Start: 9:00

• Built the interface.  A little strange but it seems FLUID does not have a standard label that isn’t attached to anything.   I didn’t really need it but still found it strange.
• Currently the PC side is a sandbox so I’m building it out to have a more defined purpose.  Now that I have things a bit more together I found that I really don’t need to pass as much data as I thought.  All it needs is sensor data to the pc and command + data going to the arduino.
• Still needs a bit more done before I can link the data with the interface.

End: 5:00

Start: 9:00am

• Had some trouble getting FLTK to build.  Usually I am able to track down binaries for things like this, but in this case, there is a project file in the ide folder which allows Visual Studio to build it easily.  A note for the next time I run across source code with no project files is that I should be able to run command line compiles using the .make file.
• Still lots of files and no .lib/.exe files in sight…  I thought maybe it just wasn’t set up right but when i look at the project property files it properly tells it to build exe/lib files.  For some reason all I getting is the object files.  I was able to run demo from the IDE but still don’t see the .exe file anywhere.
• Finally found where everything built to.  Its in the test and lib folders of the root directory.
• Lots of cool demos, looks like you can do a lot with it.  One of the cooler ones involves fractals.  I didn’t know how useful fractals were in making blocky graphical objects more detailed.  The code for this example will help me when I try to figure out how to add a gl window within GUI.
• The callbacks were a bit confusing to me.  The one for buttons accepts two parameters.  The first is the function name you wish to call and the second is void pointer to the data.   The second parameter is optional and is limited to only passing one void pointer.
• Very good tutorials for both setting up the IDE and manually coding, as well as using FLUID: http://seriss.com/people/erco/fltk-videos/
• The videos also cleared up .make files for me.  I tend to use VS for the most part, so the make files are built into the project.  I am not sure make files can be imported  into VS, but it would save manually setting up project properties every time.
• Should be ready to build the UI

Planning

• Things needed for the UI:  Sensor data, current volume(optional), instrument selection(slider/numeric entry), note selection(slider/numeric entry), disable button, menu bar with a save/load function to save/load the current settings
• I think these controls will run across the bottom.  The majority of the window will be for the openGL simulation.
• The DataDictionary will be used to hold/sync the data on both sides.
• Change the color of the text box to show if the force is neutral negative or positive from baseline
• Something that might be useful for analysis is if we could graph the increase in volume/pressure.

End: 5:00pm

Start: 9:00am

• I am pretty confident the electronics are working well enough to move to communicating with computer.
• Reviewed the pc and arduino side classes for data transfer.
• Passed a string from a sandbox sketch to the computer to refresh my self on how to do this.
• Got the sensor data to display in my pc console.
• Considering making a graphical ui for adjusting the instrument and tone of each finger so we can experiment better.  Not sure how hard it is to integrate this into a console application.
• Looking into how to do this I found you that you can’t simply add a gui to a console app but it can be done in a MFC application.
• Asked Phil about the GUI.  He recommended FLTK.  (http://www.fltk.org/)
• I forgot about the thumb and index finger shorting out when used at the same time.  Will have to remember to look into this tomorrow.

End: 6:00pm

Start:  9:00am

• Got the audio to split properly.  Assigned different tones to each finger.  The higher pitch sounds are actually more tactile.
• There is some weird thing that happens when the thumb and index are pushed simultaneously where all the electronics go into some type of weird grounding loop.  I have examined everything and haven’t found a short yet.  It seems to be related to the midi controller because it doesn’t happen if only the amplifiers are active, however, it could just not be happening because there is no signal in this case.  I just noticed the polarity of the signal input capacitors might be the cause. I will be sure to check this Monday.
• The sound quality is not equal across all speakers.  I might be able to increase quality by hooking up the midi devices differently using a method which better isolates the signal.  I had a link for this a while back.
• Along with pitch bend it might be good to have the amps ramp up on curved function rather then the current linear way.

end: 6:00pm

start: 9:00am

• Got the fifth finger to work.  At first I thought it was the rheostat then I thought it was the amplifier.  Turns out the amplifiers power wasn’t connected properly.  It was hard to tell because theres two grounding capacitors on the power line so it looked like it was connected.
• Mounted one rheostat and 1 amplifier to break to break out boards to try to resolve the problem above.  These will probably come in handy later.
• Working out the issue with panning the channels so each finger can have individual sound.
• pictures:

If I reviewed the pictures yesterday I might have seen that the amplifier had no power.

End: 5:00pm