Hello guys. I've just released my app's source code as well as a short video at:
http://androidcontroller.googlecode.com/
--necessary improvements list--
on the Android side:
* service discovery so that the client and the server can find each other on the local network (it's very annoying having to manualy enter an IP address in a textfield that's why I change the source code every time and compile with the new ip )
* kalman (or some other kind of) filtering to smooth the sensor output
* improve menus/configuration/interface
* look for a marker and calibrate automaticaly
on the windows side:
* switch model you're rotating somehow (ability to load models via xaml files?)
* interact with the object (I'm already transmitting the touch screen's x/y event)
* smooth the sensor data on the windows side to take the load off the android app
* sounds
* transmit images to display on android or sounds?
I would appreciate VERY much ANY help that anybody could provide. If you are interested in contributing code please contact me and I will add you to the project members list.
Well Done !
congrats
HES A JUBEH IMPOSTER
Just kidding, awesome app btw
wow...this is pretty cool. I would love to help but due to my lack of knowledge in this. Keep up the good work!!
Great work, I'd love to see how this develops.
Starred in google code.
Everybody thanks for the encouraging remarks
re
Génial___$$$$$$$$
Draw custom buttons to the touch screen which send keyboard commands to windows, and implement gamepad support for the sensors? Then this could be used as an input device for a computer.
bjehsus said:
Draw custom buttons to the touch screen which send keyboard commands to windows, and implement gamepad support for the sensors? Then this could be used as an input device for a computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But if I do that then the touch screen becomes just another gamepad, and a bad one for that matter since touch screens have no tactile feedback (i.e. the finger is not aware of wether it has pushed the button or not). Tactile feedback could be implemented via vibration or perhaps even audio feedback with sound for button press but both those scenarios are impractical for a gaming situation where buttons are being pressed at a frantic pace.
Besides I wanna do more than just pushing buttons. Something with touching/swiping gestures etc. Transmitting data from the pc to the mobile device, or sounds? ooor.. dunno^^
I need some good ideas on what more one could do with this ^_^
I'd be more than happy to help, unfortunately the most I can do for you is clean up images and menu buttons. If you need any of that done feel free to hit me up.
woah
This is really cool. Are there any real apps available yet?
henrynhl said:
This is really cool. Are there any real apps available yet?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Plx define 'real' apps.
Actually this is a great idea, I'm surprised no one had thought of it yet.
Blender (open source 3d suite) supports NDOF devices nowadays - I'll see about giving this a try when I get a chance, and perhaps contribute some code (and we'd need a linux server as well, which shouldn't be too big of a deal)
Jubei said:
But if I do that then the touch screen becomes just another gamepad, and a bad one for that matter since touch screens have no tactile feedback (i.e. the finger is not aware of wether it has pushed the button or not). Tactile feedback could be implemented via vibration or perhaps even audio feedback with sound for button press but both those scenarios are impractical for a gaming situation where buttons are being pressed at a frantic pace.
Besides I wanna do more than just pushing buttons. Something with touching/swiping gestures etc. Transmitting data from the pc to the mobile device, or sounds? ooor.. dunno^^
I need some good ideas on what more one could do with this ^_^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have an idea, heh...use it to control the mouse on a PC.
There are remotes that work using accelerometers and such...by tilting the remote up, it moves the mouse arrow on the screen up, left goes left, etc. Then simply have the screen react to a short tap(which would be a single click), double tap (which would be a double click), and a long press (for right click).
That is certainly something that I would use on a daily basis.
jmhecker said:
I have an idea, heh...use it to control the mouse on a PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your feedback jmhecker! Do you mean like a wiimote? If so then unfortunately that's not possible with the HTC Dream unless the user performs some kind of calibration process first (because the device has no way of knowing where the monitor is). So first some sort of calibration would be necessary, which could be done by placing a marker/qr code on the monitor then pointing the camera OR just pointing the device to the middle of the screen and pressing a button (which is what i"m doing now to calibrate).
Jubei
Jubei said:
Thanks for your feedback jmhecker! Do you mean like a wiimote? If so then unfortunately that's not possible with the HTC Dream unless the user performs some kind of calibration process first (because the device has no way of knowing where the monitor is). So first some sort of calibration would be necessary, which could be done by placing a marker/qr code on the monitor then pointing the camera OR just pointing the device to the middle of the screen and pressing a button (which is what i"m doing now to calibrate).
Jubei
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kind of like that, yes. But, not exactly.
Basically, the phone knows when it is in 'zero' position. IE: lying flat on its back.
