light gun for lcd screen supplier

The Sinden Lightgun® is the world’s first true LCD compatible Lightgun, providing all the functionality and game experience of the original CRT Lightguns without requiring additional hardware such as infra red sensor bars.

Light guns were a fun way to learn to shoot things on consoles, enjoying their heyday in the 80s and 90s. The original designs largely relied on the unique characteristics of CRT televisions and the timing involved in the drawing of their frames. Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons (dependent on the exact techniques used), they typically do not work at all with modern LCD & plasma screens.

Recently, there has emerged a new project called the Sinden Lightgun. In the How It Works video, it seems to use a fairly standard 30fps camera inside the gun to image the television screen being used by the game. The display is then rendered in 4:3, letterboxed on a 16:9 aspect ratio display, within a rectangular bezel. The image from the camera is then processed, and the distortion of the game image is used to calculate the position of the gun and the direction of its aim. Processing is handled by the host computer running MAME and the requisite coordinates are fed back in to the game code.

The basic concept seems sound, though as always, there’s a healthy amount of skepticism around the project. We’d love to hear your take, on whether the concept is plausible, and whether the lag figures stated are cromulent. We’re always excited to see new developments in the lightgun space! Video after the break.

First, mount the LED bar on the top of the monitor using the adhesive pads. Note if you wish you can remove the casing from this unit for installation in an arcade cabinet. See the Aimtrak Module instructions for this.

Movement of the gun should cause the mouse pointer to move. Its as simple as that! At this time the pointer may not move to the edge or may go off the edge and bounce to the other side. This is normal as the gun is not yet calibrated.

DO NOT use a supply with a current capability of greater than 4 amps as the mechanism relies on the current-limiting feature on the supply to prevent overload. If using two or more guns you will need one supply per gun.

Hold the gun at the approximate location you will be using it. Note that the gun calibration must be done at the height the gun will be used at. This means if you intend to look through the gun-sights when playing you must do this when calibrating, or if you "shoot from the hip" you must do this when calibrating.

The mouse cursor will eventually start to move and come to rest, pointing at a location near the top left corner of the screen, and begin to flash. Aim the gun at the cursor and pull the trigger again. The timing is not important as the cursor is an indicator only. The aim is the only important factor.

The cursor will then point near the lower edge of the screen. Aim at this point and pull the trigger. Note the position to aim is offset to the left of the screen center-line.

This utility is not required for normal operation or for calibration. It is used for initial configuration (unless the defaults are used) and for troubleshooting.

Assigning ID.If you are connecting more than one gun to a PC, each one must have a unique ID.The ID is assigned by clicking on the "Assign ID" tab.

General Troubleshooting: Clicking on the "SHOW DATA" tab causes various information to be continously read from the device, including X and Y location.

Displaying Calibration Errors: Any calibration errors are displayed as text either in the "Display Data" tab screen or the "Sensor View" tab screen.

These drop-downs allow configuration of the trigger and other connected buttons. Each can be assigned as a mouse left or right button, or a gamepad button. Every button has two possible assignments, an on-screen and off-screen setting. Off-screen would normally be used for "off-screen reload".

OFF:This setting disables all tilt functionality. This means the cursor will move when the gun is tilted. This should be used only for "air mouse" or other uncalibrated applications. It gives the smoothest cursor movement but is not accurate to "line of sight". It might also be useful in gun applications which have a visible "cross-hair" target which does not require any visual aim of the gun.

INTELLIGENT:This setting compensates for tilt by averaging and then applying the compensation when it decides is the best moment to do so. This means the cursor may temporarily lose accuracy when the gun is tilted left/right but in normal gaming use this is not an issue.

CONTINUOUS:This setting causes tilt compensation to be constantly applied. This may result in a slightly choppier cursor than the above two settings.This is not an issue when the cursor is not visible, which is in most gaming situations.

This display shows the Infra-Red LED as seen by the sensor. Note that this shows the raw uncalibrated display so will not correspond to cursor location on the screen.

This display can be used to determine why calibration is failing. You can start the calibration process from this window. When you aim at the flashing cursor each time, check the display as well. If the red dot is not visible, calibration will fail. You can move the gun slightly to find which direction the error lies.

On this window you can change the ID of the device to one, two, three or four. This is required to be done if you have more than one device connected. After the device is re-assigned, it will "disappear" from the PC for a few seconds and re-appear as a new device with its new ID.

The IDs such as "PID_1601" are part of the ID which Windows generates for all connected devices. Only this part of the full device ID needs to be used as MAME will scan the full string for a match.

The "ATRAK Device #1" and "ATRAK Device #2" refer to the gamepad function of the two guns. This configuration includes these, as buttons/trigger can be configured as gamepad buttons.

These IDs can be seen, if you need to, in the "hardware Properties" of the device in Device Manager or by launching MAME from a command prompt using "MAME -v". But in fact these will always be as shown for guns with IDs 1 and 2.

Use a digital camera or phone and first make sure it can see infra-red light by aiming a TV remote and check it sees the beam when buttons are pressed. (Some recent phones have IR filters)

Check the LEDs of the bar appear as shown in the picture below, when the camera is held in the approx location the gun will be used in. They should be very bright and the right-hand one slightly dimmer.

If they do not appear as in the picture, remove the screws from the base of the bar and re-check without the case. If this cures the issue the LEDs may be bent too far down. They should be bent approx 16 degrees, so they aim roughly at the gun. Email for advice if necessary.

Aim the gun at the screen and move to all screen areas. There should NOT be any visible cursor movement. If there is any movement this indicates the gun is picking up an extraneous infra-red light source such as sunlight from a window behind the cabinet, a window reflecting in the screen, or a conventional or halogen light within view of the gun, or reflection of a light. Fluorescent/CCFL lamps are not a problem.

Move the gun over all screen areas. The red dot should move. The movement is "backwards" as this is the view which the gun is seeing, not the result of the data moving the mouse pointer.

