RoboRealm Forum

Bug in Path Planning "plan orientation variable"

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

First of all, the Path Planning is a wonderful module. Unfortunately, there is a bug in it.

The "Plan Orientation" variable generated by this module can be wrong some times. To cut the long story short please refer the following snapshots:-

Image1: Snapshot of the maze to be solved, using a "Red Triangle" as robot. This red robot has to reach a blue destination.

Image2: The path planned by the path planing module. While the path planned is CORRECT, the plan orientation is INCORRECT.

Attachment1: The RoboRealm showing the code.

Bug in Path Planning "plan orientation variable"

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Ok, trying image thing again.

[Image1] Robot on hill. Wheelchair chassis.

[Image2] Looking down hill

[Image3] Other side of hill

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Ok, here are the pictures of my back yard.  I live on a half acre.
The robot in its current state is the bottom half of a wheelchair.  I plan to use this thing as a lawn mower, so the chassis will likely change.

As you can see, most of the yard is a very large hill.  ( Thats why I am using wheelchair motors.  )   The hill slopes toward the house on one side and away on the other.  Therefore, No one camera will have line of sight everywhere.

BTW, I took this picture with my Canon S3 IS Powershot.  I have a 12 x zoom lens.  ( in case anybody needs to know )

How do you think I should approach this?

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi STeven,

For some reason, the image seems more stable today. And applying a mean filter seems to help a bit. I'm attaching a 2 second AVI video with two tennis balls in the foreground (nothing is moving). Hopefully this isn't too big (about 2 Mb). Let me know if you need something longer.

--patrick

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

how Ican measure distance & angle by roborealm

Keyboard control over Lego Mindstorms

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

ok my goal was to control only one motor of my RCX robot using my keyboard, were when i press my left arrow key it supposed to move to the left for a small amount of time and the right arrow key is supposed to move the robot to the right for some amount of time. But instead when i tried this the robot turned on one of its motor for indefinate until i had to turn the unit off. heres my code for it

Keyboard
If X = 1
Lego
Set X = 0
end if
If X = -1
Lego
Set X = 0
end if

the following pictures are showing part of the code.
and i have the robo file in there so plz help!

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

It depends on how you want to control the robot. If you want to use a simple keypress to move the robot in that direction you can use the keyboard module to trigger a motor movement in a particular direction.

Included below is an example.

Use cursor keys to move in appropriate direction and space bar to stop. Note that this is configured to use USB connection so that you can test it without determining the appropriate COM port. Note that you will need it usb connected in order for this to work.

STeven.

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

I have this robo file to identify the laser pointer X values. Now that i have updated to the newest version of roborealm with the updated blob filter, i am getting large wrong numbers. how is this fixed?

Tree Identification

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi,
trying to identify the tree in the middle of the picture, though getting interferance from background. Doesnt help that trees are dark green but it is what i have to work with. Any suggestions on how to go about this?

Fire Fighting program

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

I am entering a fire fighting competition with a course similar to the picture shown below. The rules are that I have to navigate around the walls, blow out the candle without touching it, and do it under three minuets It may be simple but I can't figure out the final programming. I can get it to move and pick up the infrared signal, but I can't get it to move to the candle and blow it out. Can anyone help me?

RE - center mouse (arcade gun)

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

hey everyone,
i am in need of a bit of help. i have been working on an arcade style FPS gun for computer games. and i have run into a bit of a problem. i have been using the attached .robo file which works perfectly as far as mouse tracking goes but when using it in computer games it seems that the "mouse" needs to be re-centered with every movement; or it just continues in the same direction. the program follows a blue LED and hasn't been getting much interference from its used environment. i guess what i need is a way of making the mouse re-center after each movement but im not entirely sure how to do that or how i could let it know when the movement has ceased. I am not entirely sure this is the best way to solve the problem, but from a bit of testing it seems to be the most effective so far..

any suggestions or anything would be very helpful

here is the link to my instructable of the "arcade gun":
http://www.instructables.com/id/FPS-arcade-style-gun/

test

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

test

[image1]

sdfdsf

[image2]

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

I get the following error trying to upload an image

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: str_ireplace() in /homepages/10/d91033323/htdocs/RoboRealm/forum/post.php on line 188

One last try [image1]

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

The last image upload gave me an error. Here is one more try

[image1]

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Here is the image [image1]

Find Edge - won't find edges

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hello,

I can't seem to get FIND EDGE to return any values using the attached image. Do binary images cause a problem?