Now, I tilt the phone (rotate) to the left a smidge, so it look like / (when looking at it if it were in front of you...what oyu see is the bottom (where the plug is) of the phone. Now, when you tilt it like that, the mouse cursor moves left. Then when you turn it like \, it moves right...tilt the phone forward, it moves down, and tilt it backwards, and it moves up.
Kind of what you have being done already with the video and the plane in it...but, rather than move the plane, move the mouse cursor.
Does that make sense?
This with remote droid...
jmhecker said:
Kind of like that, yes. But, not exactly.
Basically, the phone knows when it is in 'zero' position. IE: lying flat on its back.
Now, I tilt the phone (rotate) to the left a smidge, so it look like / (when looking at it if it were in front of you...what oyu see is the bottom (where the plug is) of the phone. Now, when you tilt it like that, the mouse cursor moves left. Then when you turn it like \, it moves right...tilt the phone forward, it moves down, and tilt it backwards, and it moves up.
Kind of what you have being done already with the video and the plane in it...but, rather than move the plane, move the mouse cursor.
Does that make sense?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could see this working with RemoteDroid, or something of that nature. Make the tilt like a joystick, and the screen with a touch pad and buttons. That would make a killer game controller
jmhecker said:
Kind of what you have being done already with the video and the plane in it...but, rather than move the plane, move the mouse cursor.
Does that make sense?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does yes. But i think it would require a lot of work to be usable because isometric or isotonic (speed of cursor relative to tilt angle) devices are not nearly as usable as mice. So in the end you'd spend so much hours coding just to have another mouse, whereas I think this device can be more.
it has a speaker, a display, vibration, buttons, keyboard, a trackball, sound. It has a lot of potential to be used just as a simple mouse.
So, I'm loving the hell out of my Surface RT (64GB with black Touch cover) except for two things.
1: I use the actual function keys (F1-F12) a lot more than I need a shortcut key for the play/pause button or the Share charm. Due to the placement of the Fn button on the right side of the keyboard, it's difficult to use the keys the way I'm used to. For example, Alt+F4 is now Alt+Fn+Play/Pause, and requires two hands. If anybody can find a way to toggle the default state of the Fn key, I would be super-grateful! Ideally, I'd be able to actually remap he keys like you can on advanced USB keyboards; for example, I need the Home and End keys too, but rarely use F8-F10 so I'd like to remap those.
2: The default direction of the multitouch scroll drives me up a wall (but only if I try to drive down it). It's a pointing device, not a touchscreen, dammit! I expect it to function like a scroll wheel on a mouse, or the side-scroll on older PC touchpads, or the TrackPoint scroll on the Thinkpad, or... you get my point. Yes, I get that Apple did it first; they were dumb then, are still dumb now, and MS was very dumb to copy them. On the other hand, at least Apple lets you change it! If the direction of this scroll can be reversed (preferably without screwing up the scroll wheel of an actual mouse, if I were to connect one), that would be amazing.
I was really hoping that the included drivers would include controls for these things, the way Microsoft's normal mice and keyboards come with highly configurable drivers, or most Laptops come with fairly advanced Synaptics touchpad driver controls. If any of you have contacts at MS on or near the Surface team, tell them that we really want some drivers like those, please!
have you been able to resolve the Fn key issue?
GoodDayToDie said:
So, I'm loving the hell out of my Surface RT (64GB with black Touch cover) except for two things.
1: I use the actual function keys (F1-F12) a lot more than I need a shortcut key for the play/pause button or the Share charm. Due to the placement of the Fn button on the right side of the keyboard, it's difficult to use the keys the way I'm used to. For example, Alt+F4 is now Alt+Fn+Play/Pause, and requires two hands. If anybody can find a way to toggle the default state of the Fn key, I would be super-grateful! Ideally, I'd be able to actually remap he keys like you can on advanced USB keyboards; for example, I need the Home and End keys too, but rarely use F8-F10 so I'd like to remap those.
2: The default direction of the multitouch scroll drives me up a wall (but only if I try to drive down it). It's a pointing device, not a touchscreen, dammit! I expect it to function like a scroll wheel on a mouse, or the side-scroll on older PC touchpads, or the TrackPoint scroll on the Thinkpad, or... you get my point. Yes, I get that Apple did it first; they were dumb then, are still dumb now, and MS was very dumb to copy them. On the other hand, at least Apple lets you change it! If the direction of this scroll can be reversed (preferably without screwing up the scroll wheel of an actual mouse, if I were to connect one), that would be amazing.
