Method and apparatus for detecting an image of a reflective object

An apparatus for detecting an image of a reflective object comprising:

• a light-emitting device;
• an image sensor;
• a control device that causes the light emitting device and the image sensor such that the image sensor captures two successive images including a first image and a second image;
• the first image being captured while the light emitting device is emitting light, the second image being captured while the light emitting device is not emitting light;
• a down-sampling circuit connected to receive the output of the image sensor, for down-sampling the image signals of the first image and the second image outputted from the image sensor;
• a difference image computing unit operable to compute a difference image by subtracting the down-sampled image signal of the second image from the down-sampled image signal of the first image;
• and
• a unit operable to specify the image of the reflective object in the difference image by locating a bright point in the difference image.

A computer game program product comprising:

• a computer readable recording medium storing a computer executable game program thereon, wherein
• the game program includes:
• a first computer readable program code unit operable to cause the computer to generate an image of imaginary object to be moved by a user in the game and a direction indicator indicating a target direction in which the imaginary object is to be moved by the user in the game;
• a second computer readable program code unit operable to cause the computer to prepare a time-series data including position data of a controller of the game, the position data indicating a position of a representative point of the controller at a certain time with reference to a predetermined coordinate system;
• and
• a third computer readable program code unit operable to cause the computer to compute a trajectory of the imaginary object in response to the prepared time-series of position data, wherein the trajectory is computed such that a direction of movement of the imaginary object is determined using the target direction as a reference based on the position data.