Thanks

Franklin

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi STeven,

Me and Nick are still working on having more than one robot following the line at the same time. Loading in the second path planning module seemed to be fine, but then when we added the second VBscipt the system crashed. I have uploaded the file we are currently working on. I have also attached the individual path planning files for the red and green robot (which are working fine). Just wondering if you have any suggestions on how we can get round this problem.

Thanks

Dan and Nick

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Steven, many thanks for having a go at this. Unfortunately the 'clean' and 'fill' modules now seem to shut roborealm down, when they reach their limit. However I am getting along OK-ish using the median filter and population threshold, before I use fill or clean
Out of interest, my target is the star-shaped object (plant) in the middle of [image1]

Accessing Roborealm (executing .robo file) from MATLAB

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Sir,
I want to access a .robo file ( ie execute that file in roborealm) by just pushing a pushbutton in MATLAB GUI...
Urgent reply expected. Kindly help...

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

OR, what if I used a DC motor and this:
Vantec RET411P

http://www.robotmarketplace.com/products/VT-RET411P.html

hardware suggestions

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

I'd like to utilize the color tracking ability and I'm hoping for the easiest plug and play solution. The camera needs to be fixed, on a turret to move back and forth only. I've decided to use a servo to turn the turret. Would I have any problems with this servo:http://www.robotshop.ca/home/products/robot-parts/motors/servo-motors/specialty-servo-en/robotis-cx-28-serial-servo.html
and this:
http://www.robotshop.ca/home/new-arrivals/robotis-usb-to-dynamixel-adapter.html

Thank you in advance!

Detecting room light level

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Is there a way to measure / report the light level in the room using RR? I'd like my robot to know when it's getting dark enough to turn on the lights.

Dr. Bruce.

PATH PLANNING MODULE

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi STeven,

Thanks for your help with the path planning module. We have managed to get one robot to coarsely follow the line, i think its a case of adjusting the motor speeds etc to get a better result. Are actual task at this stage is to get this line following done with 3 robots. We are having issues implimenting the path planning module more than once. Roborealm crashes everytime we load it up. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Thanks

Dan and Nick

Kalman filter

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi, I've heard that the Kalamn filter is a very good filter and it predicts the current position of a moving object. I know RR is very fast in Image Processing. But it would be very good if we were to use the Kalman filter as it would further increase the speed of Processing.
I've searched the newer version for the Kalman Filter but was unable to find it. I would like to know if the Kalman Filter module is available in RR, if not I request you to include that too which would make RR even more comprehensive.... Sorry for keeping the post long...

XBEE IEEE 802.15.4 - LR-WPAN

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Does anyone know if the Parallax Mod will work with a XBEE - IEEE 802.15.4 Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Network protocol (LR-WPAN) connection to a BOE-BOT ... the documents indicate it is designed for eb500 (Bluetooth) connection?

DAQ

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

how can i use a DAQ card to read analog voltage with roborealm?

HTTP read refresh frequency ignored

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi,

I'm using RoboRealm 1.8.7.7 and it seems the Refresh Frequency setting is ignored in the HTTP_Read module.  No matter what I set it to, it seems to be running in "ASAP" mode. I even tried linking to a static JPG, it still hits the server as fast as it can.

