PT785-S Pan and Tilt System + Arduino

I bought one of these a little while ago and finally got around to testing it with an arduino. This system isn't accurate enough for real-time repeatable motion control photography IMO. I'm planning on using it for capuring sphereical longitude/latitude HDRI's.

You can find the product here:
servocity.com/html/pt785-s_pan___tilt_system.html

My First Animation Editor (With Bezier Curves)

I've been working on this on and off for a while now. Ever since I got Maya talking with the Arduino. I thought to myself, "wouldn't it be nice if there was a free app that wasn't bloated and designed just for animating parameters?" Well, I just hit my first milestone for this goal. Eventually I would like to add multi-segment Bezier Curves. Then I would like to have multiple channels of animation. It's all written in Processing so serial communication with the Arduino should be simple. The trickiest thing to get working was the lookup of the Y value on the curve based on where the Time Slider is. Many thanks to Ben Paschke for finding the function I needed in the Blender Source Code and helping me port it to Processing.

There is another Processing Tool out there called Timeline but it's heading in a different direction than I am and I wasn't a fan of it's mixed languages and non-realtime Y lookup function. Plus, I thought this would be a good challenge to set for myself considering the industry I am working in :)

Hotkeys:
Spacebar = Play/Pause
J = Play Forward
K = Play Backward
L = Pause
Left Arrow = Step Backward 1 Frame
Right Arrow = Step Forward 1 Frame 

Click and Drag to Position the Handles or Timeslider

Genuflex Virtual Axis Formula

A Sketch to Demo the core Function of the Virtual Axis on Genuflex Motion Control Rigs


 http://www.general-lift.com/GLMoCo/Products/Genuflex_Mk3/Prod_mk3_p1.html

Notice how the length of the Hypotenuse(c) stays fixed on the triangle no matter where you move the rig.

Please Note that this only demos the Z,Y axis an not the X,Z axis. But the principle is the same for X,Z and gives full 3D positional control of the rig as long as the boom (Hypotenuse) is long enough to accommodate the max distance of where you want to place the camera(mouse in this case).

My First Bezier Curve

Taken from the math on this page. Apparently this is about as simple as it gets as far as bezier curves go. I'm hoping to try and recreate a few of the examples on this page before going any further.

Point In Triangle Example

A little sketch that colours the triangle red if the mouse is inside it. I'm working towards something I promise! :) The concept taken from the "Same Side Technique" example on this site where the formula is explained in detail:

XY Handle Class Example

Messing around with Processing and thought a manipulator handle widget might be handy to have for future sketches. So here's a real basic one. I plan to add arrows and make it less boxy but it does the job for now.

RGB Colour Mixer

Well I couldn't make it to my local hacker space tonight, so I decided to "hack at home!" :)

This is a prototype of an RGB LED Light I'm designing for my 2 year old son at the moment. I thought I could work on the code design in processing while I am waiting for a new Arduino to arrive in the mail.

My First Animation Editor?

I made a curve editor thingy! Well, not really a curve. It only does Linear Interpolation. It's a start. ;)

Press the hotkeys 1 or 2 and move the mouse to change the keyframes. If it doesn't work first time, try clicking in the frame first.

Edit: Check out the latest  progress with this curve editor here!

open moco touchscreen interface v002_001

Just another Iteration. This one has button images! Find out more in the Original Post

Open Moco Touchscreen Interface

I have started contributing to the OpenMoco project. It's basically a well thought out motion control engine and intervalometer that people can use to build their own motion control contraptions.

The first GUI is going to be based on the Touchshield Slide by liquidware. This is a very exciting time for us DIY moco enthusiasts.

The applet you see above is purely to test functionallity. There are already several people designing the look of GUI and I gotta say I like what I've seen so far. I will slowly add flashy buttons and sliders as the are discussed and agreed upon. If you want to contribute to the project I suggest you head on over to open moco forums and make yourself known!

You can check out the next iteration of the GUI here.

New Round Rectangle Example

I an earlier post, I described a round corner rectangle button class. Unfortunately my approach was a bit too hacky for some web browsers to be able to handle. So I have simplified things.

This time I am building the shape out of ONE rectangle using strokeJoin(ROUND) to give me my round corners.



Keyboard Controls are:
r + mouse x = radius
s + mouse x,y = size
p + mouse x,y = position

It's not a class yet. But I think this sketch shows that the concept will work

My First Processing Class

So I recently bought a book on Processing. If you haven't heard of Processing CHECK IT OUT! It's an open source programing language with a strong enphasis on visual applications. I love it cause of it's ease of use. It reminds me of how quickly I was able to get started with the Arduino IDE. Infact the IDE for Processing and the Arduino are almost identical!

The book I bought is so well written, even I can understand it! And you don't need a computer in front of you to read it!

In the future I would like to design a generic animation timeline out of it for motion control applications. But for now I'm taking baby steps with this one as I really want to learn it well.

Here's a link to My First Processing Class (you will need java installed on your machine to interact with it) It's a Button that has rounded corners. Nothing too crazy here. But this class should prove usefull in future projects.