Ascension Flock of Birds

Engines, Libraries and Tools JInput
#1

I am developing a distributed visualisation application (first version/demo version). An Ascension “Flock of Birds”-system will be used as an input device. The FoB-system has 4 sensors and an extended range transmitter. Computer hardware will be running Windows XP.

The system will be Java based using Java3D, Java2D, JSDT (Java Shared Data Toolkit) and possibly RMI
etc. The tracker data will distributed to different hosts on the network using JSDT.

I guess there are two methods of handling the FoB.

  1. Develop a C-program and use JNI to access it from Java. There are some C examples etc included.
    (I also need this C code version for another project)

  2. Develop a Java program that uses Java Communications API for handling the serial port.

I have found the NCSA Portfolio (portfolio.jar) which seem to be a couple of years old.

I also found: http://ovrt.nist.gov/jvedi.

Anyone have any suggentions?

#2

Well you COULD write a JInput plug-in that made your FOB JInput compatable. It certianly woudl be fun to make that avilable to the community. (Though at the cost of an FoB system Im not sure how much use it would get beyond academia.)

Thats a lot of work though unless you really need the unification of input devices. if this is always just goign to by an FOB app then I’d say do whichever looks like less work :slight_smile:

#3

Hey. I wrote a j3d program that used the java comm API to communicate with the FOB.

you can get the source here.
http://www.parl.clemson.edu/~mspeth/classes/cpsc611/sw_tr_vr/downloads.html

look in sw_tr_vr/controls/vr_equipment
You will see 2 class files of interest.
VRDriver.java and VRControl.java
The VRDriver handles all communications with the vr equipment via rxtx package (gno.io is the linux version of this).

I hope this bit of code helps. All configuration information for the Driver should be easy to change since I have static variables for them.

Let me know if I can help any more or just your status.

#4

Somebody clue me in. What is this Flock of Birds thing?

#5

From http://www.ascension-tech.com/products/

“Fast and accurate DC magnetic position and orientation tracking of 1-4 sensors with minimal occlusion, drift or distortion from conductive materials. Provides full six degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) tracking and connects to your host computer with a serial interface”

/Erik

#6

Thanks a lot Conzar!

I will test your code after I have finished working with a C-program interfacing with the FoB. Promised that to another project using C…

I might get back with futher questions.