Want to know how to build this Virtual Reality App

[jus.me.rashmi]

I saw this s/w once at a museum - and i wanna know if i can build something like it for a project that i need for college

It consists of: A screen, with a bunch of drums scattered around, and when you stand in front of the screen u are projected into it, and you can see yourself standing in the screen with drums all around you, and if you move your hand over a drum, a beat plays (like you've hit a drum for real) an when you hit another one, another drum beat plays..

now i really am fascinated by the idea of this, and want to use the same idea to build a project for myself. Only problem, i dont know where i should start.

So far what i have figured out is that i will need some way to scan the user and to track his movements and accordingly process the sound based on location of his hand..but how do i go about that i am not really sure. Also, what language will i use to build this, again, i am not sure. was thinking JAVA...

Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks
Rashmi

[SgtMe]

wow! That's a huge project. Build it up in stages. Start with one drum, which is operated using the mouse. Then build it up with more drums (using classes) until you have the amount you want. Make a new program, again with just one drum, but copy all the draw functions etc. from the previous program. But in this program, write the logic for tracking movement. Then, copy that code into the first program when you have it done and make additional touches. As for a language, I'm not really sure.
Hope this helps.

[jus.me.rashmi]

Thanks fr ur help, but i also need to knw how to work the motion tracking. . .hw would i know when a drum is hit? Is it possible to process input if input is in the form of a video? I downloaded yawcam to try n edit the source code, was wondering if that would help.

[SgtMe]

sorry im not sure on that front.

[0x69]

You can start here-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_vision
Yes, you will need to track motion, but it's problem you concentrate too early.
At first you need to concentrate at object (hand) recognition phase.
You could start here-
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/audio-video/face_detection.aspx
Also somehow i think for such project perfomance is important thing cause you will operate on video frame data on real-time, so JAVA is not an option here.
Better take C/C++.

Good luck.

[jus.me.rashmi]

@Ox69 - thanks, i am looking into your links..have you worked on something similar before?

[0x69]

nope, this is just my little research on your problem.

[jus.me.rashmi]

thanks :)