There is also another special check which is useful. When aimed at the bottom center of the screen, the "Visible Points" should show "Two". Both ends of the LED bar need to be seen by the gun at this location otherwise calibration will fail.

Dot turns orange or disappears while away from the edge: Infra red light too dim. Gun too far away, LED bar not aimed at gun (this can be checked using any digital camera, as these can see IR light).

"Visible Points" does not show "Two" when aimed at bottom center of screen: LED bar out of line, insufficiently powered, Gun too close or far from the screen.

For those who haven’t heard of it, the Sinden Lightgun is a crowd-sourced piece of hardware intended to allow modern monitor/television users to experience lightgun games.

Unlike the cathode ray tube versions of yesterday, this guy works using computer vision and a built-in camera.The Sinden Lightgun® is the world’s first true LCD Lightgun, providing all the functionality and game experience of the original CRT Lightguns without requiring additional hardware such as infra red sensor bars.

The Sinden Lightgun® communicates by controlling your mouse cursor which ensures compatibility with nearly all Windows and Linux applications that can use a mouse

There was a blank screen but that is quite usual for first boot on a new Pi image, not least because often first boot kicks off a shell script that expands the drive usage to utilize the whole SD card and so on.

It doesn’t help either that the “dedicated image” was RetroPie with lightgun games, but you still need to configure the lightgun. Without configuring Sinden you get very few games that will respond.

In use it became apparent that the trigger was sticky, while it is spring-loaded, the trigger would not return back to position correctly. Moving the trigger back and forth manually seemed to give a much better result.

Once you have a fully working unit and the correct games system set up, the Sinden Light Gun is brilliant and delivers exactly what it promises. Make sure you give it beefy hardware, and preferably something pre-configured, and it is just like being in the arcades.

And now for something completely different! The GUN4IR project is retro, and you technically hold it in your hand, but it"s definitely not a retro handheld. If you"ll allow us this brief side excursion, we recently were able to test out this system and felt that it would resonate enough with our readers to post about it here. We"ll be back with our regularly scheduled portable gaming coverage, but for now, let"s talk light guns.

Light guns hold a special place in the world of gaming. Few controllers map so closely between player input and the action they"re trying to simulate. Not only that, but light guns predate video games themselves. The earliest light gun games were electro-mechanical installations taking advantage of light-sensing vacuum tubes. For as long as we"ve been able to detect or emit light from a handheld gadget, someone"s been trying to turn it into a shooting gallery. Light gun games have been a permanent fixture in most arcades, and they came along for the ride when home consoles entered the scene.

The first home light guns were simple light detectors. When you pulled the trigger, the screen would briefly flash a mostly-black image, and if the gun detected a white block of light, they"d know they were pointed at a target. Later light guns would improve on this technique, taking advantage of the internal refresh rates and timings within a TV itself to identify where the gun was pointed. CRT TVs made it unusually easy to determine precisely where a plastic gun accessory was pointed without needing any extra equipment or hardware. With the rise of LCD displays however, light guns needed a new approach. Interestingly enough, it"s one that many gamers are already familiar with.

GUN4IR is a project created by French developer Jean-Baptiste "JayBee" Bongrand. As the name implies, it once again leverages IR technology. Rather than using a simple sensor bar on the top of a display however, it uses four IR LED targets around a display to improve the accuracy. Get it? Gun-4-IR? The interesting aspect of the GUN4IR project however is that, well, it"s a project. JayBee"s working on making an off the shelf GUN4IR product, but for the time being its a DIY affair. (Update: The official GUN4IR store with pre-build guns is now live!)

In its most basic form, a GUN4IR setup needs four IR LEDs around a screen, and a gun equipped with an IR sensor, a trigger, and an Arduino. Beyond that, the system is completely customizable. You can add as many additional buttons to the gun as you"d like, equip it with rumble force feedback, provide it with solenoid kickback, or even add flashy LEDs to your gun. GUN4IR also has optional support for accessories like pedals and Wii nunchucks.

Building a GUN4IR light gun can cost more than a Sinden depending on how you spec it out, and it"s various components aren"t without their own lead times. But it"s the customizability that"s really taken the community by storm. Rather than being forced into a one-size-fits-all generic pistol, light gun enthusiasts can build the exact formfactor they"re looking for. House of the Dead 3 fans can create a plastic shotgun with a working pump-action reload, Time Crisis fans can repurpose legitimate arcade hardware to create a PC-friendly light gun with a slide action recoil, and the DIY crowd can cobble together all sorts of interesting experiments based off of various NERF guns and Super Soakers.

This article was originally meant as a how-to guide, but it turns out that it can be tricky to document your build process when you"re still figuring out things for yourself. If you"re looking for a step-by-step build instructions, we"d recommend checking out Arcade Pirate"s informative GUN4IR Ground Up Build video. Additionally, the ArcadeControls forum post on GUN4IR is a wealth of information, as is their community Discord. Instead, the rest of this article is going to focus on providing a starting point parts list for beginners, and give a general impression of what it"s like to build and use a GUN4IR light gun.

The most comprehensive guide online of GUN4IR-tested parts is the Lightgunpedia wiki. Incidentally, this page is also completely in Spanish. Machine translation gets the job done with this particular page thankfully, and the GUN4IR firmware comes with an English PDF guide that provides useful circuit diagrams for most parts of a GUN4IR build.

The overall cost of a GUN4IR build will depend on how many DIY projects of this nature you"ve performed in the past, and what sort of soldering setup you already have on hand. There"s nothing in this build that"s too technically difficult, it"s mostly through-hole soldering and wire splicing, but the cramped nature of this project puts the difficulty closer to a moderately complex DIY project. There"s a decent amount of equipment you need to buy, so it might be worth getting your feet wet with a beginner Arduino project beforehand if this is your first time working with embedded electronics.

There"s a few 3D printed parts that makes this build significantly easier. If you don"t have access to a 3D printer, you can send these parts out to a print-on-demand service, or see if your local library has a printer you can borrow for an afternoon. (This is actually a thing, look it up.) If you don"t want to use 3D printed parts, you can also generally get by with smart use of hot glue and super glue.

