Game apparatus where darts are thrown into a projected video game image and software conducts the game progress by locating the darts with digital cameras
This invention describes an electronic amusement game where sensors locate the position of darts thrown by participants into a target board. The target board is not a traditional dart board but an uncolored dart board onto which is projected game images by a front projection monitor. The game locates the darts through the use of digital cameras that capture 2 dimensional images of the dart's profile to establish coordinates. The software conducts game progress by incorporating the thrown dart's position into the game itself. Any manner of game can be projected, including traditional dart games.
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STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENTNot applicable
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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONTheir exists the need for a non-traditional dart game where the playing surface can be changed into many different game scenarios and for such a game to be automatically scored by electronic sensors. Below is discussed patents that use means, other than the method described in this invention, to locate objects in a field.
The main method other inventions use to determine the presence and position of objects in a field is light beams. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,807,858 4,097,800 and 2,630,222 disclose methods to detect the presence of objects moving through a field. More relative to the game of darts are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,762,990 5,565,686 and 6,147,759 which determine not only presence but location coordinates by scanning light or laser light beams just above the surface where the object is located. The beams must scan a sufficient distance above the target surface to avoid irregularities in the surface. The drawback of this method is that it assumes the dart is exactly perpendicular to the board surface. Because the coordinate provided by the light beam does not disclose the angle that the dart enters the board, the actual entry point of the tip of the dart is not known. Therefore, if we assume that a dart can manifest itself in a range of angles between −45 degrees and +45 degrees (where zero degrees is perpendicular to the board), then the system is only accurate to a tolerance of 2 times d, where “d” is the distance the light beams are positioned above the board. These systems are reasonably accurate in scoring a traditional dart board because they assume the presence of wires (or “spider”) on the board that partition it into target areas. Because these wires tend to guide darts into one area or another, they help overcome the inaccuracy of the scanning beams. But the wires are of such thickness that they bend readily, and a dart thrown with sufficient force can penetrate the board directly beneath a wire, simply bending it out the way. In fact, U.S. Pat. No. 5,565,686 states that “it may be necessary to embed the spider [wires] of the dart board” in order to avoid these errors. The manufacture of such a board would be difficult, if not impossible. And embedding the wires would cause many more darts to bounce out of the board when hitting a wire.
There are 2 other patented methods for locating darts or objects in a field that are relevant. U.S. Pat. No. 6,089,571 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,215,390 use a method that partitions the board according to its traditional wire boundaries into blocks which are depressed by thrown darts, completing an electronic circuit. U.S. Pat. No. 6,715,760 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,155,570 use graphite or electrically resistive ink to coat the board. Steel tipped darts complete electronic circuits correspondingly. These methods can lead to high error rate. For example, system that use target blocks must be manufactured with wide inflexible partitions instead of the very thin spider. This is done because neighboring target blocks could both register a “hit” if a dart struck directly down on a thin spider with sufficient force. The thicker spider deflects the dart's energy into one target block of another. Similarly, ink or any electrically resistive substance will incur gradual wear and tear and must be periodically repaired. In addition to these problems, neither of these methods can be used in non traditional dart games where the game targets must be flexibly changed by the software.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThis invention describes an electronic amusement game where sensors locate the position of darts thrown by participants into a target board. The target board is not a traditional dart board but an uncolored dart board onto which is projected game images by a front projection monitor. The game locates the darts through the use of digital cameras that capture 2 dimensional images of the dart's profile to establish coordinates. The software conducts game progress by incorporating the thrown dart's position into the game itself. Any manner of game can be projected, including traditional dart games.
Using profile images of the projectile, the shape of which being analyzed by software, is the best possible method for locating the entry point of the dart into the target surface. This method overcomes the limitations of the systems discussed previously: With regard to surface irregularities, there is not the interference problem associated with light beam scanning systems. With regard to the system employing blocks which are depressed by the force of the dart and the systems that use electrically resistive ink or graphite on the surface, the system discussed here completely overcomes the limitations listed above. In addition, the system described in this patent can flexibly locate darts in any pattern of targets. Every other system has fixed targets.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING
Refering to
Two cameras (30 and 40) are sufficient to establish the coordinates of a dart. 30 determines the x axis coordinate, and 40 determines the y axis coordinate.
While a perpendicular dart is easily located by the scanning light beam systems mentioned earlier,
Although this invention is described in a dart game embodiment, the broad inventive concept is applicable to other types of surfaces and objects within fields. Those skilled in the art could make changes in the embodiment without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Therefore, the invention is not limited to the embodiment described, but instead, covers these potential modifications.
Claims
1. A game apparatus comprising:
- (a) An uncolored target board suitable for receiving thrown darts
- (b) At least 2 digital cameras that capture profile images of darts lodged into the target board
- (c) A projection monitor that projects video game images onto the uncolored dartboard
- (d) Computer hardware
- (e) A console allowing players to interact with the game
2. Game software utilized by the computer hardware in claim 1 which produces various video game images that provide targets for thrown darts
3. Dart locating software utilized by the computer hardware in claim 1 that locates the precise entry point of darts by:
- (a) cropping the digital images of the dart's profile produced by the digital cameras in order to ignore image data near the board surface
- (b) separating these image into horizontal slivers and finding the center point of each sliver
- (c) assembling the center points of these slivers in sequence and ignoring the portion(s) of the sequence that are not linear
- (d) constructing an extension to this linear arrangement of center points that intersects with the board surface
Type: Application
Filed: Sep 28, 2004
Publication Date: Mar 30, 2006
Inventor: Ted Skala (North Olmsted, OH)
Application Number: 10/950,547
International Classification: F41J 1/00 (20060101);