WiiLi.org

[n3cr0fil3]

Is it possible, with the way the Wiimote and sensor are made, to have 100% absolute position instead of just relative position?

I.E. Instead of being like a mouse, it's more like a wireless, touchless Wacom pad so if I was to have the wiimote pointing at the top right corner, and then cover the sensor, move it to the lower left and uncover the sensor, the cursor would move instantly from one end to the other.

[mikey]

yes.

in fact, the wiimote sends absolute data.
i'm sure carl's glove pie can do absolute data, so can my wiimote-api.
http://code.google.com/p/wiimote-api

[Cha0s]

Well, the data is "theoretically" absolute. There are certain conditions. The IR sensor gives you an absolute picture in 2D, meaning that it doesn't know *where* the remote is, just the 2D picture that the remote sees. Since the remote's view of the sensor bar (or whatever lights it's tracking) can change in two ways (the remote can be physically moved or it can be rotated/tilted), you will never be able to determine a true absolute position.

However, for things like cursor control, if you assume the remote is, for the most part, only being rotated (there are issues involved with moving the remote which I'm not going to explain here because it would take a while ), then you can map the remote's camera view to a screen. So the X and Y values of every "pixel" of remote-view are scaled up by a certain factor to match the X and Y values of your screen. Then you just take the negative of these X and Y values to get screen X and Y (because when you point the remote up to the left, the lights appear to be down to the right). This is not a full explanation, but hopefully it should explain the basic concept and the caveat there is with this method.
_________________
Cha0s