Arduino Controls View and Data API
05/26/2015
Ever since I started to play with Arduino, I wanted to do something with Arduino connecting with one of products that I work with. But I’m always very slow. Well… Ron Dagdag certainly proved that.
Ron Dagdag is one of winners at the recent AEC Hachathon in Dallas. He used View and Data API, overlaid additional information on top of the viewer screen and used leap motion to control it. He has successfully presented his work at the end of the event. But he also had additional idea of connecting Arduino to the Viewer. He was planning to use flex sensors attached to a glove, and control the viewer with hand gestures. Unfortunately, he couldn’t finish this part within the duration of the Hackthon.
I happened to be exchanging a few e-mails with Ron afterward. He told us that he was able to get Arduino connection to work, too. I got so excited about this news and I asked him if he can make a YouTube video. Ron kindly made one for us to share!
Here is the YouTube video showing his flex sensors on a glove in action. With his glove on, when you makes a fist, a cat appears. (The cat represents the additional information that he is overlaying on top of the viewer. Use your imagination --- when you are looking into a Google cardboard, and suddenly a cat jumps on you :-).
Ron Dagdag experimenting his Arduino, Leep Mortion, and View and Data API integration work.
I have a flex sensor in my Arduino starter kits. As a newbie of Arduino, I was wondering what we can do with it. Seeing Ron's example of putting on a glove was another learning experience for me and confirming my lack of imagination.
For those who are interested in finding out more about what Ron has done, you can find his code on his github: https://github.com/rlyle78/VR-Steve
Below is a little bit of additional information from Ron in his words:
I was using NodeJS and CylonJS to connect to Arduino and Leapmotion.
Events trigger from littleBits Arduino module, then passed along to VR web clients using sockets.
Here are some helpful links:
http://cylonjs.com/documentation/platforms/arduino/
http://cylonjs.com/documentation/platforms/leapmotion/
http://cylonjs.com/documentation/api/socket-io/
Many thanks to Ron for sharing this interesting work!
Mikako