Kifu Recorder is an app which aims to record go (weiqi, baduk) matches in a simple and easy way. It uses a mobile device's camera to watch a go game and creates a SGF game record as output. It works well in optimal conditions (bright environment, good camera positioning), but it's still a work in progress.

It can be downloaded for free on Google Play at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=br.edu.ifspsaocarlos.sdm.kifurecorder.

Please send any feedback to [email protected]!

The easiest way to use Kifu Recorder is to install it via Google Play. If you want to compile the source code and install it by yourself, you should download this repository's code and open the project in Android Studio. You should also integrate the OpenCV4Android library, which is OpenCV with Android mappings. The OpenCV version currently used in Kifu Recorder is 3.4.1.

Using the app is quite simple: first you choose the "Start game recording" menu option. Then you fill the game's basic information - who are the players with black and white stones and the desired komi - and press the "Detect board" button. From this point on, I recommend that you keep your device still by using a tripod or some other apparatus.

Your device's camera should have a full view of the game board. When Kifu Recorder detects the game board, it draws a red contour around it. When the red border is correctly enclosing the board, press "OK". Now the game recording phase begins.

The game recording screen has a lot of buttons, but they are quite self-explanatory.

1. Take snapshot
2. Manually add move - If the app is not detecting a stone, you can manually add it to the game record.
3. Rotate left and
4. Rotate right - sometimes the app will detect the board in a different orientation than your point of view, so you can use these buttons to fix that.
5. Restore board position - Kifu Recorder has a board tracking feature to track where the board is in the camera image. Sometimes that tracking can go astray, so this button will reset the board to its initial detected position.
6. Toggle board tracking - If you feel board tracking is not working well, you can disable it by pressing this button.
7. Undo - Undoes the last detected move. Useful when the app detects a wrong stone
8. Pause/Continue - Pauses the game recording
9. Finish - Terminates game recording

This app was initially developed as a conclusion work for the mobile systems development specialization course of IFSP-São Carlos. I am a Go player myself and decided to use the conclusion project of the course as an opportunity to implement a Go Kifu Recorder application which could possibly help other players.

You can read the resulting monograph here (Portuguese only for now).

Minor improvements

• Save button was removed because the game is saved automatically after every detected move now.
• Improved this README

The main improvement in this release is dynamic board tracking. Up until versions 1.1.X, board detection was done once and the board and camera had to remain still for the remainder of the game recording. Any movement resulted in detection errors. This version solves this problem for small camera or board movements.

There is still a lot of room for improvement, so if you feel that board tracking is not working well, it can be disabled by pressing the "Toggle board tracking" button.

This code is released under the MIT license.