green, white) which the respective players use, it is possible to display the colors on positions on the table screen which the positional information indicates based on the detected positional information.
According to the above-mentioned position detecting method, even when the plurality of players designate the positions on the table screen 306, it is possible to recognize the players corresponding to the respective indicated positions.
As described above, it is possible to realize the gaming machine 300 which can use the transmissive screen 303 which constitutes the screen unit 10 as the image display unit as well as the image input unit and, at the same time, can specify the players based on the inputting from the transmissive screen 303.
Modification of First Specific Embodiment
Next, the second embodiment according to the present invention is explained. In the first embodiment, corresponding to the players, the piles of chips 706 displayed on the table screen 305 are displayed in a mode (for example, color, pattern, shape or the like of the chips) which differs from a mode of the piles of chips 706 of other player. However, the present invention also includes the constitution which displays an object to be displayed other than the piles of chips in modes different from each other corresponding to the results of the game of respective players.
In this embodiment, the regions 701, 702, 703 are displayed in different display modes in response to game results of respective players.
The gaming machine 300 according to this embodiment is similar to the gaming machine 300 of the first embodiment and performs the operation shown in
Here, the display mode is not limited to this example and any display mode is available provided that the regions 701, 702, 703 are displayed corresponding to the results of the game of respective players. That is, various modes can be adopted. For example, only frames which surround the regions 701, 702, 703 may be flickered. Alternatively, while the display modes of the regions 701, 702, 703 which correspond to the players who win the game are set equal to the usual display mode, the display modes of the regions 701, 702, 703 which correspond to the players who lose the game are changed (for example, the brightness is lowered than the usual brightness).
Here, the results of the game may be the results of the respective individual games or a total of a plurality of continuous individual games (for example, plus/minus of chip credit which the player has in hand after finishing of 10 games counted from the starting of the game.
In this embodiment, the above-mentioned “results of game” do not simply classify the display mode based on only the winning or the losing. That is, on the premise that the player wins the game, the display mode is made different whether the winning acquires the specified number of chips or not.
In the example shown in this drawing, the first player from the left facing the gaming machine 300 wins the game with the number of chips which exceeds the specified number of chips (for example, 1000 chips) and the second player from the left facing the gaming machine 300 wins the game with the number of chips which exceeds the specified number of chips. In the table screen 305, one of the regions 701, 702, 703 which corresponds to the first player from the left is displayed in a flickering manner with color (for example, silver) different from color (for example, green) which is usually displayed and, at the same time, one of the regions 701, 702, 703 which corresponds to the second player from the left is displayed in a flickering manner with color (for example, gold) different from color (for example, green) which is usually displayed and also different from the color displayed in one of the regions 701, 702, 703 which corresponds to the first player.
Further, although the regions 701, 702, 703 are used as objects in which the display modes are different from each other, even when the regions 701, 702, 703 are not used, any display modes are available provided that the players can be specified. For example, the display modes of the chips 706 may be made different from each other corresponding to the results of the game of the players.
Further, it is not always necessary to use all regions 701, 702, 703 as the objects in which the display modes are made different from each other, and the display modes may be made different from each other only by regions which are relevant to winning out of the regions 701, 702, 703, for example. For example, the result of the game turns out to be “TIE”, the display mode may be made different only with respect to the region 701 which corresponds to “TIE”.
INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITYThe present invention is not limited to the gaming machine and is applicable to all devices and systems which perform the reception of inputting of the users by making use of the image display and the displayed image such as the image display system for presentation, the demonstration device for promoting sales and the like.
Claims
1. A gaming machine which allows a plurality of players to perform a game using the same game table simultaneously, the gaming machine comprising:
- a game table display which displays an image corresponding to a game table;
- a position detector which detects positions of indicators on the game table display;
- a player specifying unit which specifies players corresponding to the indicators based on the positional relationship between the positions of the indicators detected by the position detector and the game table display units; and
- a controller which performs a control of the game based on information on the positions detected by the position detector and information on the players specified based on the player specifying unit.
2. A gaming machine according to claim 1, wherein the gaming machine further includes player terminals which are provided for designating the players' positions.
3. A gaming machine according to claim 2, wherein the controller performs the control of the game based on input of the players using the player terminals in addition to the information on the positions detected by the position detector and the information on the players specified based on the player specifying unit.
4. A gaming machine according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to control images displayed by the game table display in response to game results of respective players.
Type: Application
Filed: Feb 23, 2005
Publication Date: Sep 1, 2005
Applicant: Aruze Corp. (Tokyo)
Inventors: Kazuo Okada (Tokyo), Kengo Takeda (Tokyo)
Application Number: 11/062,734