A Simulation of a Billiards Game Based on Marker Detection

Performance improvements in graphics hardware have made it possible to visualize complex virtual environments and provided opportunities to interact with these in a more realistic way. In this paper a virtual reality application for simulating a billiards game is presented. A real billiard cue is used and its movements are reproduced in the virtual environment using a visual marker detection system. No force feedback is provided to the player. In the game simulation the virtual environment has been built using the development environment OpenSceneGraph and rigid body dynamics have been simulated utilizing the PhysX physics engine. ARToolkit was the visual marker-based detection system utilized to replicate the movements of the real cue used by the player in the virtual environment.