Simple IR Pen for Wiimote Whiteboard
My previous foray into using a Wiimote with my laptop led me down the path of building a USB sensor bar so that I can use the Wiimote to control the pointer movements. This approach worked better than expected, but it doesn’t work so well if you want finer control of your mouse pointer. For example, when I was demonstrating the Wiimote integration with my laptop I was quite nervous about the demo not working, and this was made apparent by the shaky lines that I was drawing with the Mouse Gestures. As a result some of the Mouse Gestures did not register.
A better approach would be to do what Johnny Lee did with the Wiimote to create the Wiimote Whiteboard. Johnny Lee used the Wiimote as an IR camera pointed at a projector screen, and created a pen with an LED which the Wiimote can track. This approach provides for more accuracy and smoother movements of the pointer.
The barrier of entry to the Wiimote Whiteboard is creating the IR pen. Johnny Lee suggests wiring up a circuit containing an IR LED, momentary switch, resistor, and power supply, then shoving it into a pen. If you google “IR pen” you will also come up with some complicated solutions. One guy even tried to cram the circuit into a highlighter casing.
My solution is really quite straightforward. In fact you only need to go to your local electronics store and pick up two items: an LED keyring torch; and an IR LED. When purchasing an LED keyring torch, make sure that you can easily replace the LED. I used this LED keyring torch from Jaycar Electronics. I then pulled the torch apart, pulled out the LED, and replaced it with an IR LED. This solution meant I didn’t have to do any soldering or fiddling around. It all fit together into a nice compact form factor that cost me less than $10, and took no longer than 10 minutes to switch the LED.
How did the keyring work?
Robert
12 Nov 08 at 3:22 am
Hi Robert,
The keyring didn’t have enough power for it to be detected properly by the Wiimote. The IR LED tend to pulse, which wasn’t very good for drawing or dragging windows around. It did however work for simple navigation such as point and click.
Cheers,
Nick.
Nick
12 Nov 08 at 7:28 am
Instead of a sensor bar, try using a candle lit in front of the screen… let me know if that works for you. Change the battery to a 1.5 watch battery.
Matt Ledding
23 Jul 09 at 10:13 am
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
sandrar
11 Sep 09 at 7:35 am
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AVE closism
20 Dec 09 at 12:36 am
[...] previous attempt at building a simple IR pen did not work as expected. The power source was too weak for the IR LED, and consequently the [...]
IR Pen version 2 at Nick Carroll, PhD
15 Jan 10 at 4:16 pm
I want share with you a veru powerfull software to be used with the wiimote whiteboard
http://code.google.com/p/ardesia/
Ardesia enables you to make colored free-hand annotations on your computer screen, record it and share on the network.
This is especially useful when making presentations, to highlight things or point out things of interest.
The tool facilitates the online presentations and demos showing in real time your computer screen to anyone in the network.
Ardesia is XInput-Aware, so if you have a mouse, a graphic tablet, a touch screen, a wiimote whiteboard or a commercial whiteboard; you can draw lines with different strength, select color, erase things and draw arrows.
You can free-hand draw geometrical shapes using the shape recognizer, insert text with the keyboard and highlight screen areas. You can draw upon the desktop or select an image as background.
Marco
11 May 10 at 7:07 am
Ardesia http://code.google.com/p/ardesia/
Now is available and ready to try for windows
Marco
23 Jun 10 at 6:33 pm