I notice that nothing about refresh is being saved to my .robo files, including working.robo.  Nor is anything saved regarding GET/POST.  URL, Username, Password, and Headers are all saved successfully.

Can you verify this is a bug?  I'm on Windows XP x64 if that matters...

Thanks!  Great program!

- Ryan

Head ache with usb problem for multi-camera

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Dear All,

I really need your help at the moment. Now, i am working with more than 10 cameras, exactly the same type : Aiptek Mini Pencam 1.3. They all need to be connected to PC via usb to download the pictures.

I don't know how to recognize which picture come from which camera since they downloaded and save with the same name. And the usb adresses changes each time i plug/unplug the camera since they connected via usb hub.

Is there any way that i can have an identity sign for each camera, so that i can dishtinguish between them ?

Many thanks

RoboRealmSimulation & MSRS

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi,

I'm new here, I'm trying to use the RoboRealmSimulation for MSRS, and I can't see the image in the web browser /roborealm, I can see it in RR application, but not in the web browser of MSRS, So I think that RR dont send back any information and I cant find why.. I just have redownload all the projects and no way..

Any Ideas? Thanks in advance

C++ API & Compiler issue.

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi,

I've started experimenting with the C++ API, however I cannot even seem to compile the example main.cpp it returns the following error.

\\src\\API\\C++\\main.cpp `main' must return `int'

The error points to this line of code in main.cpp

// This is where the program first starts
void main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    unsigned char *image = (unsigned char *)malloc(320*240*3);

    RR_API rr;

I am using Bloodshed Dev C++ v4.9.9.2.  The C++ compiler is GCC (the GNU g++ compiler collection).  I'm running Windows XP x64 Professional Ed.

Any help getting the project kicked off would be greatly appreciated.

-Jax

VB.Net and Shape Recognition

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi there,

I've downloaded RoboRealm and it looks fantastic - I plan to interface to it from a VB.Net program.

I have worked through the "Shape Matching" Tutorial and also read through the "Reading Digital Displays" Tutorial. What I really want to do is combine the 2 (which I think should be quite easy) - but I don't want to do anything in VBScript I want to run it all from VB.Net via the API.

I've downloaded and run the VB.Net API example and it works fine - but what I have not been able to fathom out is how can I at any given point in time demand to know from the API which shapes the camera can see.

My idea is to have the Camera read a numeric display (2 digits) that will be a code that will tell the Robot exactly where it is at that point in time.

Any pointers greatly appreciated - I know this is possible, just don't know how?

USB HID

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi STeven,

I've just downloaded v1.8.7.6 and I can't see the USB HID interface in the Control/Other selection (or anywhere else for that matter. Is there a problem?

Regards

Ken

Newb Question

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

I am new to RR and want to setup a simple test ... Have been able to get my WebCam to work with RR ... so at this point I want to setup a simple test to have the cam id a red ball and say red then id a blue ball and say blue ball ... does any one have a sample setup (modules) that I can use to learn from? Thanks in advance :)

No Title

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

now we want to deal wih analog so we can make O/P+I/P analog
so how can this
thanx

New path planning module

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi,

the new path planning module is looking really good, but i've come across a couple of problems. First of all, when using the sample_line as the waypoints, there seems to be an extra point that comes up at a point (0, y) (always on the left hand side of the screen) where y is the y co-ordinate where it starts. This point is always the last one to be visited. Every so often it didn't come up, and the robot went on to do the whole task and finish on the finish point, but most of the time this extra point keeps on coming up.

Secondly, using 2 path planning modules, with the greedy path and the same sample_line points as the waypoints we get a Debug error. I was wondering whether you have tried this at all?

Apart from these the module has been great!

Cheers,

Nick & Dan

Motion tracking webcam...

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

I have a canon VC-C3 webcam and am wondering if anyone can or has done any human tracking with roborelm... I am mainly looking for the camera to move to/ follow movement...

