Blog

Vuforia Image Tracking on HoloLens 2 for Robot Controls (Test / WIP)

A test mashup of Vuforia Image Tracking on HoloLens 2 using Unity with “clipboard bound” MRTK buttons. The buttons control a custom hexapod robot (Rocco) via serial commands over Bluetooth. It’s great on PC but slow on lens. I bet there are options within Vuforia, or it needs interpolation for this use case. Pardon his…

Hand Tracking as Controller Input for HoloLens 2

Hand tracking as fake controller input for automatic grab using MRTK. This is an experimental adaptation of Earnest Robot’s “Auto Hand – VR” on the Unity asset store and its XR demo scene. Can’t wait to see multiplayer carnival games at virtual conference networking events!

Handsfree Omnidirectional VR Motorcycle Simulation

A prototype handsfree SteamVR simulation created in Unity for testing weight distribution and wearability of custom VR helmet(s). The user controls the speed and direction of a virtual motorcycle using the gyroscopic sensor in a Vive VR headset or cell phone via RiftCat. Developed for and in collaboration with Cyreana Foulk and Chris Foulk.

Interactive Holographic Running Water Prototype

A prototype demonstration of physics based running water with hand interaction in Unity on HoloLens 2 using the Screen Space Fluids (SSF) asset (particle system + compute shader).

Leap Motion (Ultraleap) – Unity Hands

Testing Leap Motion controller for hand tracking and hand physics inside the Unity editor (play mode). Deploying to HoloLens 2 takes a few minutes each time and a specific process to prevent errors. Less deployments is better, especially if you just want to tweak something small. Unity 2018.4.24f1(2019.3.15f1 works too)MRTK v2.4 + Hand Physics ExtensionLeap…

Rocco – 2019 Update

Still working on this guy… sorry no video at this time. He was assembled enough to execute some motion presets that I added to the code, but there are some interference issues and possibly one or two servos that don’t work quite right. I took him back apart to work on shielding but got pulled…

Rocco – Controls and Connection

Controls The videos below are demonstrations of the potentiometer and a few other commands.  The potentiometer controls the interval value when turned left or right (as does “i##”).  You can also see some examples of the other commands that Rocco accepts as input in the first video.  I am pasting a sequence of motion pre-sets…

Rocco – Circuit and Arduino

Servo Power Supply I had a left over power supply with a molex connector on the end that can put out 5V @ 2A or 12V @ 2A.  I am using it at 5V to independently power the servos collectively.  I also re-purposed a female molex to 2-pin adapter to get the power to the…

Rocco – Frame and Parts

Rocco was designed in Tinkercad.  The model can be found here:  https://tinkercad.com/things/i91TkKbNDc9 It should not be printed to a 3D printer currently because the holes don’t line up quite right.  When I started assembling the first leg I had to widen most of the holes and even move some of them.  This is possibly because…

Rocco – Servos

At first I thought I was going to get full size servos for this project, but the lowest price I saw for those was around $10 per servo, which would have added $180 to the project before it even got started.  I did not want to make that kind of commitment never having worked with…

Rocco – Code and Slow/Fast Movement

Rocco is built on an Arduino, which is a development board and environment that can read data from sensors and run code written in C.  The code for this project is located on GitHub here:https://github.com/levans88/Rocco The main focus of the code right now is to read input over a serial connection and execute appropriate functions…

Rocco – A Hexapod Robot

For a few years now I have been seeing hexapod robots show up on sites like Hack-A-Day and in my search results.  Some are custom, built from scratch robots made with wood, or professionally cut aluminum, and others are kits that can be bought and assembled from RC/Hobby shops and robotics web sites. Here are…

Final Touch Screen Video

The project is complete!  This may be the last post regarding the touch screen, though it is possible that someday it will get its own mini ITX board. Also, there was an article about a partnership between AMD and BlueStacks that is making Android apps available on the PC (if you have an AMD chip).…

Functional Cosmetics

I successfully added the black poster board to the screen face over the past couple of nights.  It will block a lot of the LED light from shining in the user’s eyes.  There will be a border on the back as well, to block the visible light from going to the camera.  I used poster board…

