I'm looking for a transparent go board.
(Board has to be transparent, stones do not).

Seen a shop where they sell them?

Thanks in advance

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ZBaduk Online Go AI: https://www.zbaduk.com
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IIRC this question was asked once on GD. Don't know if it helps

What's wrong with a nice wooden board? Do you want to be able to lie below the board and play? The position doesn't change if you look at it upside down, you know...

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My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

From sensei's UnusualMaterials:

I asked for pictures, but got no response.

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a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
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Almost ... It's something I need for a bigger project.
I'll show you some pictures when it's finished.

So I asked a plexiglass company to create me a board.
But maybe I've been too creative in my sketches, since they send me a 350 EUR bill.
I think 20-40 EUR is more what I had in mind.

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ZBaduk Online Go AI: https://www.zbaduk.com
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I made a lot of go boards myself

I think transparent plastic is even easier than wood. (no sanding and painting)

Go to a DIY shop get a transparent plastic sheet of the dimensions you want, use a CD marker to put lines and hoshi points on it.
It could look quite nice if done with care.

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Laurens
Go school: freegame's Teaching School
Author of: The Next Move a book for 15-3kyu players.

Doing it myself is of course an option, but if it exists I would prefer to just buy it,
so that I can concentrate on the other parts of the project.
So if somebody has seen this for sale somewhere, please let me know. Thanks

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ZBaduk Online Go AI: https://www.zbaduk.com
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Are you using the transparent board to make a robot that plays go? Just a random thought that crossed my mind.

Why would a robot require a transparent board

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I was thinking it would be easier to have the camera below the board to allow for easier programming of movement of the arm above the board. It may not even be a valid concern, but it strikes me that simplifying the motions of the arm above the board by reducing the number of objects that might possibly be in the way would be a good thing. Plus, with the right design, I believe you can reduce the overall vertical space required, which would in turn allow for a more compact base.

Of course, this is all speculation. An idle fancy, if you will.

I hope it's not just a fantasy. You're spot on.

I'm hoping that I will be able to detect the presence of a stone using a (2 or 3 leed) photo transistor or photo diode.

step1: making a board with lighting underneath, LEDs should burn when stone is above.
This is the hardest step because I will have to play with sensitivity of the photo transistors.

if that works, then the next step is easy.
step2: letting it communicate through USB to a computer

if that works, ... then the sky is the limit:
- putting your laptop underneath the board and let it write down the game (SGF) while you play.
- communicating with gnugo shouldn't be a problem as it supports GTP...

I'm actually just a software developer who happened to study Electro Engineering while at school.
So, I can't do miracles. But I've been thinking about doing this for such a long long long long time, that I just HAVE to try it, in order to clear my conscience.

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ZBaduk Online Go AI: https://www.zbaduk.com
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If the sensitivity of the sensors would be an issue and would remain an issue,
then I can still change the goal of the project a little bit, and just try to create gradual lighting ...

I'm heavily influenced by hikaru no go in this project-idea. I think a blue glow underneath the board will look nice.

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ZBaduk Online Go AI: https://www.zbaduk.com
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I'm interested in the details of your design idea. I am also a software guy (Computer Science Degree) who took both Electrical Engineering courses and Robotics courses.

Perhaps the best way for you to figure out if you can make it work is to prototype it using a small piece of glass or transparent acrylic and making a 3x3 board first. This should give you enough to test the sensitivity of your phototransistors and give you some non-trivial test cases involving multiple stones and stones that are slightly off from their correct place.

It's an interesting project.

My technical design (electronics) is pretty much finished. There's just 1 component I'm not sure about: that's the sensors.

I've seen similar chessprojects where the engineers used sensors that costed 10 EUR/intersection. And even with that kind of material they had technical issues to just detect the pieces.

Most of these sensors are just designed to detect SOMETHING passing by at big distance. I however only want response at very small distances, EXCEPT for the plexiglass. Now I'm using IR-LEDS to improve the results. BUT acrylic plates have anti-UV coats usually. So, I have no idea if this will work or not. Fingers crossed, really.

I've ordered 3 types of sensors, ranging from 0.2 EUR to 0.6 EUR / piece if ordered in big quantities. I hope the 0.2 euro / intersection will do. Cause that would mean 70 euro, just for the sensors. Total price would be around 150 euro to create a board (if parts ordered in large quantities). However if I'll have to use the 0.6 EUR sensors, then everything becomes more complex I'll need additional resistors as well. And suddenly it will be more like 350 EUR/board.

My project is not just to make a board. I'm hoping to make it affordable as well, even when produced in small numbers. Affordable would mean, less than 250 EUR/board. That would be a success, looking at the current numbers.

As for the exact details of my components I prefer that to be a little secret for now.
It's just too bad I'll have to draw my lines myself on that acrylic plate. Presentation is pretty important in this project ...

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Sounds like an impressive pursuit, if you can make it work the way you want it to.

Good luck to you!

Why do you prefer one sensor per point instead of just one camera? Since the Position of the board relative to the camera is fixed detecting the stones should not be that hard in software.

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Sanity is for the weak.

I did that a couple of years ago. But there's so much issues related to camera's.

First of all there's the problem to detect the outside border of the board automatically.
I avoided that by using a configuration procedure where the user had to put stones in the corners.

Then using interpolation you can calculate all intersections, right? Not completely.
Webcams have cheap lenses and these bend the perspective around the borders of the screen.
The result is that some intersections will be slightly off.

Then there's the problem of the viewing angle. If you put the camera really low then stones are in front of eachother.
The result is that you have to check the top of the stone, not the middle or the lowest point of the stone.
Of course if there is NO stone at the intersection, but there is one at the intersection behind it, then you'll get a wrong result as well.
So complex algorithms are necessary to do this perfect.

In combination with the previous problem this is very hard, you create a snowball effect when these slight errors are combined.

As an alternative you could setup the camera above the board (looking down to the board). The result of that is that the you annoy the players with the construction of the camera.

Then still there's the problem of lighting. One point of the board can be darker then the other, lightning can change during the course of the game.

What if you move your hand accross the board during play. I have a very white skin. For the camera it's as if a bunch of white stones are thrown on the board. This could be fixed by ignoring big sudden changes. But how can the camera tell the difference with removing big chunks of stones? He can't unless maybe if you get input from an USB connected clock ? (doesn't exist as far as I know, been looking for one).

What if the board or the camera shakes during play. Reconfiguration? When will you notice this, I hope you notice it before the game is over.

There's such so much unpredictable factors in using camera's. You can use artificial intelligence and use game logic to fix some of these problems. But you can't fix all.

On top of that I think if you put all this effort in writing the software for it, it's too bad you can't give feedback to the user. What I mean is, you'll never be able to play against GnuGo on a real board. The computer can't point certain positions on the board. Using a circuit underneat the board you can use LED lighting to show positiosn of stones or moves.

I think it makes more sense to put the detection inside the board. Well, it's still an experiment and there are some issues, but I think overall it's a better principle. But of course, it's a lot more expensive.

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please let this be a Go playing Roomba!

I guess I'm a little confused, wouldn't it be easier to embed the electronics in a wooden board?

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

First thought when you said it was a transparent board for a robot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk.

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