This parts list is designed with US shoppers in mind. Mouser Electronics carriers the IR sensor and several cheap components, and Amazon has the rest of the parts in stock with free shipping. The Lightgunpedia links are more focused on the Chinese Aliexpress storefront, since their components are often a third of the price and can be shipped internationally. When working on a DIY project however, it can be frustrating to have to wait an additional 2-3 weeks to get a new part in the mail if you accidentally burn out an LED, so it"s nice to have some domestic alternatives.

You"ll want some relatively high gauge stranded hookup wire for this project, and wire strippers to cut them into the appropriate length. A wire"s "gauge" is how thick the wire is, with higher numbers indicating a smaller diameter. "Stranded" wires are the opposite of "solid core". They"re made up of several smaller strands of metal, and are more flexible. They can be slightly more tricky to solder, but they can bend around the inside of the gun"s case more easily.

There are several different techniques when it comes to creating the four IR targets for the light gun. The two main schools of thought generally revolve around either providing a large amount of power to a single bright IR LED, or sending smaller amounts of power to a cluster of several dimmer LEDs. The community has mostly congregated around this latter approach. Using a fluster of three SFH 4547 LEDs on each of the four IR targets provides a good balance of brightness, beam angle, and it even comes in an easy-to-hide black color. Better yet, unlike the single high power option, the LED clusters don"t need a complex dedicated power supply. The entire setup can be powered by one standard 5V USB input. This can be either a dedicated power brick, or a USB port on the side of your TV or computer.

As you solder your emitters, you can check if they"re working by pointing your phone"s camera at them. Infrared "IR" light can"t be seen by the human eye, but thankfully smartphones have no trouble picking it up. Once the emitters are ready, fire up the GUN4IR utility on your PC and start the gun calibration mode. This screen will indicate exactly on your display where the emitters need to be positioned. Each cluster of LEDs should be placed in the center of each side of a monitor. Thankfully GUN4IR has support for a variety of aspect ratios, including ultrawide displays. Now that your emitters are in place, let"s take a look at the bare minimum needed to get a GUN4IR light gun itself built.

The heart of every GUN4IR build is a DF Robot SN0158 IR positioning camera. Conveniently for us, it comes in a handy gun-barrel shaped package that slots right into the GunCon housing without any need for a 3D printed part. If you can"t get ahold of the SN0158, there"s technically a method where you can salvage the IR camera from a broken Wii remote. This technique can work in a pinch, but it"s significantly more involved. Unless you"re working with a gun that"s too small for the SN0158, or it"s going through a severe part drought, it"s worth being patient and waiting for the Mouser restock.

The fisheye lens mod is usually listed under optional steps when building a GUN4IR light gun, but it"s useful enough that you probably just want to factor it into your initial build. The GUN4IR sensor needs to be able to see at least two of the four IR LED clusters in order to properly track your gun. With the standard camera configuration, this means you need to stand back a considerable ways from your screen. Using a fisheye lends gives the camera a wider field of view, allowing you to stand a bit closer to your monitor. It"s still not holding-a-Zapper-up-to-a-TV levels of closeness, but it"s still a godsend depending on your setup. Most of these fisheye smartphone camera lens kits also come with a macro lens, which can be a good compromise of distance and accuracy. The community has developed a 3D printed fisheye lens mount for the front of the GunCon, and there"s usually enough friction to keep it in place without the need for permanently gluing it on.

Having a single thin USB cable can look a little strange dangling out of the bottom of a gun however. Additionally, the next few sections have some additional optional cables you can run to your light gun. Thankfully, there"s a variety of cable management solutions you can use to make your gun look like a real arcade installation. I personally like using a simple nylon sleeve. It"s plain, lightweight, and easy to work with. Once you"ve run a few cords through the sleeve, it starts to look more like the beefier cable you"re used to seeing snake out of light guns. The half-inch diameter option worked well for the three cables I ended up using in my build. If you want to go all out however, you can always use a metal shower hose to give your light gun a true arcade feel.

When budgeting out your light gun, it"s important to remember that while GUN4IR is a DIY project, it"s not an open source project. Make sure you factor in the $20 USD license cost for the GUN4IR"s GUI software. It"s a one time fee for as many guns and systems as you need, and JayBee"s put a lot of hard work into this project. He currently manually sends out the licensing files, so make sure you purchase one before you want to start testing out parts of your build.

If you want, you can stop here in the build guide. You"d get a basic, feedback-free GUN4IR light gun. Depending on how many of these parts you already own and where you source them from, you can end up with a device that"s roughly in the ballpark of an entry-level Sinden light gun. But there"s a lot more we can build into this gun, so let"s talk force feedback.

If you only include a rumble motor in your gun, it will give you a small vibration each time you shoot the gun. If you have both a rumble and a recoil solenoid in your gun, the rumble will activate when you perform a "reload" action. This can be simply pressing your gun"s A button, shooting outside of the screen area, or stepping on a GUN4IR foot pedal.

The nice thing about repurposing an Xbox 360 controller"s rumble motor is that it runs off of the Arduino"s 5v power. If you"re looking to make a simple and straightforward GUN4IR build, it"s generally worth including a rumble motor. It provides a nice amount of feedback without overly complicating the project. If you stop here, you can still just use the single USB cable for your gun.

Solenoids are a type of electromagnet. When you pass a current through them, a metal slug is pulled through the coil, triggering some mechanical action. Solenoids aren"t particularly common in consumer electronics, but you"ve probably come across a few in your day to day life. The "clunk" of your washing machine door locking into place is triggered by a solenoid for example. They"re good at rapidly applying a strong amount of force across a small space.

For the purposes of this build however, we decided to incorporate a solenoid on the inside of the light gun instead of building out a full slide-action. Seeing those sorts of moving parts on the outside of your light gun are super cool, but they also add a significant amount of complexity and cost. Mounting the solenoid on the inside of the light gun still provides the kick that you"re looking for, and if nothing else it gives you experience working with them for your next light gun build.

