I came across these guys, http://www.touchtable.com, and this technology just looks so much like MS Surface. Does anyone know about them?
1) Is the hardware MS Surface tablets?
2) Is the code behind these UIs
Surface-based, i.e. XAML / .NET?
Any input will be greatly appreciated.
This is not connected to Microsoft Surface at all. However, WPF 4 and the Surface Toolkit for Windows Touch (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee957352.aspx) have an extensibility mechanism that will let you convert input from other systems (like TouchTable) and pump those input events into WPF 4 while making use of the Surface UI controls. Here is an example of doing that: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ansont/archive/2010/01/30/custom-touch-devices.aspx.
No, this isn't Microsoft Surface. Surface is vision based, so it can also recognize objects placed on the surface. This is touch-driven, so it won't recognize objects. Big difference.
Related
I'm using using System.Graphics for my latest project (A simple 2D application). Problem is, it gets a horrible FPS and I'm only drawing 8x8 tiles (usually 10-12 is enough to bring it down to 12FPS).
A friend of mine suggested that I use DirectX. He also suggested XNA but I opposed because I don't want my clients to have to install the XNA distributional. DirectX is common enough (to my knowledge) and I can just include the dll's if I need to.
So, my search began. I've been looking only for DirectX 2D tutorials for VB.net. I've had no solid success thus far. In truth, all I need to do is be able to draw bitmap x at position pos.
I've been using System.Graphics and a hacked up bitmap as my buffer thus far so I'll go for any improvement that I can get.
I'm using VB.net so I'll be ok if you give my one for C#, I'm pretty good at being able to read it (and I have a nice converter too). I would just prefer VB.net to save time.
Thanks! :)
This article in MSDN Magazine was in 2003 edition had a nice example of managed DirectX code in action:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc164112.aspx
Sadly enough, currently, there's no managed library of DirectX (a.k.a. DirectX .NET wrapper) in DX 10 and DX 11. Microsoft only provided managed library for DX 9.0a and DX 9.0b.
In Managed DirectX wikipedia, you'll see that it's being replaced by Microsoft XNA.
If you download current/latest DirectX SDK, you will have samples only in C++ and HLSL codes.
If you really need fancy UI and also nice animation and 3D drawing based on DirectX, you can go use WPF, especially WPF in .NET 3.0 SP2 (or simply download and install .NET 3.5 SP1). WPF is build on top of DirectX 9.0c stack, without worrying to know large libraries of DirectX 9 API. You'll also get 3D primitives support too.
More on WPF, visit this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms754130.aspx
Does anyone know how to display DirectShow video in HTML container (e.h. DIV) instead of separate pop-up-like window.
Already I did all the things needed to run custom Rendering Behavior, it includes all interfaces and events handling, but cannot find anything related with my problem neither in the Internet nor in books I have.
Anyone can give me a hint what I need to do?
P.S.
MSDN articles mention only DirectDraw and Direct3D when setting IFlags on IHTMLPainter - but maybe it's a wrong place I'm looking for :-)
Regards.
In general, this is sort of a messy topic. As far as I know, your options are a custom activex control (yuck...in general, this approach is a logistical nightmare) or leveraging an existing player like Silverlight or Flash.
Silverlight doesn't give you control on a DirectShow level, but it does have additional support through the MediaStreamSource that may meet your needs. And once your audio/video is in Silverlight, you have all sorts of options for advanced overlays and interface elements.
I won't comment on Silverlight, as I have no experience of it, but I wouldn't agree with kidjan's summary of using an ActiveX control.
A custom ActiveX control has served our company well for many uses - including native apps, managed apps, web pages ...
The beauty of using an ActiveX control is that you have total control over the code in your player, stream authentication mechanisms, rendering capabilities etc.
I wrote an entire player in less than a month (network code included), then wrapped it in a COM control in less than a week.
Be under no illusion though, DirectShow and COM programming isn't easy. It's all about trade off - a Flash or Silverlight solution will probably get you going quickly. An ActiveX ctrl will give you total control.
