I was looking over the documentation trying to find anything that will
allow me the Kinect/device?
I'm trying to get accelerometer data, but not sure how. So far there
were two things I've spotted in the guide and docs:
XnModuleDeviceInterface/xn::ModuleDevice and
XnModuleLockAwareInterface/xn::ModuleLockAwareInterface.
I'm wondering if I can use the ModuleDevice Get/Set methods to talk to
the device and ask for accelerometer data.
If so, how can I get started?
Also, I was thinking, if it would be possible to 'lock' openni
functionality temporarily while I try to get accelerometer data via
freenect or something similar, then 'unlocking' after reading is
done.
Has anyone tried this before? Any tips?
I'm currently using the SimpleOpenNI wrapper and Processing, but have used OpenFrameworks and the C++ library, so the language wouldn't be very important.
The standard OpenNI Kinect drivers don't expose or allow access to any accelerometer, motor, or LED controls. All of these controls are done through the "NUI Motor" USB device (protocol reference), which the SensorKinect Kinect driver doesn't communicate with.
One way around this is to use a modified OpenNI SensorKinect driver, i.e., this one which does connect to the NUI Motor device, and exposes basic accelerometer and motor control via a "CameraAngleVertical" integer property. It appears that you should be able to read/write an arbitrary integer property using SimpleOpenNI and Processing.
If you're willing to use a non-OpenNI-based solution, you can use Daniel Shiffman's Kinect Processing library which is based on libfreenect. You'll get good accelerometer, motor, etc..., but will lose access to the OpenNI skeleton/gesture support. A similar library for OpenFrameworks is ofxKinect.
Regarding locking of OpenNI nodes, my understanding is that this just prevents properties from updating and does nothing at the USB driver level. Switching between drivers--PrimeSense-based SensorKinect and libusb-based libfreenect--at runtime is not possible. It may be possible (I haven't tried it) to configure OpenNI for the camera device, and to use freenect to communicate with the NUI Motor device. No locking/synchronization between these devices should be required.
Related
I recently acquired a Microchip EVB USB7252. I can use it as a USB hub. There are some pins on the board, and I have been looking for ways to use these as an interface between my computer and other devices (preferably my LCD screen).
So I got the IDE + compiler that is supposed to work for this product (MPLAB), but I could find no way to choose my model and get the correct target board.
I was hoping anybody (with likely more experience than me) could steer me in the right direction here. My only previous experience with dev boards is Arduino, where boards show up automatically as COM ports in the IDE. My ultimate goal here is to connect my peripherals to USB without using virtual COM-ports.
https://www.microchip.com/en-us/development-tool/EV33X03A
You can Try The IDE call "MPLAB" you said
and i think arduino CANT use "Microchip EVB USB7252"
So Try it And Good luck
It's a long way because USB is not easy protocol. You need to read USB specs first. Take a look at http://www.usb.org. Generally USB communicate between host and devices. There is special protocol used in this communication.
Perhaps the easiest way to do this will be using Linux and libusb or similar library. When you achieve some experience with this protocol you may be trying to write your own USB driver. I could also recommend to analyse some USB stacks like in Linux or in U-Boot one first.
If you have possibility then I'd also try to use some hardware/software USB protocol analyzers for some overview how does the communication look like.
I want to write a usb touchscreen kext for usb touch screen .
I have read the Kernel Extension Programming Topics and the I/O Kit Fundamentals etc,
My question is,
1 . how to get the input report messages from touch screen ?
2 . how to post the coordinate info to system ?
I have no idea, anybody help?
It depends on the hardware; moreover, this question is quite broad - you'll need to be more specific in your question to get more specific answers. I'll try to provide a broad overview:
A touchscreen has 2 parts:
Output: showing the image coming from the computer on the display
Input: the touch events to feed back into the computer
As you haven't asked about (1) at all, I assume your device just plugs into a display port on the Mac and is already displaying correctly. If not, you'll want to look into the IOFramebuffer API.
For (2) - Pretty much all USB input devices are HID devices of some form. If you're new to HID in general, you'll probably want to read and understand the USB HID specification and related documentation as you'll be using that information throughout.
OSX already comes with comprehensive support for the standard HID device classes such as keyboards, mice, touchpads, graphics tablets, etc. If your device claims to be any kind of HID device, OSX should already be detecting it and attaching its generic HID driver to it. You should see a IOUSBHIDDriver instance in the I/O Registry (eg. using Apple's IORegistryExplorer tool, or ioreg on the command line).
I'd also expect your device to conform to HID's absolute pointing device profile, so at least single touches should already be working properly. If it's a multitouch device, or you need other extra features, you'll probably want to implement a IOUSBHIDDriver subclass that generates or converts the necessary multitouch events.