We chose to go with a JF-0530B solenoid for this build. It"s on the smaller side of things, but it still gives you a nice kick each time you fire your gun. You can definitely feel the gun rock back and forth, but it doesn"t distract from your aiming or wear out your hands. There"s a larger JF-1039B solenoid which reportedly can fit inside of a GunCon 1 shell, but we had difficulty getting the two pieces of the gun shell to come together fully with the beefier solenoid inside of it. It"s worth noting that the JF-0530 and JF-0530B are slightly different parts. Make sure you go with the B model.

You"ll need a dedicated power cord to get the extra voltage to your gun. Normally this would mean your gun would have two cords dangling from it, but that"s why we included the nylon sleeve in the earlier parts list. The power cord and USB will sit snugly together in the sleeve, letting you plug the power supply in down at the base of the cable near where you plug the USB cord in. I ran into trouble using a 3-12v variable power supply that I already owned, so the one I included on the parts list is a larger 3-24v variable power supply. Even though I was only using a 12v solenoid, this larger power supply works like a charm.

That was a weird note to end on. For an extra $6, adding rumble support to a light gun is a no brainer. Recoil costs quite a bit more at $40, but the Sinden light gun has a larger jump with its recoil option adding on an additional £50/$67. If you"re going to all the trouble to build a light gun, you may as well go all out. If you"re worried about the additional build complexity though, sticking with just the rumble is fine.

As a brief aside, you may notice that the kickback Sinden light gun runs completely off of 5v USB power. Instead of using a dedicated power supply, the Sinden has a capacitor in the gun that stores a charge over time. When you pull the trigger, the capacitor dischargers and the gun"s solenoid triggers. It takes a while to charge the capacitor however, so several rapid fire shots in a row will have smaller and smaller kickbacks until you stop shooting and give the gun a chance to charge. The GUN4IR system has its own complexities with a dedicated PSU, but it does manage to avoid this particular issue.

On the software side of things, the GUN4IR is smart enough to know when you"re shooting at the screen. The gun will recoil when you"re shooting at an enemy, but it will hold off on triggering a recoil when you shoot outside of the screen to reload. The recoil itself does produce a decent amount of noise, so there is an option of disabling the solenoid recoil if your housemates are trying to focus on something a few rooms over.

The most straightforward approach is to just buy a separate pedal accessory. Amazon has a variety of $15 USB foot pedals, and for most emulators, you shouldn"t have a problem mapping the GUN4IR"s inputs and the USB foot pedal to different actions in your game.

In the case of software which can only recognize one input at a time however, it can be nice to have the pedal directly wired into the GUN4IR system so that it can handle everything. Additionally, if you plug a pedal directly into your GUN4IR, its firmware will know when you step on the pedal, and can trigger effects such as a gentle gun vibration when you successfully put your foot down.

To get things started, buy two 10ft headphone extension cables, and trim the male connector off of one of the extension cables. The remaining 10f of cable and the female connector are going to be the length you incorporate into the light gun"s cord. Once again, we"ll be leveraging the nylon sleeve to keep everything looking nice. Solder one of the headphone cable"s signal lines into the foot pedal pin on the Arduino, and then connect the ground pin to the headphone jack"s ground wire.

It turns out modern headphone cables aren"t as easy to splice and solder onto as the inside of a USB cable. Your typical pair of earbuds use a much finer wire than your standard cable, and they"re spray-coated with nylon instead of easily strippable insulation. If you ever find yourself in the situation of trying to solder onto this type of cable, your best bet is to bust out a lighter and burn off the insulation itself. You"ll eventually get enough exposed metal to solder onto, but this is clearly not the ideal cabling choice. If you have a bit more time to spend browsing around Mouser"s cable and connector department, we"d recommend attempting to come up with something a bit more sturdy.

GUN4IR is incredibly flexible when it comes to adding additional hardware components. For the more flashy individuals out there, GUN4IR allows you to add an RGB LED in addition to the other types of feedback discussed above. The firmware allows you to have the lights flash different colors based on different actions such as shooting and reloading. It can be a nice option depending on the type of gun you"re building, but we were seeking to maintain the GunCon"s classic look and feel for this build.

The GUN4IR also supports more than just the GunCon"s A and B buttons. As we touched on briefly earlier, it fully supports button-laden guns such as the d-pad equipped GunCon 2. For the DIY crowd, there"s nothing stopping you from drilling into your gun and adding a new button or two. The community of GUN4IR owners modding NERF guns has gotten particularly clever when it comes to new button placement.

Finally, you can add a Wii Nunchuck controller port to your GUN4IR. This gives your light gun two additional buttons, as well as an analog stick. The stick itself is mapped to 4 digital directions in the GUN4IR firmware at the moment, but full analog support may come in the future. While holding into another controller during a light gun game can be a bit unwieldy, this is a nice option for building a minimal gun that can still scale to more complex games.

As a DIY passion project, it"s no surprise that the GUN4IR system has a plethora of software options to go along with the customizable hardware. The majority of the software runs on the light gun itself. The Arduino mimics a standard HID mouse and gamepad, allowing it to run seamlessly with most emulators and games on the market. There"s a PC GUI for GUN4IR"s configuration options, but they just send various configuration commands to the gun. Unlike the Sinden light gun, you don"t need the GUN4IR software running on your PC. Quite the contrary, you technically don"t even need it installed.

When you first get your GUN4IR system built, you"ll want to run through the GUI"s calibration screen to get the gun tracking properly. This only needs to be performed once for a given setup, so unless you move your gun to a different machine or display, it should just be pick up and play for future gaming sessions.

There"s also a variety of options for the force feedback components we discussed earlier. You can tweak the solenoid timings, or temporarily disable the kickback recoil completely if you need a quieter gaming session. GUN4IR also supports a "full auto" recoil mode for games that have you press-and-hold the trigger button. Rather than having the gun kick back once, it will provide a steady rhythm of solenoid thumps. You can also adjust how intense the rumble motor vibrates if you installed one in your gun.