I have on order a used axis 2401 server and the api can support URL based requests for ptz...

http://www.axis.com/techsup/cam_servers/dev/cam_http_api.php#api_blocks_ptz_control

Gavin

MINDSTORMS NXT

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi, I have a problem. I want to command the NXT to turn on the red LED on Light sensor. I have let the NXT react on bluetooth command, number 1 means Yes and 0 means No. But the problem is, that instead of 0, the nxt recieves number 0572864 and instead of 1 it recieves 0572865.

Please, can you advise me how can I fix it?

Sorry for (if) bad English.

connect to matlab

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

how can i send data to matlab or labview via roborealm?
how can i use a DAQ in rr?

Problems with Logitech Orbit

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Having issues with the Logitech Orbit. When it moves to the extreme, or you use the home button-- It stops responding.. Anyone else have this issue? It doesn't happen when I use the logitech software... Very strange.

Thanks, Billy

Yet another frame rate question...

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi STeven,

I'm trying to understand the difference in frame rate when I use the same camera on two different machines running Windows XP, the latest version of DirectX, and the latest drivers for the webcam.  The two systems are:

1. HP Pavillion tower with 2.2 GHz AMD and 3 Gb RAM
2. Mini-ITX single board computer (EN12000EG) running at 1.2 GHz with 1 Gb RAM

The camera is a Creative Labs Voice! that I specifically chose because it has one of the widest FOVs among available webcams (about 75 degrees).

Running the same version of RoboRealm (the latest), no modules, preview off, resolution set to 160x120, and the webcam set to the lowest exposure setting (1), I get nearly 30 fps on the HP and only 13 fps on the Mini-ITX.  CPU load on the Mini-ITX is only 50% so it doesn't seem to be a load issue.

I have one clue that might be critical:  using the Creative supplied "Cam Center" software, I can view the video image on either machine outside of RoboRealm.  When I do this, the video is noticeably slower on the Mini-ITX which is consistent with the RoboRealm results.  But even stranger--the Cam Center software has an option to superimpose the frame rate on the image--on the HP this option is functional and displays 27 fps on the image, again consistent with RR.  However, on the Mini-ITX, this option is greyed out!  So it's as if there is some subtle interaction between the Creative webcam driver, DirectX, Windows XP and the Mini-ITX.  I don't expect you to spend any time debugging this since it doesn't seem to be a RoboRealm problem, but if something obvious jumps to mind, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks,
patrick

Analog Input

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

I'm looking for an analog input board that is compatible w/Roborealm's software to my Lynxmotion SSC32.
What I have is a tablet PC w/serial out to an RF Modem. Then, an RF Modem to Lynxmotion SSC32 to Robot.
I would like to have manual analog controls (potientiometers) that control Servo positions rather than moving the sliders in the Roborealm software (Okay for the pot's to control the sliders). The Phidgets analog pot's are inexpensive, their USB pot's are expensive, but both have unknown compatibility.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

PS; Is there no Marvin the Martian Avatar ? [:}

Distributed server/client question

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hello,

I am running RoboRealm on a mobile robot whose brain is a mini-itx single board computer running Windows XP at 1.2 GHz and with 1 Gb RAM and a 802.11g wireless connection to my home network.  My control program for the robot is written in C# and I use the RoboRealm API to communicate with an instance of RR running on the mini-itx.  My test application controls the head of the robot to track a red object using the .robo file attached to this post.  The program works quite well when everything runs on the mini-itx.  Since I would like to do some additional processing on the video stream, and the mini-itx is already maxing out with my current .robo file,  I would like to off-load some of the vision processing to my desktop machine which is on the same network.

It seems I have two options:

(1) Serve up the video stream from the robot (mini-itx) using the RR HTTP server option (port 8080), run an instance of RR on my desktop PC using HTTP_Read, do the image processing using this instance, and read back the processing variables from within my C# program by pointing the API to the IP address of my desktop.