I also read that HTML5 standard will include support for embedding video content(!) Might be worth looking into, although I don't know how many browsers support the (emerging) standard.
I know this will be a difficult question, so I am not necessarily looking for a direct answer but maybe a tutorial or a point in the right direction.
What I am doing is programing a robot that will be controlled by a remote operator. We have a 3D rendering of the robot in SolidWorks. What I am looking to do is get the 3D file into VB (probably using DX9) and be able to manipulate it using code so that the remote operator will have a better idea of what the robot is doing. The operator will also have live video to look at, but that doesn't really matter for this question.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Sounds like a tough idea to implement. Well, for VB you are stuck with MDX 1.1(Comes with DirectX SDK) or SlimDX (or other 3rd party Managed DirectX wrapper). The latest XNA (replacement for MDX 1.1/2.0b) is only available for C# coder. You can try some workaround but it's not recommended and you won't get much community support. These are the least you need to get your VB to display some 3d stuffs.
If you want to save some trouble, you could use ready made game engine to simplified you job. Try Ogre, and it's managed wrapper MOgre. It was one of the candidate for my project. But I ended up with SlimDX due to Ogre not supporting video very well. But since video is not your requirement, you can really consider it. Most sample would be in C# also, so you need to convert to VB.Net to use. It won't be hard.
Here comes the harder part, you need to export your model exported from SolidWorks to DirectX Format (*.x). I did a quick search in google and only found a few paid tools to do that. You might need to spend a bit on that or spend more time looking for free converter tools.
That's about it. If you have more question, post again. Good Luck
I'm not sure what the real question is but what I suspect that you are trying to do is to be able to manipulate a SW model of a robot with some sort of a manual input. Assuming that this is the correct question, there are two aspects that need to be dwelt with:
1) The Solidworks module: Once the model of the robot is working properly in SW, a program can be written in VB.Net that can manipulate the positional mates for each of the joints. Also using VB, a window can be programmed with slide bars etc. that will allow the operator to be able to "remotely" control the robot. Once this is done, there is a great opportunity to setup a table that could store the sequencial steps. When completed, the VB program could be further developed to allow the robot to "cycle" through a sequence of moves. If any obstacles are also added to the model, this would be a great tool for collission detection and training off line.
2) If the question also includes the incorporation of a physical operator pendent there are a number of potential solutions for this. It would be hoped that the robot software would provide a VB library for communicating and commanding the Robot programatically. If this is the case, then the VB code could then be developed with a "run" mode where the SW robot is controlled by the operator pendent, instead of the controls in the VB window, (as mentioned above). This would then allow the opertor to work "offline" with a virtual robot.
Hope this helps.
I don't mind learning xaml and I'm sure I need to be familiar somewhat, but when I was first trying out Silverlight 1 with javascript it looked like a tremendous amount of overhead. I decided to wait until tools matured and asp.net was added. Well, asp.net has been added with Silverlight 2.0, and now I want to look at using it. But, xaml, to me, still looks like a lot of work for each small step. My experience with Flash seemed a lot more simpler for the graphics side of things (never liked ActionScript that much.) Will $500 for Blend take care of much of my xaml concerns? Can I use Visual Studio Express with the full version of Microsoft Expression Blend?
Do I need Microsoft Expression Studio 2?
Thank you.
Just as a profressional web developer can't lean on Dreamweaver's drag-and-drop to avoid learning HTML, you should climb the XAML learning curve.
Blend will still help, however- just as many started up the HTML curve by doing some drag-and-drop and studying the resulting HTML code. I did some prototyping with Silverlight 1.1 and Blend helped significantly in my understanding of XAML. It helps to have a "real" project to work on, even if it's a proof of concept. Concentrate on the containment paradigm between Canvas and other elements and you'll pick it up quickly enough. I wouldn't worry too much about the MPATH stuff, do rely on the tool for that.
