Abstract
Pool and billiards are amongst a family of games played on a table with six pockets along the rails. This paper presents an augmented reality tool designed to assist unskilled or amateur players of such games. The system is based on a projector and a Kinect 2 sensor placed above the table, acquiring and processing the game on-the-fly. By using depth information and detecting the table’s rails (borders), the balls’ positions, the cue direction, and the strike of the ball, computations predict the resulting balls’ trajectories after the shot is played. These results—trajectories, visual effects, and menus—are visually output by the projector, making them visible on the snooker table. The system achieves a shot prediction accuracy of 98% when no bouncing occurs.