For most office workers, sitting behind the desks is a part of their normal routine of modern daily life. People have to face enormous work pressure everyday. They try various leisure activities to reduce stress. This research develops a system for playing interactive table tennis with each other, which provides users in different locations to play virtual table tennis over network. Interaction can be achieved by applying infrared rays, XBee wireless communication module, and the drop zones of the balls in the virtual reality environment. The virtual reality, due to the nature of high safety and low cost, has been applied to a variety of fields in recent years. This system applies peripheral interactive devices and hardware to virtual reality, so users have feelings of presence at the scene. This system uses two IR sensors to detect the spatial location of the target. The home-made IR sensor detects infrared rays emitted from IR transmitter attached to the paddle. After two-dimensional coordinates detected by the IR sensors are converted to three-dimensional coordinates through complex matrix computation, the actual paddle reflect the relative location of the virtual paddle in the virtual world. Finally, the information is transmitted to the opposite player via the internet and displayed on the projection screen. The wireless communication module helps users get rid of the inconvenience with traditional cable and frees from the distance limitations of cable. Users have fun and enjoy interactive game with real persons while playing this system. This is very different from merely playing with computers in the traditional computer game. Furthermore, people who intend to do exercise can play interactive table tennis games with the remote players via this low-cost infrastructure.
