Development of a Canoe Simulator for Beginners

　Canoe is one of Olympic sports, however, it is a minor sport with a small number of players in Japan. However, a canoe is expensive and it is difficult to purchase by an individual. There is little place to experience canoeing. In this paper, we propose an inexpensive and simple canoe simulator that can be installed in narrow space. We aim to promote canoe in domestic sports by increasing those who experience canoe with canoe simulator, which will lead to more new players. 　Dobashi, et al. are developed a canoe simulator called Virtual Canoe. This system calculates resistance of water real-time, and realizes canoe simulation close to reality by applying SPIDAR, the kinesthetic sense feedback system. However, SPIDAR is a large-scaled device and not everybody can experience it easily. 　We propose a simulator, “Air Paddle”, which you can experience canoeing easily. Air Paddle captures joint movements of arms that hold a paddle using Kinect. The thrust force of a canoe can be estimated by calculating the cubic volume of the water flipped by the paddle, from estimating the paddle movement from the data of Kinect. Lastly, we estimate the canoe’s travelling direction and speed to display real-time motion picture of the view ahead from a player.

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