Mechanism of respiration measurement
“Breathe” uses a camera to measure breathing and body tilt. Here’s how it works.
The mechanism is simple and is carried out in the following three steps.
(1) First, the position of the player’s face and chest are recognized from the video acquired by the camera.
(2) Next, the micro movements of the recognized chest area are observed and judged as inhalation if the chest area moves upward overall, and exhalation if the chest area moves downward. Motion tracking is used for the motion recognition.
(3) Then, look at the face area and determine the position of the player’s left and right eyes. The tilt of the straight line connecting the left and right eye positions is reflected in the movement of the character in the game. Therefore, the character can actually be controlled by tilting only the head.
That’s all for measuring breathing and body tilt. It was simpler than you might think, wasn’t it? While we’re at it, we’d like to introduce some weaknesses of this mechanism.
- Since it uses camera images, it is not possible to measure in a dark room.
- If the player is wearing plain, black clothing, the movement cannot be seen, and this also cannot be measured.
- If the player is holding a smartphone or tablet with his/her hands, the device will not be able to make accurate measurements because the movement of breathing will be transmitted to the device. Therefore, the device should be placed on a desk and away from the body.
In the future, we would like to improve the accuracy of the measurement and also create another game using movements other than breathing (e.g. eye movements). If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to contact us♪
Privacy Protection
The camera footage used for respiration detection is discarded immediately after processing is complete, and is not saved or transferred in any form. Respiration detection processing is performed entirely within user’s device, and camera footage is never transferred externally. Protecting your privacy is our number one priority. If you have any questions or require more information please feel free to contact us.
Please also refer to the privacy policy