Hello all, I've been lurking around these forums for a LONG time now, but this is my first time posting something. I'm an engineering student at Michigan State University, but in my free time I've been working on a firearm training system that I thought you might all get a kick out of. It's quite similar to the system offered by the folks at
http://www.lasershot.com , however, I've been able to do it at a significantly lower cost.
In a nutshell- A projector displays virtual targets or a training scenario on a wall. The gun you're using (handgun, rifle, airsoft, etc) has a human-invisible IR laser mounted to it which projects a dot on the screen. A camera pointed at the screen captures the position of this dot, which is then transformed using an algorithm to determine its location within the simulation. This is more difficult than it might sound, as there are things like lens distortion, projector distortion, etc. which are difficult to easily compensate for.
I've made a couple videos describing the process and setup in a little more detail. The second one also has a target practice demo near the end. I apologize, they're both a bit boring, they were just thrown together to provide a quick demonstration of what I was doing to some guys in my lab at school.
Quick note: bolt was removed from weapon in the first video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNt5L8wZltM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEq0bqrmDyY
The system works GREAT right now, the "hit" marker always pops up right on top of the front sight post like it should. The next step for me is finding somebody who can "mod" one of the existing game engines out there so I can integrate this into a simulation. I'd be interested in hearing what all of you think about this thing so far.
Thanks,
MrFisher