If your device for some reason isn't already a HID USB device, you'll need to write a custom USB driver for it, and convert the events coming from it into HID events, as the HID events are passed directly into userspace and processed there. You can actually write USB drivers and generate HID events from userspace, so you might be able to avoid writing any kernel code at all if you prefer.
Apple provides some documentation on HID:
The HID Class Device Interface Guide covers some general concepts and the userspace interfaces.
The Kernel Framework Reference has API documentation for the various IOHID* classes in the kernel.
If you're going to be writing your own kernel HID device driver, your best bet is probably the IOHIDFamily source code. You can probably also find some open source examples around the web.
Apple's USB mailing lists is probably also worth checking, both for the archives and if you have questions. The darwin-kernel and darwin-drivers lists are also relevant.
I tried using "Kinect for Windows" on my Mac. Environment set-up seems to have gone well, but something seems being wrong. When I start some samples such as
OpenNI-Bin-Dev-MacOSX-v1.5.4.0/Samples/Bin/x64-Release/Sample-NiSimpleViewer
or others, the sample application start and seems working quite well at the beginning but after a few seconds (10 to 20 seconds), the move seen in screen of the application halts and never work again. It seems that the application get to be unable to fetch data from Kinect from certain point where some seconds passed.
I don't know whether the libraries or their dependency, or Kinect's hardware itself is going wrong (as for hardware, invisibly broken or something), and I really want to know how to detect which is it.
Could anybody tell me how can I fix the issue please?
My environment is shown below:
Mac OS X v10.7.4 (MacBook Air, core i5 1.6Ghz, 4GB of memory)
Xcode 4.4.1
Kinect for Windows
OpenNI-Bin-Dev-MacOSX-v1.5.4.0
Sensor-Bin-MacOSX-v5.1.2.1
I followed instruction here about libusb: http://openkinect.org/wiki/Getting_Started#Homebrew
and when I try using libfreenect(I know it's separate from OpenNI+SensorKinect), its sample applications say "Number of devices found: 0", which makes no sense to me since I certainly connected my Kinect to MBA...)
Unless you're booting to Windows forget about Kinect for Windows.
Regarding libfreenect and OpenNI in most cases you'll use one or the other, so think of what functionalities you need.
If it's basic RGB+Depth image (and possibly motor and accelerometer ) access libfreenect is your choice.
If you need RGB+Depth image and skeleton tracking and (hand) gestures (but no motor, accelerometer access) use OpenNI. Note that if you use the unstable(dev) versions, you should use Avin's SensorKinect Driver.
Easiest thing to do a nice clean install of OpenNI.
Also, if it helps, you can a creative coding framework like Processing or OpenFrameworks.
For Processing I recommend SimpleOpenNI
For OpenFrameworks you can use ofxKinect which ties to libfreenect or ofxOpenNI. Download the OpenFrameworks packaged on the FutureTheatre Kinect Workshop wiki as it includes both addons and some really nice examples.
When you are connecting the Kinect device to the machine, have you provided external power to it? The device will appear connected to a computer by USB only power but will not be able to tranfer data as it needs the external power supply.
Also what Kinect sensor are you using? If it is a new Kinect device (designed for Windows) they may have a different device signature which may cause the OpenNI drivers to play-up. I'm not a 100% on this one, but I've only ever tried OpenNI with an XBox 360 sensor.
I want to program a microcontroller (AVR) to control some leds through USB. It's just out of interest in how to build and program USB devices.
There are some AVR microcontrollers that support the USB protocol or I could implement the USB protocol in an another microcontroller myself, but I wonder what to use to write your own drivers on the computer.
My level in system programming: total noob (hence the question)
So what is the literature you people would advice to get good knowledge of the USB technology and how to write your own drivers and beyond?
P.S.: I know:
C (probably will need it here)
Java (probably won't need it here)
Python (hope can use it here)
assembler (hopefully won't need it here XD).
...
P.P.S: driver development differs for different OS's. I use Linux and Windows, so any material related to one or both of these systems is welcome.
Well, although you can develop and write your own USB driver, the beauty of USB is that you don't need to write your own driver. the USB Implementers Forum has defined class specifications for all the standard device classes. If you can make your device fit into a standard device class the driver has already been written for you!
If you truly want to become familiar with USB development, you should start by reviewing the USB approved class specification documents.
If you are into framework for AVR microcontrollers with hardware USB then take a look into LUFA, and if you are into AVRs with software USB then look into V-USB. They have both implemented many USB classes so you don't have to do it on your own - just use them.
That sounds like a great project! I'd suggest starting off with something a little simpler since you're - as you say - a "total n00b". I'm not sure what hardware you currently have (or have in mind) but what I would suggest for the total beginner is the STK500. It's a development board that's very well supported in both Linux and Windows and will give you the most flexibility. It comes with LEDs and switches built in for your projects, but you will need to get a microcontroller. And for that I recommend the ATMega32, a great multi-purpose IC that's also well supported and has lots of documentation on the web.