Microsoft Expression Blend takes care of a lot of XAML for you and helps you create animations and setting up triggers (XAML triggers). I would hate to have to do all that by hand coded XAML. I have not used Blend with Visual Studio Express but I believe it will work just fine. Microsoft Expression Blend 2 uses the sln file to open a project.
Expression Blend will not help with databinding. VS2010 promises databinding in its WPF designer, but if you can't wait until then, look to learning some XAML.
Count XAML as one of the many new .NET 3.5 things to learn when working with WPF/Silverlight. I recommend Pro WPF in C# 2008 from APress
Expression Blend give you the ability to draw shapes, paths, Union or diff shapes, create animations (similar to Flash Tweening), wire up simple triggers (like on mouseover play an animation). All with out having to dive into XAML.
I'm writing a program that needs to take input from an XBox 360 controller. The input will then be sent wirelessly to an RC Helicopter that I am building.
So far, I've learned that this can be done using either the XInput library from DirectX, or the Input framework in XNA.
I'm wondering if there are any other options available. The scope of my program is rather small, and having to install a large gaming library like DirectX or XNA seems like excessive. Further, I'd like the program to be cross platform and not Microsoft specific.
Is there a simple lightweight way I can grab the controller input with something like Python?
Edit to answer some comments:
The copter will have 6 total propellers, arranged in 3 co-axial pairs. Basically, it will be very similar to this, only it will cost about $1,000 rather than $15,000. It will use an Arduino for onboard processing, and Zigbee for wireless control.
The 360 controller was selected because it is well designed. It is very ergonomic and has all of the control inputs needed. For those familiar with helicopter controls, the left joystick will control the collective, the right joystick with control the pitch and roll, and the analog triggers will control the yaw. The analog triggers are a big feature for the 360 controller. PS and most others do not have them.
I have a webpage for the project, but it is still pretty sparse. I do plan on documenting the whole design though, so eventually it will be interesting.
http://tricopter.googlecode.com
On a side note, would it kill Google to have a blog feature for googlecode projects?
I would like the 360 controller input program to run in both Linux and Windows if possible. Eventually though, I'd like to hook the controller directly to an embedded microcontroller board (such as Arduino) so that I don't have to go through a computer, but its not a high priority at the moment.
It is not all that difficult. As the earlier guy mentioned, you can use the SDL libraries to read the status of the xbox controller and then you can do whatever you'd like with it.
There is a SDL tutorial: http://sdl.beuc.net/sdl.wiki/Handling_Joysticks which is fairly useful.
Note that an Xbox controller has the following:
two joysticks:
left joystick is axis 0 & 1;
left trigger is axis 2;
right joystick is axis 3 & 4;
right trigger is axis 5
one hat (the D-pad)
11 SDL buttons
two of them are joystick center presses
two triggers (act as axis, see above)
The upcoming SDL v1.3 also will support force feedback (aka. haptic).
I assume, since this thread is several years old, you have already done something, so this post is primarily to inform future visitors.
PyGame can read joysticks, which is what the X360 controller shows up as on a PC.
Well, if you really don't want to add a dependency on DirectX, you can use the old Windows Joystick API -- Windows Multimedia -> Joystick Reference in the platform SDK.
The standard free cross plaform game library is Simple DirectMedia Layer, originally written to port Windows games to Unix (Linux) systems. It's a very basic, lightweight API that tends to support the minimal subset of features on each system, and it has bindings for most major languages. It has very basic joystick and gamepad support (no force feedback, for example) but it might be sufficient for your needs.
Perhaps the Mono.Xna library has added GamePad support, which would provide the cross platform functionality you were looking for:
http://code.google.com/p/monoxna/
As far as the concerns about the library being too heavy weight, sure, for this option it may be true ... however, it could open up opportunities to do some nice visualization in the future.
disclaimer: I'm not familiar with the status of the mono xna project, so it may not have added this feature yet. But still, 'tis an option :-)