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Replies:
10
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Last Post:
Dec 1, 2008 9:30 AM
by: rickvanderzwet
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Alternative input devices, like wiimote?
Posted:
Oct 27, 2008 12:16 PM
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Been searching around the archives about the use of alternative input devices to walk around in WL and interact with the objects, but could not find much details information on both the forums and mailing lists.
Before diving into the code, could some-one give a clue where to look for or give me some hint whether it is going to be possible or not? 
Interest is founded due the fact I am a Computer Science student doing a Human Computer Interaction course/project at LIACS Leiden University. We would like to build an alternative way on nagivating trough 3d words, based on a Wii Remote (wiimote) and Wii Balance Board.
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Re: Alternative input devices, like wiimote?
Posted:
Oct 28, 2008 6:15 AM
in response to: rickvanderzwet
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Rick
I blogged about using Sun SPOTs to control a Wonderland avatar earlier this month [1]. One of our other contributors, Rupert Key, has also expressed some interest in this area--esp. using a Wii.
[1] http://blogs.sun.com/wonderland/date/20081003
The key code to enable the Sun SPOT is in class WalkBehavior.
HTH
Bernard
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Re: Alternative input devices, like wiimote?
Posted:
Oct 28, 2008 10:20 AM
in response to: rickvanderzwet
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Hi Rick,
Here follows a braindump on Wiimotes and Wonderland. Feel free to ping me for anything I may have missed. Hope it helps
Krishna Gadepelli did a first version under https://lg3d-wii.dev.java.net/ which used the Linux UInput approach to route Wiimote control into JInput via the Linux OS-provided mechanism. This has advantages (e.g. JInput API abstracts all controllers so one code line for all) and disadvantages (e.g. (a) Linux-specific and (b) distance from Wiimote-specifics). For (a), I suspect it might be possible to implement on other platforms but didn't want to afford the time for my experiments. For (b), because the various Wiimote libraries provide different capabilities, I wanted to play with them quite tightly.
For these reasons, and as Bernard noted, I integrated Java Wiimote libraries earlier this year to experiment. I initially tried WiiUseJ (having noted that WiiUseC is the home-brew integrated library). I was disappointed with the native library requirement and its consequential Apple support absence (and problems with my BT stack) so turned to the JSR-82 (e.g. BlueCove) based ones instead.
WiiRemoteJ is free but closed source, has great capabilities, good community and worked well. I also tried open-sourced MoteJ (tiny but capable) and WiiGee (integrated gesture support which I thought might be very handy!). In the end, to speed things, I stuck with WiiRemoteJ for speed but consider its closed-source nature a potential problem.
The functionality I was aiming for was what I termed "Presenter Mode" that goaled to make doing a mixed-reality or entirely VW-based presentation as smooth as possible. This included arm attitudes set from Wiimote + Nunchuck (worked well), pointing (mandated sensor bar), navigation (easiest from buttons but did consider possibility of using Balance Board). I'd planned on extending to Johnny Lee-like Whiteboarding and optional head-tracking (not sure whether particularly useful but geekily tempting  ). The last two mandated messing with IR emitters, etc which I built before changing jobs. (scuppering further development at that time.)
I hope (and have commitment from my new job) to return to this area -- I think the concept's useful and that there's good mileage in the space. I didn't commit my changes since (a) they're not finished and (b) for expediency, I stomped all over the WL main code base :-D If you're interested, I'll see if I can dig out my old workspace (though please forgive laggy responses -- we're swamped with deadline fun atm).
Hope that is of some use and very best of luck with your project! I look forward to seeing (and trying!) the results
Rupert.
p.s. If you need a beta tester after November...
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Re: Alternative input devices, like wiimote?
Posted:
Nov 8, 2008 2:44 AM
in response to: rkd
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HI Rupert,
We decided to go for the Wonderland world (after looking to Croquet, 2nd life and a number of others) and totally agree with the points you are stating over here, like the multi-platform requirements.
Would you mind to dig your old stuff up, as it might be a good point of start
Will first to try to get it to run with the various libraries. Alltough doesn't like the (weird) licence of WiiRemoteJ (and not able to hack into it). MoteJ has not had a code commit in 3 month, WiiGee last code commit is 3 weeks from know on (but is licenced LGPL . Will have a look which fits best to our project and start hacking
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Re: Alternative input devices, like wiimote?
Posted:
Nov 8, 2008 2:04 PM
in response to: rickvanderzwet
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Besides Wiimote and SunSpot, another partner was looking at some alternate input devices. They prototyped three approaches:
- using the SpaceNavigator 3d pointing device
- using a touch screen for navigation and object manipulation
- using a web camera to control the avatars face
This code has never really been integrated, but we did release the patches for the space navigator here:
https://lg3d-wonderland.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=10047&expandFolder=10047&folderID=0
They made changes to both Wonderland and jinput to make this all work. If there is interest, we can look into making the rest of the patches available.
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Re: Alternative input devices, like wiimote?
Posted:
Nov 23, 2008 3:30 PM
in response to: kaplanj
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> - using the SpaceNavigator 3d pointing device
> - using a touch screen for navigation and object
> manipulation
> - using a web camera to control the avatars face
>
> This code has never really been integrated, but we
> did release the patches for the space navigator
> here:
>
> https://lg3d-wonderland.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectD
> ocumentList?folderID=10047&expandFolder=10047&folderID
> =0
>
> They made changes to both Wonderland and jinput to
> make this all work. If there is interest, we can
> look into making the rest of the patches available.
A happens to own one of those (you know boys and there toys Required some hacking as install instructions where not written for MacOSX (re-compile needed, repackage, place into the proper zip folders), but actually works really well. Feels a bit stiff, but is really worth it
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Re: Alternative input devices, like wiimote?
Posted:
Nov 27, 2008 4:21 AM
in response to: rickvanderzwet
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Rick
any chance of you posting a video of your efforts so the rest of us can applaud?
regards
Bernard
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Re: Alternative input devices, like wiimote?
Posted:
Nov 27, 2008 5:13 AM
in response to: bernard_horan
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> any chance of you posting a video of your efforts so
> the rest of us can applaud?
Sure it will be my pleasure. Although bit low on time, but will post it tomorrow (Friday) night.
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Re: Alternative input devices, like wiimote?
Posted:
Dec 1, 2008 9:30 AM
in response to: rickvanderzwet
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> > any chance of you posting a video of your efforts
> so
> > the rest of us can applaud?
>
> Sure it will be my pleasure. Although bit low on
> time, but will post it tomorrow (Friday) night.
Take me some effort to get it online, but still: http://youtube.com/watch?v=iqiAyIC9NHU will do the trick
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