I was really hoping that the included drivers would include controls for these things, the way Microsoft's normal mice and keyboards come with highly configurable drivers, or most Laptops come with fairly advanced Synaptics touchpad driver controls. If any of you have contacts at MS on or near the Surface team, tell them that we really want some drivers like those, please!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Fn Key issue is a little bit annoying, anybody have a solution for it?
Im curently using a half size bluetooth keyboard paired to my phone (nexus 4) which is running RemoteDroid. That is used to forward keystrokes to my PC. Why? because I have a broken collarbone and cant use my fullsize wired keyboard properly So im using my phone as an intermediate device (BluetoothK/B->Phone->WiFi->PC) to be able to use the bluetooth keyboard. Putting the phone in close proximity to the K/B means It has a much better range and signal quality via WiFi. The phone itself also has a better bluetoooth receiver than any laptop or desktop USB bluetooth receivers ive tried, giving much more reliable keystrokes at higher typing speed than gong straight to PC
The problem is some of the keys dont work correctly and I believe its because Android is interpreting them differently. i.e. 'Tab/Delete/Insert/Home/End/num +/ num -.. etc' dont get forwarded to the PC,And some keystrokes are simply incorrect` i.e. the right shift key acts more like CTRL for some things. Shift+2 becomes " instead of @ (need to press alt 2 instead) and so on
In addition I have a touchpad on the little keyboard and that only works in a limitted fashion
Is there an app out there that can 'grab' the Android inputs of a device and remap them? so i.e. mouse click could be emulated as pressing the Enter key if I so wished
Additionally` is there a progam that can forward these 'raw inputs' to a PC via USB/WiFi/Bluetooth? remotedroid does indeed forward some inputs of key presses as best it can (arrow keys for instance) but it seems to do it 'after' the android OS (i.e. alt+tab makes the android program switch applications, rather than forwarding the 'alt' and 'tab' keys to the PC)
It does not however forward mouse inputs (havnt tried gamepad) so its not possible to use a mouse or trackpad as intended. I have to emulate a screen press (hold left click on trackpad and move the cursor across the remotedroid screen)
Hope the above makes sense, and yes im aware I could simply bluetooth directly to the PC but wheres the fun in that?
Hey all,
I repurposed an old Android 2.3 phone (rooted HTC Wildfire S [marvelc]) as the navigation device for my motorcycle.
My motorcycle has a 4-way handlebar control for the factory navigation (which I don't feel like paying $900 for...)
I'm in the process of debugging the interface of that control on my motorcycle, and eventually I want to interface it to the marvelc via USB.
I was thinking on buying a cheap tablet keyboard and use the wires of that to access the functions that I need (I would need to "scroll" between UI elements, also to "click" on them, and use the "back" button somehow. I don't know if all of these are possible with a physical keyboard or not, but some very old Android devices had controls like this.)
I'm just trying to ask the community, if this option is even feasible?
Also, since I'll need a microcontroller for capturing the input of the 4-way control from the motorcycle, I was thinking on implementing the Android keyboard USB interface on that same microcontroller, but I couldn't find any documentation or protocol description on that. If you could point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it
Step one: Figure out which keys your nav app responds to.
Does it use arrow keys? volume keys? DPAD?
Use adb and the shell. For example, this sends ESCAPE
Code:
input keyevent 111
You can probably use a gutted keypad and wire up the switches.
It would probably make sense to have it wired for 4 arrow keys and enter.
That way you can test it easily on a desktop system.
If you need keys that are different, edit /system/usr/keylayout/qwerty.kl
Use my UsbMode.apk (in signature) to identify keyevents.
It's designed for something else for the Nook but it will display key events on any Android.
The only problem with gutted keypads is that they use matrix scanning.
If you need/want contacts to ground you'd be better off with a uP.
I like a Teensy 2.0 because it's small and has hardware USB.
This all presumes that your device support USB host mode.
Hi guys,
I'm looking for suggestions for a specific type of remote control software, I used something long ago during the Gingerbread days but I cannot find it at all...
I want to be able to use my phone as a mouse using the accelerometer (something like this app) for a computer over LAN but with the added option of having an on screen button or something which opens up a keyboard on my phone for typing on the computer. I don't need to see the computer screen on my phone such as in TeamViewer. I tried using a regular bluetooth keyboard and mouse but somehow the range suffers in certain spots where I sit, and I have battery issues...
Feature Wishlist: Any added functionality like also working over the internet, volume button support, not needing a server application, good ui, etc will be a bonus.
Thank you!