(2) Serve up the video stream from the robot using the RR Distributed Server module, run the Distributed Client module on the instance of RR running on my desktop PC, do the image processing using this instance, and read back the processing variables from within my C# program by pointing the API to the address of the locally running RR instance (localhost).

Here are the problems I've run into.  First with option (1):  I get a nice streaming image on my desktop PC instance of RR and my .robo file (tracking a red object) works fast and smooth with a good COG box around my desired target (as viewed through the robot's camera).  However, when I point the C# program on the mini-itx to the IP address of my desktop PC, I seem to be getting the COG x and y variables at only about 1 frame per second so head tracking occurs as a series of jumps 1 second apart instead of about 20 per second as I get when running everything on the mini-itx.

Next I tried option (2).  First, I turned off the Webserver option on the mini-itx instance of RR and loaded the Distributed Server module with the default 5 threads option.  Then on the desktop PC instance of RR, I start from scratch and load the Distributed Client module.  The problem is that right from the start, I get a very slow frame rate on my desktop PC instance of RR, even with no .robo file loaded.  On the Distributed Client module I am requesting the image and sending variables with the other two check boxes un-checked.  Also, it doesn't seem to matter what compression I choose, the best I can get is about 5 fps.  By contrast, using option (1) I get about 15 fps (it seems even faster to my eye, so I'm not sure if the fps calculation is actually correct.)

I am using the latest RR (1.8.7.5) on both machines.

Any suggestions on how to debug these two situations would be greatly appreciated!

--patrick

Endurance R/C 8/16 servo controller plugin

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Anybody using one of this controller, or has any code to share. I am new to the code writing. Thanks

Cropping and COG - Line following

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi there STeven,

Me again :)

I just wanted to point out that in the attached .robo file, my SRV_1b's camera isn't really pointing straight down, so I decided to crop the top part of the image off.

Now, following the line following tutorial you gave ages ago, I tried to add the COG pipeline onto the end after cropping and it goes all weird as you may see if you give it a try.

On 'watch variables I get COG X to be:

86 ( for the COG being on the left) 144 ( " " middle) 188 ( " " right)

So, this makes a bit of sense despite '86' should really correspond to '0' I guess.

I think the problem lies with cropping and therefore seems to be some stretching of the COG line.

Hopefully you can see what is going wrong

Best regards

Ian R

ImagingSource Firewire Modules

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hi, I see you actually now have a module specifically for dealing with Firewire cameras from the ImagingSource.

I don't know if you remember but this is why we originally needed the Bayer module, and that worked pretty well for what we were doing but I would like to test out whether this module does things better.

Currently we are using a DBK 21F04 and in your tutorial you use a DBX-21BF04-Z

The thing that confuses me is, I downloaded the new version of roborealm and also the .robo file associated with the shape matching tutorial. 2 weird things happen. When I open the .robo file, there is no 'firewire camera' module to be seen, and when I do try and add this module back into the robo file pipeline, there are no options coming up for me on the associated pull down menus.

Further to this, do I need to disable the camera in the camera options before using this module, as surely if I have already picked it in options then maybe this would get confused with the actual firewire pipeline?

Cheers

Ian R

GUI Problems

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Why is my ROBO REALM GUI LIKE THE ONE IN THE PICTURE?

vision command system

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

is vision command system compatible wit rcx 1.0. if so how do i go about purchasing the same. since in india there are no lego stores

Image Analysis Help/Limitations?

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST

Hello,

I have an image composed of rectangles (black and red), logos and some text.  I�m try to find where the rectangle (or rectangle corners) on the page.  The text and logo don�t really matter.    Also, some of the rectangles have spurs on the edges

1)    After converting to binary Clean and Spur don�t seem to work on the  whole image (maybe it is too large)
2)    I can�t seem to separate the large (black) and smaller (red) rectangles on the page

-    Any hints

Thanks in advance

-Franklin

Image Analysis Help/Limitations?

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:12:59 EST