New Chapter Using the P5 Glove

[Andrew Davison]

Dear All,

I've just put a new chapter online at the Killer Game Programming in Java website. It's about using the P5 Virtual Reality Glove as an input device. I use it to drive a first-person shooter around a scene and shoot a gun, without touching the keyboard!

It's chapter 28.10 near the bottom of the page at
  http://fivedots.coe.psu.ac.th/~ad/jg/

Comments are appreciated.

- Andrew

[Jeff]

Cool!  I have one of these!  Ill have to look to see how you implmented the input....

[Jeff]

 The last sentance of your cahpter is, at bear minimum, very incomplete.

Any input device *can* be made available through JINput.  All you need to do for a non-standard one is to write a plug-in for it.  This is the root of why  JInput supports an arbitrary number of plug-ins that are3 discoverd at run-time.  You already have just about all the code you need to write the plug-in pre-existing in the Kenner API.

If I ever get the time (not likely) I might take a crack at it.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Andrew Davison]

The last sentence is:
"Unfortunately, the P5 glove's novel input features (e.g. its (x,y,z) position, pitch, yaw, roll, finger bends, LEDs, and buttons) are not available to JInput."

I can see your point, but I meant that, with the current JInput installation, the P5 glove cannot be fully 'seen'.

The steps required to write a plug-in would make for an interesting article. Is that information available anywhere? I might try to do it myself if I knew where to start.

- Andrew

[Andrew Davison]

Jeff,

I've modified the last part of the JInput section in the chapter to include your comments.

- Andrew

[Jeff]

The last sentence is:
"Unfortunately, the P5 glove's novel input features (e.g. its (x,y,z) position, pitch, yaw, roll, finger bends, LEDs, and buttons) are not available to JInput."

I can see your point, but I meant that, with the current JInput installation, the P5 glove cannot be fully 'seen'.

Well properly, its that "the current default Win32 plug in only shows what DirectInput sees.  The current default L:inux plug-in shows whats discoverable over USB.  The Current default OSX plug-in shows what is doiscoverable by the HID manager."

The steps required to write a plug-in would make for an interesting article. Is that information available anywhere? I might try to do it myself if I knew where to start.

Um... beyond the Java Docs and the source to the three existing plug-ins, no I dont think there is much other documentation currently, sorry.  Endolf did the Linux plugin and SWP the Mac plug-in by using the Win32 plug-in as an example...

- Andrew

[Bombadil]

A lot of work went into that nice book.
Thanks a lot, Andrew.
I'm going to read more chapters whenever I find time.

[swpalmer]

Endolf did the Linux plugin and SWP the Mac plug-in by using the Win32 plug-in as an example...

Gregory Pierce (a former regular here that hasn't been around in a long time) did the initial OS X plugin.  I tinkered with it a bit and helped in a small way with some testing, but I never checked in any code.  Greg's work was picked up by Endolf or Elias, I'm not sure which.

I'm still trying to follow the project, but "real life" keeps getting in the way.

[Jeff]

Endolf did the Linux plugin and SWP the Mac plug-in by using the Win32 plug-in as an example...

Gregory Pierce (a former regular here that hasn't been around in a long time) did the initial OS X plugin. 

That right, my memory glitched.

GP and SWP are both old trimers here

[swpalmer]

I remember back in the day when we had to trim with only one's and zero's.  That was some hard trimming I tell you.  No clipping shapes or anything like that.. if you wanted a clean edge you had to do all the trimming manually.

 

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[darkprophet]

you could just use a pair of scissors