Outside of that, there"s not much more that the firmware and GUI need to perform. There"s a few sensitivity tweaks you can make to how the gun tracks, but we found that the default option works pretty well out of the box. Once you"ve gotten your gun properly configured and set up, the feature you"ll be adjusting most often is the 4:3 and fullscreen modes. Certain emulators map gun movements to a fixed 4:3 aspect ratio, and the GUN4IR will need to know to send these adjusted movements. Otherwise, fullscreen mode works well for most software.

JayBee"s also done an excellent job of providing automation hooks into the GUN4IR. Depending on your frontend or emulator, you can have tools such as Launchbox and MAMEHooker automatically reconfigure your light gun when you launch specific titles.

GUN4IR shows up on your computer as a mouse. When you plug in your light gun and point it at your PC"s screen, the cursor will begin tracking across your desktop. Pulling the trigger will cause a left click, and reloading will cause a right click. Most emulators support some sort of mouse-to-light gun shooting that the GUN4IR can leverage. This isn"t unique to the GUN4IR either. The Sinden light gun, the AimTrak, and other light gun projects behave the same way.

Unfortunately, very few emulators have a completely straightforward mouse-to-gun experience. Console emulators for platforms like the NES and the SNES are the most straightforward, but wrinkles start to emerge from there.

On the PCSX and PCSX2 side of things, you"ll need to use the "Nuvee" input plugin to handle light gun games. It"s not too difficult to use once you get it working, but the initial install and configuration was surprisingly obtuse. In addition to installing the plugin, there"s a decent amount of manual config file creation that needs to be performed before you can start playing. RPCS3 doesn"t fare much better for PlayStation 3 games. If you"d like to get an instance of Time Crisis 4 running, you"ll need to leverage AutoHotkey scripts just to get past the gun calibration step.

Most installs of MAME will be set up with a joystick-to-cursor setup out of the box for light guns, which means delving into some .ini files before you can start playing. None of this is particularly onerous, but it does mean that setting up certain games can feel like an afternoon project.

This isn"t the fault of GUN4IR. Their community Discord has a channel dedicated to assisting with game configurations, and the Sinden light gun wiki has configuration instructions that also work with GUN4IR for nearly all light gun compatible games you can play on a PC. It"s just worth noting that each platform has its own quirks to it, and things may not be as straightforward as a brief experience pointing-and-clicking around Battle Clash in ZNES would lead you to believe.

GUN4IR"s mouse masquerading technique means that it could hypothetically work on any system that accepts mouse input. However, the GUI software is designed exclusively for Windows at the moment. Light gun game support is limited on Macs, so that isn"t a huge loss there, but there is the occasional interest in Raspberry Pi light gun gaming online. There are technical ways of getting the GUN4IR working with a Pi involving writing serial commands to the gun in order to change configuration settings, but it can be a bit more trouble than its worth unless you"re creating a custom MAME cabinet installation.

So, you"ve gone to all the trouble of building a GUN4IR light gun, plugging in it"s USB cord, powering up the external PSU, attaching the pedal, and booting up your game-specific emulator configuration. How"s this all actually feel to play?

It"s damn near perfect. If you grew up in an arcade, your muscle memory will come back nearly instantly. If you"ve played a few Wii light gun shooters, it"s hard to overstate how fun it is to go back to some of the older titles that didn"t need to constantly draw a cursor on the screen. Everyone"s probably has their own specific title that drew them to the idea of getting a light gun for the home, but the big draw for this specific build was in revisiting the arcade game Point Blank.

There"s one mini-game which presents a straightforward challenge. You have one chance to shoot a tiny apple off of a character"s head. This challenge was always a good test of how well your local bowling alley"s light gun was calibrated, and sure enough, the GUN4IR shot the apple on the first try.

Overall, we were incredibly pleased with the GUN4IR system. It"s been a delight revisiting these classic games without needing to schlep across town to the arcade, if that"s even an option in your area anymore. The GunCon 1 also proved to be an excellent basis for this built. The parts have a nice distribution of weight, and the small amount of heft that the light gun has makes it feel like it has a more solid construction than its humble PlayStation accessory origins.

If you"re on the fence about building a GUN4IR gun, hopefully this overview has given you a good idea as to what you"re signing yourself up for. If you"re curious about the light gun but aren"t quite ready to bust out the soldering iron, JayBee"s currently in the process of putting together some prebuilt units to sell online. Light guns remain a niche area of video gaming, but if you"ve been waiting for the tech to finally allow them to come home, your time has finally arrived.

This application claims the priority benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/593,051 filed on Dec. 3, 2004 entitled “Light Gun System for Plasma and LCD Displays”, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus that allows interaction between a game player and a video game console system with a light gun. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a video game interface technique and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for determining an X-Y shot position with a light gun on various styles of Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and Plasma Displays.

Recent advances in television and computer monitors that use LCD flat panel and plasma display systems have made current Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) display light guns obsolete. Past light guns and pen lights relied on the detection of a single horizontal and vertical retrace to detect a shoot position in X and Y coordinates. New display systems such as LCD and Plasma displays do not use a consistent horizontal and vertical retrace pulse as required by current light guns or light pens.

A CRT comprises a large vacuum glass tube in which a static charge is applied to the front of the display and electrons are released by an electron gun in the back of the tube. The electrons are attracted to the charge at the front of the tubes. When the attracted electrons strike the phosphorous coating on the front inside of the tube, the phosphorous glows which produces visual color. The electronic pulse is generated based on the modulated alternating current from the power supply. Typical North American power supply uses 60 hertz alternating electrical current. CRT displays use this 60 hertz alternating current to generate a saw tooth electronic pulse that in turn controls the timed release of electrons from the electron gun.

