Physical chess set challenges Internet opponents

The Internet Chess Table is a project for playing internet chess on a 3D board with real pieces.

For the display, a small DIY 20W-LED low-resolution (64x64px) LCD projector was developed. It is used for displaying the move of my opponent as well as to show me information about the game (e.g. time). Moreover, there is a move recognition system which gives me feedback of the recognized move on the display.

Move recognition works with an ultra cheap webcam (320x240px) which is also mounted inside the box.

Basically, this table could be interpreted as multi-touch surface. (…) it depends on ambient light and the pieces are causing shadows on the surface which can be captured by the webcam. (…) Display and Webcam are connected to the PC via USB and a self developed interface software is used for connecting everything together and for communication with freechess.org.

This Internet Chess Table plays on freechess.org with the nickname ictdev.