Nintendo's sensor does serve an important purpose. The bar itself is really nothing more than a shell for two infrared sources - one on each end. It's the same technology commonly found in a variety of electronic devices such as television remotes. The infrared sources located in the sensor bar emit lights that can't be seen by the naked eye, but are nevertheless plainly visible by the Wii remote, whose tip features a very basic camera that can read IR data. The Wii remote uses the IR sources as a calibration point, setting the left and right boundaries. It's very simple tech, but it works. The Wii remote doesn't see your television when you point at it - it sees the IR sources on the sensor bar and orients itself based on those points.
Where Is The Infrared Sensor On Nintendo Ds Lite
The second, arguably more troublesome shortcoming lies with the power of the sensor bar. The two infrared sources it emits match the power of two flames from a lighter, and the Wii remote is unable to accurately track the spots from a distance beyond nine feet. Again, if you've got a larger living room, you may have already noticed the jittery, jumping movement of your Wii-mote reticule when you're stationed more than nine feet away from the console. If your sensor bar is at a raised angle, the distance may actually decrease. Obviously, there are quite a few consumers who sit 10 or even 15 feet away from their television and as a result these people have encountered the issues we reference.
Sources indicate that development of the Wii Remote began in or around 2001, coinciding with development of the Wii console. In that year, Nintendo licensed a number of motion-sensing patents from Gyration Inc., a company that produces wireless motion-sensing computer mice.[3] Nintendo then commissioned Gyration Inc. to create a one-handed controller for them,[3] which eventually developed the "'Gyropod' concept", a more traditional gamepad which allowed its right half to break away for motion-control.[3] At this point, Gyration Inc. brought in separate design firm Bridge Design to help pitch their concept to Nintendo.[4] Under requirement to "roughly preserve the existing Game Cube [sic] button layout", they experimented with different forms "through sketches, models and interviewing various hardcore gamers".[4] By "late 2004, early 2005", however, Nintendo had come up with the Wii Remote's less traditional "wand shape", and the design of the Nunchuk attachment.[5] Nintendo had also decided upon using a motion sensor, infrared pointer, and the layout of the buttons,[5] and by the end of 2005 the controller was ready for mass production.[5]
The Wii Remote has the ability to sense acceleration along three axes through the use of an Analog Devices ADXL330 accelerometer.[24][8] The Wii Remote also features a PixArt optical sensor, allowing it to determine where the Wii Remote is pointing.[25]
Unlike a light gun that senses light from a television screen, the Wii Remote senses light from the console's Sensor Bar, which allows consistent usage regardless of a television's type or size. The Sensor Bar is about 20 cm (8 in) in length and features ten infrared LEDs, with five LEDs being arranged at each end of the bar[26] In each group of five LEDs, the LED farthest away from the center is pointed slightly away from the center, the LED closest to the center is pointed slightly toward the center, while the three LEDs between them are pointed straight forward and grouped together. The Sensor Bar's cable is 353cm (11ft 7in) in length. The bar may be placed above or below the television, and should be centered. If placed above, the sensor should be in line with the front of the television, and if placed below, should be in line with the front of the surface the television is placed on. It is not necessary to point directly at the Sensor Bar, but pointing significantly away from the bar will disrupt position-sensing ability due to the limited viewing angle of the Wii Remote.
Use of the Sensor Bar allows the Wii Remote to be used as an accurate pointing device up to 5 meters (approx. 16ft) away from the bar.[9] The Wii Remote's image sensor[25] is used to locate the Sensor Bar's points of light in the Wii Remote's field of view. The light emitted from each end of the Sensor Bar is focused onto the image sensor which sees the light as two bright dots separated by a distance "mi" on the image sensor. The second distance "m" between the two clusters of light emitters in the Sensor Bar is a fixed distance. From these two distances m and mi, the Wii CPU calculates the distance between the Wii Remote and the Sensor Bar using triangulation.[27] In addition, rotation of the Wii Remote with respect to the ground can also be calculated from the relative angle of the two dots of light on the image sensor.[28] Games can be programmed to sense whether the image sensor is covered, which is demonstrated in a Microgame of Smooth Moves, where if you do not uncover the sensor, the champagne bottle that the remote represents will not open.
The use of an infrared sensor to detect position can cause some detection problems when other infrared sources are around, such as incandescent light bulbs or candles. This can be easily alleviated by using fluorescent lights around the Wii, which emit little to no infrared light.[32] Innovative users have used other sources of IR light as Sensor Bar substitutes such as a pair of flashlights and a pair of candles.[33] Such substitutes for the Sensor Bar illustrate the fact that a pair of non-moving lights provide continuous calibration of the direction that the Wii Remote is pointing and its physical location relative to the light sources. There is no way to calibrate the position of the cursor relative to where the user is pointing the controller without the two stable reference sources of light provided by the Sensor Bar or substitutes.
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