The electronic circuit in a CRT display system that generates the saw tooth pulse is called a fly-back transformer. The fly back transformer generates a saw tooth voltage increase that in turn increases or decreases the strength of an electro-magnet. The increasing strength of the electro-magnet pulls the electron beam across a horizontal scan line that in turn produces a visual line across the CRT display. A horizontal pulse, generated by the fly back transformer, causes the voltage to drop and in turn causes the electro-magnetic strength to decrease which in turn causes the horizontal scan to start at the beginning of the line again. Each time a line is drawn horizontally, a similar process pulls the electron beam down one line that causes repeated horizontal scan lines to travel across and down the front of the CRT display. A vertical retrace pulse at the bottom-end causes the scan to start at the top-left corner of the display for a next frame.

Video games are software programs that use a video game console system to translate the game data. A controller allows a game player to move within the rendered video game program. Many video games include the use of a light gun, or a controller with a shoot button, to simulate shooting with a gun or other weapon.

Conventional light gun technologies detect the start of the vertical retrace pulse via electronic connections and have a photo-detector on the light gun, that detects the horizontal retrace line as the brightest phosphorous point on the screen. A mathematical calculation is applied in the light gun electronic circuit to calculate an X-Y position of the point on the screen that the gun has pointed at.

Current Liquid Crystal and Plasma displays do not use such electron beams to draw a screen image and therefore current light gun technologies do not work with such display systems. A need exists for a light gun that is able to determine an X and Y shot position on a Liquid Crystal or Plasma screen. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention comprises a method and apparatus for determining a vertical and horizontal (X-Y) target shot position on a Liquid Crystal or Plasma display screen. The invention may be adapted to connect to commercially available video game console systems such as Sony Playstation™ versions or Microsoft xBOX™ versions and allows the video game player to use the invention while playing commercially available, unaltered video games.

Therefore, in one aspect, the invention comprises a method of determining the X-Y coordinates of a light gun target spot on a television or video monitor coupled to a video game console, the method comprising the steps of: (a) upon a trigger event from the light gun, initiating a blanking signal to render the monitor black during a first vertical refresh cycle;

(b) during a second vertical refresh cycle, non-sequentially increasing the voltage to each of the red, blue and green channels in three separate screen sections to create a display split between the three colours;

(c) polling the monitor during the second vertical refresh cycle with the light gun adapted to be capable of separately detecting a blue, red or green light pulse;

(d) determining the X-Y coordinates on the basis of the colour detected by the light gun and the length of time which elapses between the start of the second vertical refresh cycle and the detection of the red, blue or green light pulse.

In one embodiment, after the determination of the target spot that the game player shoots the light gun at, electronic circuitry is used to intercept and alter the bi-directional signal output from a video game consoles system and joystick to insert a coordinate of a player movement to the X-Y target spot position.

In another aspect, the invention may comprise an apparatus for determining the X-Y coordinates of a a target spot of a light gun on a television or video monitor coupled to a video game console, the apparatus comprising: (a) a light gun comprising three light sensitive photodiodes, each separately filtered to be sensitive to blue, red, and green light;

(c) a colour separation circuit for non-sequentially increasing the red channel voltage to a first section of the monitor screen, the blue channel voltage to a second section of the monitor screen, and the green channel voltage to a third section of the monitor screen;

(e) a timer for determining the length of time which elapses between the start of a vertical refresh cycle during which the colour separation circuit is active and detection of the horizontal retrace by the light gun; and

(f) computational means operatively connected to the timer for dividing the elapsed time by the length of the horizontal retrace time, and thereby determining the X-Y coordinates within the section of the screen corresponding to the colour detected.

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of the invention including the electronics circuits 40 and 50 game console system 20, television 10 and light gun 200 described herein.

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of one embodiment of the invention including the electronics circuit 40, a Sony Playstation 2 game console system 20, controller 30, television 10 and light gun 50 described in accordance with the invention herein. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The preferred embodiment is a method and apparatus that allows determination of a target spot of a light gun when used in conjunction with a video game console system connected to a LCD or plasma display panel. In a preferred embodiment, the invention allows the user to play the game with a light gun rather than, or in addition to, a controller.

In its simplest form, a device of the present invention requires a source of power to supply the electrical needs to the various components described hereafter. A preferred electrical source is the power lead on the game console controller port however a variety of devices may be used and are readily available to supply power for the requirements of the invention. One skilled in the art will realize that alternate power supplies may employ batteries, power adapters, electrical generators or any other form of adequate power supply means.

It is preferred to use general existing light gun photo-detector techniques however, the light gun assembly requires three separate photo-detectors. Each photo-detector will have a different colour filter, thus permitting determination of the colour of a light burst. For example, a red filtered photo sensor, green-filtered photosensor, and a blue-filtered photosensor may be used to allow detection of a coloured light burst, and determination of the colour. If the screen image is rendered in different colours, the determination of colour permits determination of a specific area of the screen, the light gun is pointing at.

In a preferred embodiment, the invention includes the alteration of the video signal sent to the display device after a user presses the light gun shoot button. The invention employs an electronic circuit that causes the display device to first turn off all pixels to black through a screen refresh period. Turning the pixels black increases the contrast ratio of the refresh pattern on the following refresh cycle and thereby increases the accuracy of the light gun target spot detection. On the second refresh cycle following the trigger event, the invention causes the pixels in one section of the screen to red, the pixels in a second section to green and those in a third section to blue. Differing display devices may require this aspect of the invention to cause the display device to use differing colors across different sections of the display device. However, in a preferred method, the screen is split into three substantially equal vertical stacked sections, each with a different and distinct color. The light gun is then used to detect the separate colors, with the use of the light gun red, green and blue filters.

The invention 100 is intended to be used with a television or video monitor 10 which may comprise a CRT, LCD or Plasma display screen that employs an interlaced vertical scan, progressive scan, sectional scan or synchronous scan refresh mechanisms. Conventional televisions 10 use either an NTSC or PAL standard that refreshes the display at 60 or 50 times per second respectively. It should be apparent that the invention 100 herein described can be adapted to either older, current or future televisions 10 without departing from the spirit or the scope of the claimed invention 100. It should also be apparent that the invention 100 herein described can be adapted to either older, current or future display resolutions on the televisions 10.

