space foosball: foosball gets virtual

September 21st, 2009 comments stumble it! digg it! by: technabob

Space Foosball is a modern-day spin on the old foosball table does away with those mechanical men and ping pong balls and replaces them with pixels and a physics engine.

space_foosball

The cool thing about the virtual foosball players and ball is that they’re still controlled by the same sort of spinny axle controllers that traditional foosball machines use.

space_foosball_diagram

In this case, however, software transforms all of the players movements into digital information which is used to control the virtual soccer players on screen. Each control lever is tied to a set of infrared sensors (similar to the way spinner controls work in arcade games) which tells the software which way to spin the players.

space_foosball_diagram_2

Check out the video clips below for a look behind-the-scenes of Space Foosball, along with some gameplay footage:

http://www.vimeo.com/3541053 http://www.vimeo.com/3540864

The Space Foosball system was developed using the Virtual Physics CGI engine developed by Young J. Kim and the team at the Ewha Women’s University Computer Graphics Lab in Seoul, Korea.

No word on if or when you’ll be able to play Space Foosball at your neighborhood pub.

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filed under: future tech interactive strange + wonderful technology