timer counter

[Wenamun]

Is it possible to count how many times a timer has been called back (without the use of a counting variable)?

viz.elapsed() gives me the same numbers every time because it's only counting how long THIS instance has run. what about all instances?

thanks!

[Wenamun]

i guess this is a better question:

i want to draw a line between the coordinates an object was at two seconds ago and the coordinates the object is at now. so i ran a timer to repeat every 2 seconds. the problem is obvious, and i would imagine the solution is equally so. i just can't figure it out.

the first time the function runs, i am told the variable 'oldLoc' is not defined. but if i define it in the first line of the function, it will be initialized every time the function is run and it will always be '[0,0,0]'. how can i work around this? i figure i could run a counter that assigns an arbitrary coordinate to 'oldLoc' the first time the function is run. but no matter how i do it, that counter is reset (initialized) every time the function is invoked.

hope this makes sense. thanks!

def mytimer(num):

	newLocs = []
	
	for x in range(numLights):
		
		newLoc = balls[x].get(viz.POSITION)
		newLocs.append(newLoc)
		
		viz.startlayer(viz.LINES)	
		viz.vertexcolor(1,0,1)
		viz.linewidth(1)
		
		#print 'newLocs[',x,']',newLocs[x]
		
		viz.vertex(newLoc)
		viz.vertex(0,0,0)
		
		tail = viz.endlayer()
		tails.append(tail)
			
		tail.size(0,0,0,1,viz.TIME)
		
	oldLocs = newLocs

[farshizzo]

You need to declare the oldLocs variable as global. Your code should look like the following:

oldLocs = [ [0,0,0] for x in range(numLights) ] #Initialize to some value

def mytimer(num):
	global oldLocs 
	newLocs = []
	
	for x in range(numLights):
		
		newLoc = balls[x].get(viz.POSITION)
		newLocs.append(newLoc)
		
		viz.startlayer(viz.LINES)	
		viz.vertexcolor(1,0,1)
		viz.linewidth(1)
		
		#print 'newLocs[',x,']',newLocs[x]
		
		viz.vertex(newLoc)
		viz.vertex(0,0,0)
		
		tail = viz.endlayer()
		tails.append(tail)
			
		tail.size(0,0,0,1,viz.TIME)
		
	oldLocs = newLocs