The invention 100 comprises a light gun 200 that has three photo-detectors in the front of the light gun, each with a coloured lens or filter. In one embodiment, the first photo-detector may have a red filter 210, a second may have a green filter 220, and a third photo-detector may have a blue 230 color filter, permitting determination of the colour of a light detected by the photodetectors. The light gun 200 has a trigger 240 that the user may press while pointing the light gun 200 at the display device 10. In one embodiment, the light gun 200 is connected to the video game console system 10 via a wire to the controller 30 port circuit. It should be apparent that a variety of different color filters could be used as well as a variety of differing methods of connections between the invention 100 and the light gun 200 without departing from the spirit or the scope of the claimed invention 100.

Light gun 200 is connected to the television 10 via the video game console 20 RCA video out port. It should be apparent to one skilled in the art that video signals can be sent to the display device via S-Video, USB, Coaxial, wireless or any other variety of video formats that contain the required video signals without departing from the spirit or the scope of the claimed invention 100. Light Gun 200 electronic circuit 50 detects the television 10 vertical retrace and horizontal pulse which are used to calculate the X-Y target shot position of the light gun 200. AC household power provides a modulated 50 or 60 hertz alternating current which the video game consoles and display devices use for horizontal and vertical retrace timing pulses. The vertical retrace pulse can therefore be detected within the bi-directional data stream. As a result, the light gun 200 controlling electronic circuitry may be in between the controller and console system, designed within the controller, or inside the game console system.

Many modern video games employ a camera technique that allows the game player to move their game character inside the virtual world with the use of a controller, sometimes referred to a first-person or first person shooter games. Typical programming methods that are used to create a game world recalculate and reconstruct the game scene each time a player moves. Typical data streams are sequences of data that correspond to a controller button press. For example, on the Sony Playstation II, the buttons known as Right stick cause the look-at position of the player to be adjusted. By inserting data bits in the corresponding Right stick data stream, the game console renders an appropriate image.

In a preferred embodiment, the invention 100 utilizes an electronic circuit 40 between the light gun and the video game console that intercepts the coded signals sent from the video game console 20. Electronic circuit 40 receives power needs from game console system 20. Electronic circuit 40 uses a programmable semi-conductor chip that contains written instructions to decode the data stream sent from the game console 30 and inserts calculated and compatible code back into the bi-directional signal that adjusts the video game players ‘x’ and ‘y’ position according to the users light gun 200 established shot position on the television 10. Electronic circuit 50 is connected to the video game console system 20 and electronic circuit 40.

When a user presses light gun trigger 240, a signal is sent to electronic circuit 50 whereby a polling starts for the video vertical retrace pulse. When a vertical retrace pulse is detected, a blanking circuit connected to the video out port of the console, receives notice of trigger press, and sends a ground signal to the RCA video-out—this ground signal turns the screen pixels black (off). Thus, with the first vertical retrace pulse is registered after the trigger press, the screen is completely black.

The blanking circuit registers the vertical retrace and when it is received, begins a timer that is used to count the horizontal retrace pulses. On second pass of the vertical retrace pulse, for one section of the screen the green and blue are turned off while the voltage to the red channel is turned higher. For another section of the screen the red and blue are turned off and the green is turned high. For yet another section of the screen the red and green are turned off while the blue is turned high. Each of these three sections, which preferably are equal ⅓ sections, are drawn concurrently, or at least non-sequentially. This pattern causes ⅓ of screen to be bright red, ⅓ of screen to be bright green and ⅓ of the screen to be bright blue. Typically but not essentially, these ternary sections may be stacked vertically.

Certain TTF and LCD monitors have a dual horizontal or multi scan horizontal retrace that occurs simultaneously. As a result, the light gun detection sequence is able to determine which section of the screen the light gun is pointed at. The blanking circuit may optionally have a mode switch that allows for 50-50 split screen that is red-green in each half. Other refresh patterns such as single line patterns can be incorporated into the blanking circuit as well.

At the same time the screen is being redrawn in red-green-blue ⅓ sections, the light gun photo-detector is aimed at the target spot on the screen and registers a high current in one of the red, green or blue photo-detector diode as the horizontal retrace passes through the target spot, producing a light pulse. When the horizontal retrace is detected by one of the photo-detectors, the colour of the detected light pulse is recorded and a calculation is done based on the elapsed time of the vertical retrace pulse. Light gun poll time is equal to the time to complete a complete vertical retrace for each ⅓ section of the display screen less the time of horizontal retrace pulse. The poll time is then divided by the time it takes each horizontal retrace to scan across the screen. The whole number quotient gives the X (vertical) position of the light gun target spot, while the remainder of the calculation gives us the Y (horizontal) position of the light gun targetspot. X and Y may be in screen display coordinates. Thus, if the quotient is 200.75, then the X position is 200 rows down and the Y position is 75% of the screen width to the right, assuming a left to right horizontal scan direction.

The X position is determined by the colour separation on the screen and the colour detected by the light gun. For example, if the bottom section of the screen is blue, as shown in FIG. 2, and the light gun detects a blue horizontal retrace and the timing circuit calculates that the X position is 200 rows from the start of the vertical retrace, then the true X position on the entire screen is 200 rows down from the start of the blue section.

In one embodiment, a combination of the methods employed allow a video game player to use a bi-directional light gun rather than a joystick to play a video game on a Liquid Crystal or Plasma display. In this case, the device may employ an electronic method of decoding signals from a controller and recoding the data stream sent to the video game console system. In its simplest form, the invention can be connected to a game controller. In a preferred method, the joystick buttons and feedback features of a typical joystick or a game controller are incorporated into a light gun. One skilled in the art will realize that the joystick features such as button and feedback motors can be built into a light gun and not require a controller to control the game. The light gun of the present invention can be incorporated as an added feature to a past, existing or future video game console control device.

A programmed electronic chip may contains the functions to decode, modify and encode the controller signals by specifically altering each X, Y or Z component of the bi-directional data stream sent to the game console, in a manner that adjusts the game players new X, Y or Z desired position within the game coordinate grid. It should be obvious to one skilled in the art that a programmed electronic chip array and electronic circuit can be placed in between the controller connecting wire and the video game console system however the circuitry and algorithms can also be incorporated as part of controller electronics. Our claims for methods and apparatus are not limited to being placed between the controller and game console system.

