Spaceball VRPN help

[Dbuckland]

I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction to get a Logitech Spaceball working with Vizard via VRPN. It might just be that I do not know the correct words to search for online but I can't figure out how to make the *.cfg file tell the server to look for the spaceball.

Thanks,
Dan

[Dbuckland]

How bout, has anyone written a plugin for the spaceball 5000 that I could look at?

[tobin]

If you look at line 535 in the vrpn.cfg file, you'll see:

#vrpn_Spaceball Spaceball0 /dev/ttyS0 9600

Uncommenting this line should instruct the VRPN server to connect to a spaceball. If you're running on a windows system, you'll probably do something like:

vrpn_Spaceball Spaceball0 COM1 9600


Unfortunately, we can't verify that this works. To test this, you should run the vrpn_print_devices utility to see if the server is working. If so, then you can test if Vizard is correctly passing through the data. Likely there'll be trouble there because the spaceball device doesn't make onto the pos/ori format of a typical 6DOF sensor device. This latter problem we can easily resolve for you. If VRPN server doesn't connect, then I'd suggest contact the manufacturer and asking for advice on connecting to a spaceball using VRPN.

Let us know how it goes.

[Dbuckland]

What would I replace COM1 with if I am running a USB device?

And, when I run vprn_print_devices it gived me an error message saying it is missing the MSVCR70D.dll. Any idea where I can find it?

Vizard can talk to the server, when I run the dummy config file it returns the [0.0 0.0 .... 1.0].

[tobin]

If it's a USB version you're dealing with, then it won't be accessible through a COM port layer.

I just looked here:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/vrpn/

and it says VRPN doesn't yet support the Spaceball 5000.


Tell you what, we'll try writing a native Vizard plug-in to support the Spaceball line. Someone here can start working on it Monday and we'll let you know by Wednesday if it's done.

[Dbuckland]

That would be excellent, you guys rock.

[Dbuckland]

Just checking, but was this done and I missed it?

Thanks.

[tobin]

The status of this is we downloaded their SDK and its architecture relies on Windows main events, which means it's not well suited for our Python-style plug-in architecture which is more console (DOS) style. We've requested either a console style sample code or a loaner unit so because we'll require that either of those in order to properly develop a Vizard interface. We have no response yet on this request. I just put in another call to the company so I'll let you know what I hear today.

[farshizzo]

Hi Dan,

Sorry for the delay, we just got the loaner yesterday. Anyway, here is the spaceball plugin as promised. Download the attached zip file and follow the instructions in the README file. Let me know if you have any problems.

[Dbuckland]

Works great except for one thing. When I use it with our tracker (Intersense is600) some kind of conflict is developing that knocks out 3 of the DOF of the spaceball at random times. I can't seem to isolate the cause.

[farshizzo]

Hi Dan,

By default if you press the 1 or 2 button on the spaceball it will disable either rotations or translations. Make sure that this is not the cause of it. You can change this through the spaceball control panel.