New Nintendo patent covers ‘object dectection’ device

There’s nothing quite like a Nintendo patent, some of them are straight forward, others are so crazy that they’ll never see the light of day.

A new patent uncovered today probably falls into the latter category. Filed all the way back in August 2014 it covers a piece of hardware setup for ‘object detection’. The device somehow uses cameras and mirrors to detect where objects are placed in relation to the device. One figure shows two amiibo-like figurines near the device, possibly meaning this device could be used to figure out the location of amiibo near it. The inventor is listed as Fumihiko Inoue.

This device could also sense more than one amiibo at a time to scan in multiple figures, the text included with the patent is too vague to make any proper sense of it.

19) [Issuing country] Japan Patent Office (JP)
(12) [Publication Type] Patent Publication (A)
(11) [Publication number: JP 2016-45173 (P2016-45173A)
(43) [Publication date] 2016 April 4 (2016.4.4)
(54) [Title of invention] Information processing system, information processing program, information processing method and imaging device
(22) [Filing date] 2014 August 26 (2014.8.26)
(71) [The applicant]
[Identification number] 000233778
[Name] Nintendo Co., Ltd.
(72) [Inventor]
[Name] Fumihiko Inoue

[Field of the Invention] Especially this invention relates to the information processing system, the information processing program, information processing method, and imaging device which equip with a mirror the position which opposes to a camera and the camera concerned about an information processing system, an information processing program, an information processing method, and an imaging device.

[Background of the Invention] An example of a background art is disclosed in a Patent document 1. In the omnidirection three-dimensional space perception input device disclosed in this Patent document 1, the imaging means which images an omnidirection image according to the optical system which comprises a mirror part and a camera unit is provided, and the three-dimensional coordinate value in which the form and structure of an object are expressed as the stereo image of an omnidirection is extracted.

[Problem to be solved by the invention] However, the three-dimensional coordinate value which expresses the form and structure of an object in this background art as the stereo image of an omnidirection has stopped at being extracted.

The patent is quite lengthy, it may be worth a complete read through here.

Source: NeoGAF