Touch Screen v2 Update 5-6-2012

Updates: Shell (enclosure) builtPS3 eye camera modified with a 2.1mm m12 lens from PeauProductionsLaser control assembly mountedCamera mountedLaser safety perimeter built (but not safe yet, needs to be blacked out)Tested and working! (torn down again though so I can black out some parts) This is a video of the “Fire” flash demo app, I believe…

Touch Table v2 Update

I have completed quite a few changes to the touch table lately.  There was a height problem with the lasers – I’m not sure it is completely fixed but it does seem a lot better.  I had to add a layer of thin plexiglass below the screen layer, but not the lasers, in order to…

Touch Table v2

My inverter board died and I had to find another method to edge light the acrylic, so now, the main surface of the table is a back light itself.  There is an LED ribbon around the edge and the edge has been sanded and torched with a MAPP gas torch so it is smooth and…

Half-QWERTY (Mirrored) Keyboard

Finally getting around to posting this… a while ago I started work on a “half QWERTY” keyboard or “mirrored” keyboard script.  The script makes the left half of the keyboard equal the right half of the keyboard when the space bar is held down (instead of just pressed).  The idea eventually evolved and I added…

LCD Back Light Revival

I finally got tired of my main PC monitor flickering and turning off on me. I decided to open it up and see what the problem was. I suspected bad capacitors, because that is a cause for the symptoms it was experiencing. The screen would “flicker” when first turned on, until it would reach a…

Microsoft Touch Pack – Rebound

I actually got distracted playing this game!  I also played Mahjong for a few minutes but that makes for a very boring video.  Check out Rebound:

Touch Screen StarCraft

I am continually finding new apps/games/uses for my table, and I decided to check out an RTS, namely old school StarCraft.  I think I had heard of someone doing this before.  I never played the game very much so it doesn’t matter to me that it is likely impossible to be competitive without a keyboard.…

Windows 7 Multi Touch HID Driver

My homemade touch table is working very well now, and I got the Win7 HID driver from multitouchvista.codeplex.com to work correctly.  I changed some general settings in Windows to make it more usable with a less precise pointer like increasing the window button size, showing large icons everywhere, and setting everything to single-click instead of double.…

Broadcast Satellite Zelda (BS Zelda)

A few weeks ago I read an article on reddit that it was the 25th anniversary of the Zelda series. I play games but not that many new ones lately. I still love the classics and can’t decide which is my favorite, A Link to the Past or Super Metroid… Anyway the article was hosted…

Laptop PS/2 Touchpad to Modular USB Touchpad

Originally when I was working on the Wiimote part of my touch table, I was tired of needing a mouse.  I wondered if I could harvest a touch pad from an old laptop to mount on the edge of the table, and as it turns out, yes! However, I ended up using the laptop and…

Aixiz Laser Mounts

Progress has slowed on the multi-touch table, too many projects I think, and it’s probably time to clean up my workspace a little.  I did get my laser mounts from Aixiz.  They were made specifically for the 30mm Aixiz lasers and they were $3.50 each.  I need some shorter screws for them though, the supplied…

Boneyard Winner – Reviving an old laptop using a CF card and EWF

*** I was never able to solve the problem of filling up the memory when using EWF, needs either more research or more memory (with the understanding that reboots will be mandatory periodically) ***  *** You can skip most of these items if you have a CD-Rom attached to the computer that is getting the…

Fire Flash App Demo

Testing another flash application on my table. Original from October 25th, 2010 *Update from May 6th, 2012*

Wiimote Whiteboard Testing

In keeping with the theme of every post being out of order, here are some videos of the near beginning of the touch table building process.  I say “near” because I first built an MTmini as a test.  I later found a whole bunch of information about people using Wii remotes as cameras in order…

Working Multi-Touch Table

After about a year of planning, reading, and breaking things, I finally have a minimally functional table.  There are a ton of issues but it works much better than expected at this point. Specs: ~15-17 inch LCDLLP (Laser Light Plane) method, two 10mw 850nm IR lasers from Aixiz via Peau ProductionsCCV v1.3 (Community Core Vision)PS3…

Touch Table Photos

It was pretty hard to find an end table with a cabinet that looked decent.  As it turns out, it wasn’t a very good solution because it’s difficult to use in every position.  Oh well, it is a prototype. Original back-light, not being used at the time of this post.  The grid lines in the…