Play online chess with real chess board and web camera | NO DGT BOARD!

[maksimKorzh]

Hey what's up guys, Code Monkey King's here.
A couple of days ago I got an email from a developer introducing his software (I'm not the author and publishing this from the author's permission!)
capable of playing online chess using the regular chess board (no DGT!) and a web camera! It's free and open source!
So the camera shoots the board and recognizes the position and then makes a move
on a target website you're playing chess!

I made a quick overview video about it:


And here're the original links I got via email:
Github Page: https://github.com/karayaman/Play-onlin ... hess-board
Latest Release: https://github.com/karayaman/Play-onlin ... d/releases
Example Video:
Example Article: https://hackaday.com/2021/07/03/interne ... hessboard/

It's available for Windows, Linux and Mac!
Use the github issues to contact the developer for support.

[Odd Gunnar Malin]

While I have a DGT board I see one use of it anyway. Recording your chess computer games that has no connection to a PC, for me that would be the DGT Centaur.
I also see another app on the github page that (if it work) could be used to play real blindfold games against the computer.

Thanks for the link.

[AdminX]

While I have a DGT board I see one use of it anyway. Recording your chess computer games that has no connection to a PC, for me that would be the DGT Centaur.
I also see another app on the github page that (if it work) could be used to play real blindfold games against the computer.

Thanks for the link.

True, I just came across the howto video about Lichess with DGT

[maksimKorzh]

No problem, thanks to Alper Karayaman, the developer of this project.

While I have a DGT board I see one use of it anyway. Recording your chess computer games that has no connection to a PC, for me that would be the DGT Centaur.
I also see another app on the github page that (if it work) could be used to play real blindfold games against the computer.

Thanks for the link.

Well, I believe the original idea was to provide a tool for those who doesn't have a DGT board meanwhile keeping all the benefits of having one.
For instance the moves are still being recorded on a target website/app but you're right blindfold doesn't seem to be supported for it relies on the position obtained after opponent's move. I think it's ok to ask the developer to add a blindfold feature, I think this shouldn't be very difficult to do.

[Odd Gunnar Malin]

Well, I believe the original idea was to provide a tool for those who doesn't have a DGT board meanwhile keeping all the benefits of having one.
For instance the moves are still being recorded on a target website/app but you're right blindfold doesn't seem to be supported for it relies on the position obtained after opponent's move. I think it's ok to ask the developer to add a blindfold feature, I think this shouldn't be very difficult to do.

I only saw on the github site where showing picture of the gui that one option was "Make moves of opponent too" so I thought you could do the moves for both side, eg. play a game and get it recorded.
For the blindfold I was thinking of another app. on his gitub site: https://github.com/karayaman/voice-to-chess-notation
I will try it out later this evening.

[Odd Gunnar Malin]

The automatic recording of DGT Centaur games did work!


I'm not sure this voice to chess is finish, there wasn't any releases.

[Odd Gunnar Malin]

True, I just came across the howto video about Lichess with DGT

Yes, this is how I do it too ( see f.ex. my anti-cheating stream: ).

[AdminX]

Here is yet another use.

[Odd Gunnar Malin]

Here is yet another use.

So, it wasn't new. I have not seen (or thought about) this method to get the Centaur games into the computer.
I tried to download the program in your video (webcamchess.jar) but my computer declined it and say it could harm my PC. Most probably a false positive, I got the same message when I tried to download Colossus.

I saw from the man (on Hiarcs forum) who made this dongle update of the Centaur that he should have a solution with wifi and bluethoot soon. Maybe I do a hardware upgrade of the Centaur then. Eg. repace the Rasperry with one that have wifi.

[AdminX]

You know this just gave be an idea! I am going to attempt to set this up as a relay for some of the old DosBox /DeFend chess programs and see if it will be successful. Hopefully I might get a test match going with MChess!! That would be cool!