A Wii Bit of Fun

Just in time for Christmas, Technical Evangelist, Brian Pene, filed this report. The Wii Remote is user interface device for a Nintendo game station that offers 2 degrees of freedom, 4 degrees of freedom (X, Y, Z, and Roll), and 6 degrees of freedom (X, Y, Z, yaw, pitch, and roll).

• The 2 degrees of freedom is controlled by traditional thumb pad on the Wii Remote.
• The 4 degrees of freedom control involves a sensor bar mounted near the monitor that has two sets of 5 infrared emitting LEDs at either end and at the Wii Remote end an infrared camera to set a triangulation system that controls cursor movement and rotation on the screen.
• The 6 degrees of freedom uses a series of 3 accelerometers (X, Y, and Z axes).

Many games use a combination of all three of these input methods. Though designed for games, this device can be quite handy for interfacing with CAD data.

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Some of you had asked me about the Wii Remote working on Windows at our last internal Autodesk Multi-touch summit. At the time I only had this working on Mac Os X.

BREAKING NEWS!
Yes, you too can be a WiiNerd on Windows. You can control Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Design Review, AutoCAD, Revit, Alias, Maya, Project Freewheel, etc. all with a Wii! Carl Kenner wrote a programmable input emulator (PIE) which enables customizing any input device to control Windows. I just got it working with the Wii Remote. This allows full customization for any application as well as the ability to program for gesture recognition. There are also a variety of Wii-based example PIE scripts included with the download, like for Google Earth, Firefox, and a whole variety of PC Games.

If you have $40-$50 US to purchase a Wii controller or already have one and want to try it out, all you need is the remote itself. No sensor bar is required.

INSTRUCTIONS
To use your Wii Remote on Windows, download GlovePie at http://carl.kenner.googlepages.com/glovepie and follow the steps below to connect the Wii via Bluetooth.

1. Open your Bluetooth wireless radio and ensure it is turned on (Fn + F5)
   

2. Open your Bluetooth device manager from control panel and click the ADD.. button from the "Device" tab.
   

3. From the Add Bluetooth device wizard, check the "my device is set up and ready to be found" option then click the next button and hold down the "1" and "2" keys on the Wii Remote (the ones at the bottom), which will blink the led’s below the buttons)
   

4. The Bluetooth will display all available devices, select the "Nintendo RVL-CNT-01" and click next to add the Wii.
   

5. On the next screen select option to "Don’t use a passkey" and click Next
   

6. The connection progress will show in the dialog. Ensure you are pressing both the "1" and "2" keys on the Wii if you have troubles connecting. Once the dialog shows the device is connected successfully, click the finish button.
   

7. Your Wii should now appear in the devices tab as connected
   

8. Now with the Wii is connected to your bluetooth, Run Glovepie, click Open... then browse to the folder "WiimoteScripts" and choose the script WiiFireFox.PIE.
   

9. With the script open in GlovePie, click the Run Button. You can also try the GoogleEarthwii.pie with Google Earth or a variety of other PIE scripts for the Wii.
   

You can customize the PIE Scripts to recognize gestures as well as for enabling specific key combos within a given application.

You can also program for almost any device including a VR style glove, but that’s so 1984. :-)

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Thanks Brian!