I'm trying to build a simple system that gives the user (sitting infront of the PC) an exercise workout, so basically I need a group of sensors surrounding the user then a few simple exercise routines will be displayed on the monitor for the user 2 carry out..like stretch ur left arm sideways, punch forwards, etc. the sensors detect the movement has been carried out then sends a signal through the parallel port of the PC as either a 1 or 0 indicating whther the movement has been carried out or not and then the next exercise step is displayed and so on. I'm not sure whthere infrared sensors would be suitable 4 a project like this? The sensors dont have to detect things light distance, height etc...just that movement has occured and also the time..like how fast the movement was carried out in. I don't want to have to do too much programming either! and would anybody know if I would have to actually write a program for the sensors? can that be done in c++ or does it have 2 be low-level language like assembly?
You are going about this sorta backwards. A better approach would be low-res wide-angle
USB webcam since you know that the user is going to be in front of the monitor within limited parameters. It's passive, cheap, easy to implement, and has multiple uses. Motion capture is easy. There is free, open-source software available that might be adaptable to your needs (from a
very quick search):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmotiondetect
and an inexpensive framework for the exercise part:
http://www.sidespace.com/products/stretch
it seems like this would be relatively easy to put together in a functional way--most of the work has already been done...
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