VIDEO: Prototype D Autodesk Inventor COM API Demo

VIDEO: Prototype D Autodesk Inventor COM API Demo

Keyglove #10 – Prototype D Autodesk Inventor COM API Demo from Jeff Rowberg on Vimeo.

This video demonstrates Keyglove Prototype D and the Keyglove Kit v0.4 PCB (v0.5 still pending design completion) along with the alpha Keyglove Manager app integrated with Autodesk Inventor using the COM API for true 3D input. This is just a sample of the kind of thing that can be done with the Keyglove. And, honestly, this isn’t even a very good demo due to the early stage of development of the Manager app and the loose mounting of the older revision of the PCB on the glove.
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VIDEO: Orientation Demo

VIDEO: Orientation Demo

Keyglove #08 – Orientation Demo from Jeff Rowberg on Vimeo.

NOTE: For the uber-eager, the actual rotation starts at the 1:00 mark. There’s some introductory explanation of what’s happening and the hardware in use that occurs on before that.

This video is a demo of the IMU algorithm results (a.k.a. sensor fusion) achieved with SparkFun’s 6DOF motion sensor board, which uses an ADXL345 digital 3-axis accelerometer and ITG-3200 digital 3-axis gyroscope. The readings from the board are raw from each device, and combined on the Teensy++’s MCU to create a quaternion representation of the orientation.
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VIDEO: Typing With Prototype B

Well, this has certainly been a long time in coming. I’ve been really busy with all kinds of work, most of which has not been related to the Keyglove project, which is why it’s been almost three weeks since my last update. However, I’ve been able to make enough progress here and there to post this video for you today.

Keyglove #04 – Typing With Prototype B from Jeff Rowberg on Vimeo.

Basically, this shows another proof-of-concept typing demonstration using the new glove construction with a full sensor array. All 34 sensors are attached to the glove: five sewn on the fingertips, one sewn on the lower thumb segment, three sewn on the palm. All of the rest are remote control rubberized keypad contacts which I cut from a cheap broken universal remote I got off of eBay.
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VIDEO: Data Visualization

Yet another new video demonstrating more refined accelerometer cursor control:

Keyglove #03 – Data Visualization from Jeff Rowberg on Vimeo.

This video demonstrates the massively updated Processing sketch that I am now using to test the glove’s sensors. It relies on serial data flow for everything and connects directly to the Arduino’s virtual COM port, making it unsuitable for a finished product (you’d want a true HID-compatible connection). However, with this tool, you can very easily see everything about the glove’s current condition to test things like touch sensitivity and mouse control.

I have temporarily postponed the PS/2 interface tests while I work on the core of the glove functionality. Now that I have a reliable test tool, the PC interface is not necessary for continued development and testing. Obviously, it will be eventually, but I’m not going to focus on that right now. The Processing sketch will do nicely until everything else is working well.

For anyone interested, that visualization program is available from the repository, and of course the Processing IDE is open-source and available here.

VIDEO: Accelerometer Tests

New video demonstrating accelerometer cursor control, complete with jitter reduction:

Keyglove #02 – Accelerometer Tests from Jeff Rowberg on Vimeo.

Although the real mouse interface isn’t working, I’ve rigged up a Processing sketch to graphically represent the same movement that will be affecting the mouse cursor once I get that part working. This means I can at least test the accelerometer code I have.

This test shows raw input control from the accelerometer, followed by 5-point averaging, then 20-point averaging, then graduated averaging depending on speed. The idea is to make the movement very responsive if you’re moving it quickly, but much less jittery if you’re trying to hold it in one place. Therefore, it averages only 5 points (fast) during quick movements, but averages 20 points (precise and still) during very slow movement.

This video demonstrates the “tilt translated to position” approach described in the previous blog post.

I’ll be making that Processing sketch available in the Google Code repository after I make a couple more tweaks to it. That should be extremely useful for testing the whole glove without any specific hardware interfaces in place. I want to add a raw accelerometer reading graph, 3D tilt display, and of course regular touch displays as well. Processing is pretty awesome, really.