NONmetal homemade pad

[BretzelPretzel]

I just wanted to share this because I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

Anybody ever hear of those virtual keyboards that business people use? Well, basically, it's a projected image of a keyboard on the table that has optical sensors to detect the presence of the typist's fingers. Basically, you can type with a mini projector thing instead of a keyboard.

Well, my friend was saying that he thought it would be a fun engineering project for us to make a ddr pad that uses similar technology....Anybody else think that it's a cool idea? I don't know if either my friend or I have enough experience with programming/engineering/physics/etc to do such a thing, but I just wanted to get some ideas from other people....

[Sinistar]

Do those keyboards rely at all upon the ability to see the project image? If so, you might end up having occlusion issues. For example, while it may be able to see that you step on Up or step on Down, it might not be able to tell that you are stepping on both simultaneously since it wouldn't be able to see past your foot on the Up arrow to know that Down was also supposed to be triggered.

I don't have any experience with these systems, so I have no clue what I'm talking about. Just wanted to make sure I stated that disclaimer.
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CF cbox mods and more at the 'Pad'

[Heffenfeffer]

Wow. Now that's an idea I can get behind. I really hope you persue this idea (hopefully as a class project so that you can get some credit for it if you make it to the prototype stage.)

I've got to play Devil's Advocate here, though. Not because I don't think it can be done, but because I think it *can* be done (and would be quite cool), if some issues are taken care of.

First off, actually viewing the pad on the floor will be a mite tricky. If the virtual pad device is at eye level, a lot of the pad will be on your legs whenever you 'step on.' I'd think this could be solved if the pad was at a low angle, though. Of course, then bits of the pad would be on your shoes whenever you stepped, but still...

In response to Sinistar's query, I think that the IR-sensing laser can detect a little bit of one finger/foot being in front of another (otherwise, how would typing anything on the bottom row work?) But to minimize this happening, perhaps position the device so it displays the pad at an angle, say 30 to 45 degrees. Or perhaps have another device behind the player to pick up the other side of the body. (It may be needed anyway, since it's essentially retrofitting a device that normally displays a 4"x12" keyboard into displaying a 36"x36" dance pad.)

Probably some sensitivity adjustment would be necessary as well - after all, these devices are built to 'see' fingers moving fractions of inches. And the floor you're using under it would need some special consideration as well. First off, it should be clear, no question - but some sort of mat would probably be necessary in the long term. Since every arcade pad and home pad has some degree of give with each step, playing Max 300 on solid concrete could cause your knees to pack up and leave your body. Perhaps use a sheet of foam core, or a sheet of plywood with weather stripping (emulating home-built pads) as a base if it's going to be for more than impromptu DDR.

Now if there's some sort of option for keyboard 'skins' or similar, it could rock teh h4rdc0r3. Heck, you could go from a DDR pad to a (arcade-sized!) Pump pad to a Para Para device in seconds!

But, yeah. It sounds like a cool idea - good luck with it. Yeah, in the back of my mind I'm thinking it would be far cheaper and saner to just get a Flux or build your own, but as an engineering 'cool thing', it's pretty sweet.
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[Sinistar]

[Agent J]

For those currently reading the topic and going "WTF are people talking about here" or something along those lines, there is such a thing as a virtual keyboard. You can see pictures of what it looks like in this review of it here. It's something for PDAs that you can use as an impromptu keyboard instead of carrying around a foldup keyboard, using As for whether or not it'd work, it certainly seems possible to me.

I think the biggest issue might be response time and accuracy. According to that review, which Sinistar mentioned as well, the device works better with a two-finger hunt and peck method than the traditional method of typing. To me, that indicates that it works better with slower, more precise presses than quicker, more erratic movements. That wouldn't be an issue on Light and some Standard songs, but trying to do MaxX Unlimited like that would definitely lead to problems, if my suspicions are correct. Something like that can probably be tweaked and adjusted, though. It's certainly an idea. It would lead to much more durable pads, and as Heffenfeffer mentioned, you might be able to make so one pad could serve many different purposes!