Interfacing a Wiimote with a PC

Using the Wiimote’s Bluetooth capability it proved to be a simple task to interface the Wiimote with a standard PC. The Windows Wii application (WWii) was created to handle connection and pairing between the Wiimote and the target operating system. Following on from earlier iterations (see Battersby, 2008), WWii has been used to facilitate further research and development. WWii is a functional windows-based driver application written in C# with Peek’s (2008) Managed Library for Nintendo’s Wii remote (Wiimote) as its heart. It provides facilities for keyboard, mouse and joystick mapping, for peripheral input data capture and a basic capacity for the replay and analysis of any captured data. WWii not only provides the facility for the Wiimote to be mapped to the windows system but also supports multiple extensions such as the Wii Classic Controller, the Wii Nunchuck and the Wii Fit board. Interface panels have been created to support mapping functionality by enabling a user to configure each of the Wiimote’s physical inputs to any desired keyboard or mouse input combination. In effect this enables the Wiimote to be seen by the system as any of the highlighted devices, limited only by the volume of inputs available from the device. Customizable feedback is developed through the feedback mapping panel, where flags may be set to operate any of the Wiimote’s feedback mechanisms.

In order to test the interface functionality of the two Wiimote sensors a simple test environment was created that consisted of a virtual representation of the Wiimote within 3D space. The environment was constructed within AutoDesk’s 3D Studio Max application and interactive capability was provided by importing the environment into Adobe Director, where navigation and response to system input could then be coded.

Taken from: click here