8:00 – 5:00 FP

• In prep for getting the mouse, I’m going add hand navigation to the demo.
• Done. I added a “move model” choice in the Gl_ShaderWindo base class that sets a float[3] of the current desired(?) model XYZ. It’s up to the inheriting class to do something with it. In this case, I moved the hand origin in XZ space and left the position of the rotating cubes alone.
• Checked in.
• More modelling training

8:00 – 4:00 FP

• Was able to successfully print out the mouse yesterday. It printed “solid” in that it had structure on the inside to allow the piece not to collapse. I also wound up printing it at about 1/3 scale so that it only took an hour to print as opposed to six. Still, I’m pretty happy with the result. Below is the Blender version on the left and the MakerBot printout on the right:
• 
• Set up an account with Shapeways so that I can print out a more substantial model. And so that I don’t have to sit around for six hours waiting for something to print. Along the way, I learned why my mouse model was solid. You need to generate inner and outer walls and connect them. The printer doesn’t know how to handle printing two sides of a two-dimensional plane. This is controlled in Blender by detecting ‘Non-Manifold’ surfaces. If you find them, that means that the normals in that area are behaving oddly, and need to be fixed. Maya had a ‘clean up option, but blender doesn’t. Still working on how to completely fix a surface, though I do have it to the point what it looks pretty reasonable. We’ll see if Shapeways accepts it.
• It was accepted, but came out as the wrong size. Trying to scale it now. Well, that seemed to work.
• It’s now in the printing queue, and should be here by the 22nd!
• Found the problem with the shape. There were edges *inside* the original shape that I rotated that were confusing the calculation of the normals. Next, time – delete those before rotating.
• Made a fixed version and uploaded it to Shapeways.
• Filled out AMPERE paperwork.
• Make some dice. Done!
• 

7:30 – 6:30 FP

• Rode my legs off this weekend. There are mornings that it’s really good to be at work
• Working on the mouse. Created an stl file, which is generally covered here: http://wiki.makerbot.com/how-to-print
• Though for final ergonomics, it might make sense to model a mouse in clay and then scan it. These guys are local: http://www.dirdim.com/pdfs/DDI_Product_Service_Catalog.pdf
• Made a penguin
• 
• Meeting at the PAD lab to learn how to use the MakerBot Replicator

8:00 – 4:30 FP

• More Blender.
• Nice video tutorials: http://super3.org/blender25
• Making reasonable progress. Between the videos and the books, this mostly makes sense.
• Got multiple extrusions, subsurface sampling and swept surfaces working. Tomorrow I may be able to put together a mouse file after the meetings.

8:00 – 4:00 FP

• Cleaning up and packing the project and hardware for move.
• Got a new GWT in Action. and let Dong and Mike know about it
• Hmm. There’s a thing called Restlets. Looking into that.
• Started a throttler for the sound JSON writer.
• Looks like I start AMPERE on the 11th. Reserved a truck for the 7th-8th. Penske reservation number is 30588476. (06/07/2012 at 8:00 AM, 8685 Washington Blvd, Penske Baltimore, Jessup, MD 20794)

8:00 – FP

• Working more on getting my IRB certification – Done!!!!
• PAD meeting
• I may try to 3D print the mouse version of the interface, since the PAD lab has a MakerBot. Going to look at free CAD packages that are compatible after finishing my cert

8:00 – 4:30FP

• Working on getting my IRB certification – Yay, halfway through
• It just struck me that the hand interface could be *really* easily be mounted on a mouse…
• And since we got a free one with the electronics cabinet, Tom’s trying to remove the electronics without breaking it.
• For future reference: Texture Display Mouse: Vibrotactile Pattern and Roughness Display
• Tangible Acoustic Interfaces

7:30 – 4:30, 6:30 – 8:30 FP

• Put together all my semester info for reimbursement.
• Working on the tone structure for the fingers.
• Here’s a nice chord that works:
• thumbIO.setContactNote(52);
• indexIO.setContactNote(55);
• middleIO.setContactNote(60);
• ringIO.setContactNote(64);
• pinkyIO.setContactNote(67);
• Adding some PC-side data throttling so that we don’t overwhelm the Arduino
• Setting up the sandbox to play with buffer management.
• Brought over one of the other PhD students to look at the system and see what kind of study/paper can be done with it
• Need an IRB approval to do any study people. Got to work on this: http://www.umbc.edu/irb/CITI%20Human%20Research%20Registration.pdf

7:30 – 4:30FP

• Adding in more sounds.
• Looks like the contact sound is never enabled.
• Sounds are all fixed and working. If too many characters come in, the Arduino crashes, but it seems pretty robust. I’m going to give each finger a different pitch tomorrow. For now, hit and movement sounds are off.