In one embodiment, once the display device 20 screen coordinates are calculated for the target shot position, they may be passed back to the electronic circuit 40 where they are encoded and sent back to the game console system 10 as a player move in x and y game coordinates. This causes the video game to recalculate the players game position as a movement and render the game according to the look at position where the user pointed the light gun 200. Therefore, starting with the third vertical retrace cycle after the trigger press, the game will re-render the game scene according to the supplied coordinates at which time a shoot signal is sent to the video game console 10. Alternatively, the shoot signal may be sent to the video game console before the player look-at position is shifted. The game will then calculate a hit or miss according to the users targeted area and object on the screen in accordance with standard methods.

In one embodiment, the x and y position are calculated to be relative from the center of the screen. For example, if the screen is 1000×1000 pixels, then the center of the display is X=500, Y=500, and the three coloured sections start at line 333 and 667. If the light gun shot target X position is 700 it means that we need to move the game position may be moved 200 pixels down. If the light gun shot target Y position is 300, the game position is moved 200 pixels left.

In one embodiment, the method can include the step of restoring the player"s original look-at position before taking the shot. For example, after the fifth vertical retrace pulse detected by electronic circuit 50 after the trigger press, a signal can be sent to the video game console 10 with the original user X-Y coordinates to restore their position prior to the light gun shoot sequence.

In one example, using a Sony Playstation™, the controller protocol is bi-directional and polls the joystick buttons 60 times per second. This protocol is in the form of a data stream that checks if any buttons on the controller are pressed and if they are, the various buttons are registered in the data stream as “on” in the appropriate packet of the data stream. Typical video games that are rendered in 3D, and allow the player to move in a first person perspective through the game normally use the left small joystick paddle to move left, right and forward and backward. The Sony Playstation™ uses industry standard SPI protocol packets that contain ‘0’ if a button is not pressed and ‘1’ if a button is pressed. The SPI interface circuit causes a data packet circuit of the present invention may be given the amount of counts to send a ‘1’ into the SPI data packets, which is sent to the Sony Playstation game software. In one example—a ‘1’ is sent into the SPI data packet-left joystick button press, a total of 20 times which moves the look-at position of the game player 20 steps to the left. The SPI data packet-down joystick button press may be sent a total of 20 times which moves the look-at position of the game player 20 steps down.

The result after the moves are registered into the SPI data packet, is that the original target position of the light gun is moved to the center of the screen. We then send the SPI data packet-shoot button a ‘1’ which is registered in the game as a shot. The video game software then processes the information to see if the targeted position of the players shot was a hit or miss.

The SPI protocol data packet may then send the reverse information to move the player X and Y game position back to where it was before the shot was processed. This results in the game player not losing their position in the game and allows the game player to shoot at all areas of the screen.

It further allows our light gun to support video games that do not need to be custom built for a light gun and further gives the game player an advantage over complicated and difficult controller maneuvers.

The xBox™ uses a USB industry standard protocol rather than the SPI protocol that the Playstation™ uses. The methods and system are the same between the two video game console systems. One skilled in the art may easily modify the electronics for the data packet circuit to adapt to the USB protocol or future data stream video game console protocols. Other proprietary game consoles use protocols that one skilled in the art may easily recognize and adapt the present invention for use with.

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Old guns like the zapper only detect light, the problem is two fold, one, lcd tv"s are a few milliseconds of delay, so the light the gun is looking for simply isn"t there, and two, the refresh on most lcd was slow enough, even if it did work at the right speed, it often wasn"t bright enough to trip the sensor.

Newer lcd are a LOT better, but it"s still more miss than hit, and has been for I long that people just assume it won"t work because it can"t. Granted, many modern sets actually can"t hook up to an unmoded Nintendo anyways.

The Arcade Europe Light gun features a modern looking sleek design and is compatible with retro gaming systems, PC and Raspberry Pi. This light gun has easy "on the fly" calibration and works with LCD, LED, CRT, Projectors and Plasma displays out of the box. The AE light gun does not require any additional software or complicated installations to work.

We can NOT ship this product outside of the UK with any courier air shipping service (such as DHL Express) as this product is scanned by customs in the destination country and may cause a security alert due to the shape and nature of this product (gun shape).

Customers who wish to order more than two light guns must checkout separately for each pair (when ordering 2 x guns AND other products, the light guns MUST be ordered separately), as more than two light guns would be too heavy for the Royal Mail shipping service (2kg maximum).

The AE light gun is compatible with Windows PC, Linux and Raspberry Pi and emulates a USB mouse pointer and/or game controller. No Drivers are required for this light gun to function on these systems. AE Lightgun does not require any additional software, update downloads, complicated installations or borders to work.

DIY kit to replace the USB cable on an Ultimarc AimTrak gun with Bluetooth. Read the PDF manual before purchasing. Not for use with a recoil AimTrak since it does not replace the recoil power cable.Price $29.95

Light gun games haven’t progressed with the times and have instead been overtaken in the gaming market by FPS games. FPS games have, in general, updated with technology and have remained relevant into the current generation.

Sinden Lightgun wants to change that. Until now, light gun controllers have only been compatible with CRT screens. The current iteration of the Sinden Lightgun is compatible with modern TV screens, needing only to utilise a shortcut in the Sinden Lightgun software to create a digital border around the playable area on the television that the light gun is able function within, by controlling the player’s mouse cursor.

Due to the the wide application connectivity of the Sinden Lightgun, it is able to work with applications running on both Windows and Linux, to play a large variety of light gun games, including:

The Sinden Lightgun calculates where you are pointing on the screen over 50 times a second and provides a complete end-to-end calculation in less than 25ms.  As it remains completely accurate no matter how long you play or if you move positions, you can turn off your crosshairs and enjoy a completely authentic light gun experience.

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode prog