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Online Chess With Physical Pieces On a Chessboard
D4C5CE writes "A chess-playing German tinkerer has contrived (and made a video of) an amazing contraption that plugs real chess pieces into the freechess.org server using a 20W LED projector and an old webcam to read moves on a projected chessboard."
it kind of looked like he may have been pressing a button on the side of the board when it was time for the next move. His hand always returned to that position and moved a bit. after each move from either side.
I also saw that "oops" of pushing the pawn too far, obviously there's an undo function there somewhere or he had not yet released the move.
I thought the adding of the clocks to the board was a very nice touch. But looks like the room was darkened and no place to put one's legs under the table while playing. two minor drawbacks.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Actually he says in his project diary (in a forum where they usually take TFTs apart to rebuild them into things like these or even one's own R2D2) that quite contrary to Microsoft's approach, all his web cam looks for are the pieces' shadows on the board cast by ambient light.
No need to detect more than that, the server knows which chessman comes from a particular square.