Interview at 10:00. Here’s hoping that I find out who it’s with and where it is before I have to leave. Yay. I have an address and contact info.

8:00 – 5:00 FP

• Added set and get byte methods to DataElement.
• Tested sounds. Things are working much better. Nice job, Tom!
• Working through note change/on/off logic in sim – done
• The midi boards need to have power cycled to get a reset?
• PAD lab meeting
• Got the collision sound working reliably. Calling it a day.
• >>{“nm”:f1Ht,”vol”:128,”nt”:84,”instrument”:116}<< // hit
• >>{“nm”:f1Ct,”vol”:128,”nt”:72,”instrument”:59}<< // contact
• >>{“nm”:f1Mv,”vol”:128,”nt”:60,”instrument”:20}<< // move

10:00 phone interview

8:00 – 9:30, 2:30-4:00 FP

• Probably going to take a few hours to go to Salisbury today. Tom needs the time to make the electronics work anyway.
• Adding the note on/off code to SoundWrapper
• Use pitch to set up note changes
• If a new note comes in (either as a new note or from pitch), then we need to turn the old not off, then add a new JSON string that turns the new note on.
• Start thinking about polyphony.

8:00 – 4:00 FP

• Back from the mini-vacation, which was fine until it became horrible.
• Working with Tom on getting sounds to behave. It turns out that a single channel/instrument can be polyphonic, which is very cool, but it means that you have to turn a note on and off. I adjusted the SoundDataObject.update() method so that a JSON element of {"nt":72} will play middle C, while {"nt":-72} will turn it off. Setting {"nt":0} will trigger a reset of the Midi for that finger. Or at least it should. Reset isn’t working. Tom thinks it may be a mislabeled pin.
• Cool thing for the day: https://live.leapmotion.com/. It strikes me that the Leap could be used as the basis for a finger chasing robot.
• Here’s a paper that addresses something like what I’m thinking of: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~jcorso/pubs/gyeSMCC2003.pdf
• And a video of some related stuff: http://youtu.be/jQjG1Wyr8Uk. Assume that the puck is capable of motion, and that the fingers of the users are tracked. Then the haptics can be there when the user’s hands touch the table.

8:00 – 2:00 FP

• Leaving early to prep for a long weekend of riding around the Delmarva. I’ll be back on Wednesday. Texting to my cell (410.300.7293) is probably the best way to get ahold of me
• Now that the framework is in place, adding in multiple sounds per finger.
• Got some sounds kind of working, but there may be some state problems. For example, I can turn the amp volume down, but only once. After that, sounds don’t seem to play, even though the volume is back up. Since everything can be testedthrough the serial console, I handed things off to Tom to see what he can do while I’m out.

8:30 – 4:30 FP

• Going to see if all the code I wrote yesterday actually works…
• Everything compiles and appears to be working. I’m going to increase the hysteresis on pitch so it doesn’t update continuously.
• Note that an individual sound that gets two sets of information in between a send will only send the last one. That means that on the Arduino side, a command like ‘sustain’ has to have an implicit ‘start’. Maybe sustain should just have no start required?
• Having a bit of trouble with the hysteresis function. It’s triggering on transitions between +0 and -0. Added an equals(double a, double b, double precision) to SoundWrapper to fix this. Better, but not entirely fixed. Ah – I was clamping the value for pitch and volume inside the toJsonStr() method, so the edge conditions would set newJSON = TRUE. Moved the clamp to inside the set().
• Ordered a cool case and power supply for the electronics
• Added a mapFloatToInt() method in DataElement so we can transpose the values from the sim to the midi easier. The code was looking *very* messy.

OH

• Updated my resume
• Interview for Jessie