Once you get those I suggest you do your development on Linux using avr-gcc (make sure to also install avr-libc). If you're using Ubuntu it's easy to get all the packages you need:
% sudo apt-get install gcc-avr avr-libc avrdude
Those should get you up and running. I'd suggest Googling around for help writing your first programs but another good resource is the online materials for this class at Cornell.
That's enough to get your feet wet with AVR microcontrollers and the development tools. The sky is the limit at that point but since you said you want to get into USB I'd suggest using the excellent V-USB framework to have your ATMega32 act as a USB device. After that, as they say, the steps to flipping LEDs are a piece of cake :).
I wonder what to use to write your own
drivers on the computer
libusb (here, here and here)
wdk
WinDriver
For libusb variants info read this
You could us libusb. It's powerful and cross-platform.
But what you're trying to do is a rather simple control interface. You can sidestep most of the complexity by using HIDAPI, I think.
http://www.signal11.us/oss/hidapi/
HID devices often use generic drivers that come packaged into the OS. That way you don't actually have to write any drivers ever, you just make your device compliant with the generic driver and tailor the client software to it.
I think this is what's usually done in the hobbyist electronics field, which is what you're interested in here.
HIDAPI is even recommended for simple communications with HID devices in the libusb FAQ since its a bit more complicated to do it across platforms using libusb.
One good way to go is just to develop a HID device, since the driver is built in to most higher level OSes and pretty flexible for simple IO like you are talking about. Another good option is just using a USB RS232 device or software. I use PICs which have a number of nice devices with USB onboard.
I had built my own test bed based on the ARDUINO UNO and i was using the ionlabs programmer of type usbasp and it worked perfectly fine but it did not allow to convert the TTL back to Rs-232 and hence i couldn't use the features such as serial.print() and i had to install the ftdi cable which allowed me to do this.
The drivers were the libusb 1.xx working just fine.
If you want to program the AVR you can use the ARDUINO software bundle or the stino to upload the programs.
You need to know c(only basics).
I created a USB-keyboard adapter last year for my capstone. I did not do the host programming but used existing code that you can find on the web.But I did program the device side and for that I got a lot of help from this website Teensy Look into their "Code Library" which has code for Keyboard, Mouse and others. Also, the USB protocol handbook will always be useful and you should always consult it when you are doing stuff with USB.
I wonder whether your AVB acts as a host or device. I guess your board is a usb device and you need to light the leds on your board. So, it may be a good way to initialize your board as a HID device. To achieve this goal, you need a HID gadget software stack running on your board. References as follows:
gadget framework in uboot
HID specefication usb org
debug tools such as USB Protocol Analyzer
libusb running on Host PC to send packets
The Microsoft documentation area of the WDK (Windows Development Kit) is recently available on MSDN. There is a section on USB, though you would be best to read the earlier sections first, in particular the "Getting Started" areas. They assume you'll be using C as the programming language for driver development.
WDK Site
WDK - USB Section
For Linux, the Linux USB website should be able to point you in the right direction. In particular you'll want the Programming Guide for Linux USB Device Drivers.
I have a piece of hardware that sends USB data over ethernet (only the data stored in the package will be send). On a remote PC the data is recieved via ethernet. How can I send this data to the USB driver so it translates the data into commands applications can use?
You're better off getting hardware that does the reciprocal, sends the IP-based USB information to the USB subsystem, rather than try and hack the software driver itself. I can't imagine your hardware vendor doesn't have a device that does this.
You need a server listening on whatever port/socket that you are trying to connect to. Twisted Matrix makes decent Python libraries for network communications.
I think this is going to be troublesome.
USB is generally set up to associate a driver with a connected device, based on the device's various ID numbers, as discovered during bus traversal.
Your data comes in over Ethernet, so the platform's USB driver stack won't know anything about the device in question. This means you somehow need to directly talk to the proper driver, and also get it prepared to handle events from a (from its point of view) non-connected device.
I can think of several reasons why even a well-designed USB stack won't handle this happily.
On Linux, you might be able to "cheat" by interpreting the data yourself and sending it on, using the same API:s the actual driver would have used. That won't work for any USB device of course, it requires you know what the device is.
It's doable on windows as well, but you need a lot of kernel/usb knowledge to make it work i don't think i will be wrong by estimating this task as few man years (you can reduce this estimation dramatically if you have a limited selection of devices/types of device to support.
You will need to develop a bus driver that will simulate the host controller driver to the native usb host, unfortunately this interface is not public and we did not managed to get MS cooperation on that.
There is additional option to work on hub level, instead on controller level, this interface is available, but i did not managed to find my notes on that.
You can download the evaluation version and investigate the driver stack it might give you a clue where to start.