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DS development > DS Camera API - who needs one anyway ?

#139785 - syncope - Mon Sep 10, 2007 3:48 am

Witht the arrival of the DS-Camera (also at my Doorstep Whoopey!) there's a whole bunch of new possibilities.

Here's some toughts on what such a lib could be of use for >>
[+Lets hear yours !]

-Textures, Assets
Think that 'Drawn to Life' game extended. Or simply the good ol' use-your-face-as-a-texture spiel.
Take a picture, draw a mask/alpha.

-VideoChat
Uh unless a miracle crew of talented get together, this so aint happenin'. And even then - Camera-compression-wifi-decompression. There's some things that the DS just isn't made for.
Anyone think its technically possible at reasonable quality ?

-Use it as another DS-Motion compliant device
See http://www.gesturetekmobile.com/inside.html [as used in this game] for more. Guess they're using 'optical flow' for their tracking with standard cellphone cams.

-DsGoo extended.
nuff said

-DS Diary - a DSorganise plugin

-Stylised/artisitc mirrors
I mean they put some video kaleidoscope stuff in there already and its more fun than it should be really.
Though its sucks as fullscreen mirror :P (mmh bezel)

-Finger games or hand gestures
Think spawning stuff ? la Pac-pix with/from your hands. Hadoken!

-Ds Tube
Make videos, share on a small homebrew portal [like HBbrowse].
Hook up to youtube.
Fat cards can certainly record some lengthy clips, although the quality would be aboniable,....Hey just like youtube !:)


Even if there already was one, in what ways could you see homebrew or even commercial games/edutainment make use of it ?
[How would one go about polling, registering and reverse engineering what comes in through the SPI anyway ?]

--

The Facetraining game does some cool things on its own (besides making your face hurt) that I never expected to see on the DS
-full screen video on both screens.
-It does this vertical adjustment-where it scrolls within the image buffer -mighty impressive. most proffessional.
-There's this solid facetracker by Inteligent systems
Not being able to swivel it around 180? is a HUGE omission however.

#139808 - laos - Mon Sep 10, 2007 12:04 pm

Just remember the ds is only SO strong, video streams are quite difficult. its only got 66mhz and 4 MB of ram,

Taking pictures is really the only major i think, unless you got a strong camera with very small minimal requirements.
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#139810 - pas - Mon Sep 10, 2007 12:21 pm

Pictures would be awesome

#139819 - mml - Mon Sep 10, 2007 1:49 pm

Semacode reader could have some potential, if they catch on; a QR Code reader would be more useful (for people in Japan, where QR has taken off pretty well)

#140493 - HyperHacker - Sun Sep 16, 2007 9:55 pm

How many megapixels are we talking here? I'd like to see just a plain DS camera for taking pictures with. Though I guess you'd need a flash of some sort too...

QR code sounds awesome too. You can put images in the code without breaking it? Nice.
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#141417 - lambi1982 - Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:57 am

the camera that comes with the face training game in japan runs pretty damn smooth and at full screen.

I would bet that if in the right hands the ds would more than likely be able to send video streams, also anyone remember the game boy camera. that was pretty fun for a while.

the ds is way more powerful than the GB so I wouldnt see why with the right software the ds could rock camera apps
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#141448 - Sweater Fish Deluxe - Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:09 pm

(EDIT: I'm sorry, I just have to fix the typos in this post, they bother me too much.)

Yeah, I've had some great ideas for little games and apps using the camera if it ever gets reversed so that we can access it.

I also really hope the Arkanoid expansion cart will be usable in homebrew eventually, too, and that one should (EDIT: shouldn't) be too hard to get figured out. Some great stuff would be possible, especially if it's a continuous rotation paddle, not just a potentiometer.

In my experience in other homebrew scenes, it seems like support for these sorts of add-ons is usually rather slow to appear in the homebrew dev tools, but hopefully it will happen eventually. It'd come a lot quicker if these things get release din (EDIT: released in) the U.S., which so fart (EDIT: ummm...I'll leave that one) doeasn't (EDIT: doesn't) seem certain for either of them, does it?


...word is bondage...


Last edited by Sweater Fish Deluxe on Wed Sep 26, 2007 4:29 pm; edited 1 time in total

#141451 - lambi1982 - Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:44 pm

I need to buy the ds camera just to break it open :)
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#141459 - tepples - Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:19 pm

Sweater Fish Deluxe wrote:
I also really hope the Arkanoid expansion cart will be usable in homebrew eventually, too, and that one should be too hard to get figured out. Some great stuff would be possible, especially if it's a continuous rotation paddle, not just a potentiometer.

Even a plain old pot would be useful as a steering wheel for driving games.
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#141461 - sonny_jim - Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:06 pm

Sod Arkanoid, what they should've done is Tempest 2000 DS. I picked up a Jag pretty much just for this game.

#141463 - HyperHacker - Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:17 pm

tepples wrote:
Sweater Fish Deluxe wrote:
I also really hope the Arkanoid expansion cart will be usable in homebrew eventually, too, and that one should be too hard to get figured out. Some great stuff would be possible, especially if it's a continuous rotation paddle, not just a potentiometer.

Even a plain old pot would be useful as a steering wheel for driving games.
Or possibly a volume control, because my God the one on the DS is a pain in the butt.
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#141597 - Darkflame - Thu Sep 27, 2007 10:05 am

Some sort of limited Augmented Reality shotter could be done.

Youd probably use most of the cpu on the motion tracking, so the things you aim at will be just sprites, but it would still be cool to point the DS around the room blasting space invaders on the screen like a gun turret.

...or wait...you cant...

Because Nintendo were too stupid to let the camera point the other way.
-sigh-
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#141643 - HyperHacker - Thu Sep 27, 2007 11:06 pm

If I understand what you're describing, you could use a motion sensor. Or mirrors. ;-)
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I'm a PSP hacker now, but I still <3 DS.

#141647 - Dan2552 - Thu Sep 27, 2007 11:34 pm

The camera could be coded similarly to the DS wii-mote sensor - picking up 2 strong light sources and creating a relative control method.

#141678 - Dood77 - Fri Sep 28, 2007 6:45 am

Dan2552 wrote:
The camera could be coded similarly to the DS wii-mote sensor - picking up 2 strong light sources and creating a relative control method.
I can see the blinding sensor bar now... I guess if you don't want to build one you could use your car headlights?
(Okay, okay, I know most video cameras pick up infrared as part of the visible spectrum...)
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Ralink chipset PCI NIC

#141681 - Darkflame - Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:45 am

I think mobile phone versions work by just tracking points of high contrast.
Hence no bar is needed.

The problem is simplt the camera is the wrong way around, so mirrors would be needed :p
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#145850 - juz098 - Fri Nov 23, 2007 9:10 pm

From What site did u buy this ds-camera? and would video chat from ds-to-ds work aling with the mic?