Yoohoo! My prototype works wonderfully. I have multiple gl objects tracking multiple ir points.
Using: WiimoteWhiteboard for MAC, receiving TUIO in MAX and controlling objects in jitter.
Thanks!
ke10
I tried this on a computer running Leopard, and it works as well or better than Johnny’s version did. It may be a fluke, but it was impressive the way it worked right away.
WOW, what a great piece of software! Thanks a LOT!
Anybody tried to put a pressure switch (à la drawing tablet pens) to trigger the IR LED insted of a push button switch?
As a maths teacher, I’d REALLY like to write with my pen (and save my school a thousand dollars or so), but it’s somewhat complicated for me to get used to push and release the switch each letter I write on the board.
Thanks!
Luc
This math teacher here:
http://www.wiimoteproject.com/wiimote-whiteboard/0-learning-curve-durable-light-pen/msg2235/#msg2235
built an IR pen with a pressure switch. I’m thinking of making one like it.
That’s exactly what I had in mind… except my idea would probably have implied the use of much, much more elecric tape :p
I just wanted to let you know that I’m still alive and reading the messages here :) I’m kinda busy with another (not Wiimote-related) project for about one more week or so.
TUIO seems to work fine, nobody complained so far. What do you think should be improved next? (e.g. support for multiple Wiimotes to improve reliability, localization)
Any other problems or ideas, which are not directly related to my software, are best addressed at the wiimoteproject.com forums. I don’t mind discussing them here but you’ll reach a lot more people there.
Uwe
Hi
I’m having trouble getting tuio messages working - I’m familiar with the protocol (I use reactivision already), but am getting nothing in host apps with tuio enabled - mouse is being controlled fine - should I see anything in the log that will help me troubleshoot tuio?
Cheers
Nick
of course as I post it started working - no idea what made it start where it wasn’t before.
Thanks for the great app.
Nick
I’m a student teacher currently working in a district that only has Macintosh computers running osx. They have a neat student response system called Qwizdom that turns any keynote presentation into a multiple choice exam/quiz. The students then use a small rf remote to respond with their answers. Anyway, what I would like to do is somehow be able to present the slides and be able to draw on them. I can do this in powerpoint, but currently I’m limited to keynote. Is there anyway I can accomplish this? I tried this program, but it doesn’t want to work :( http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/highlight.html Many thanks! -Mark
It occurs to me that following on what lee has done, it would be good to have two pens a red (LEFT) and a blue (RIGHT) pen. Both will have switches. Then the left switch can be used as a left_mouse_button click and the right switch can be the right_mouse_click.
Multitouch can begin by doing the following: Within the frame of an open window, with both pens lighted, a horizontal/vertical/diagonal increasing/decreasing separation would scale up/down the window horizontally/vertically/diagonally.
The same would then hold for any other window. Of course fancier manipulations would be difficult under standard 2D window managers.
Possible to incorporate these ideas into your software?
Unfortunately, I’m not a software guy.
Thanks Great work. I’m still waiting for my components to arrive to build my own!
Hi Mark,
the program Highlight you mentioned worked just fine for me under Leopard. I couldn’t test it with Keynote since I don’t have it installed on my machine. I found the commercial software Desktastic when someone previously asked about drawing on the desktop.
Uwe
Hi,
It occurs to me that following on what lee has done, it would be good to have two pens a red (LEFT) and a blue (RIGHT) pen. Both will have switches. Then the left switch can be used as a left_mouse_button click and the right switch can be the right_mouse_click.
The problem is to distinguish between multiple pens. You talk about a red and a blue pen but how is the software knowing which light dot belongs to which pen? I agree that it would open up possibilities to have multiple distinguishable pens. But this is not possible with simple “on/off” IR pens.
Even if I had the possibility to do it, I wouldn’t incorporate into my software. I would instead recommend to make an independent application that makes use of the TUIO multitouch messages to accomplish the desired behavior.
Just my 2 cents, Uwe
Hey! I was wondering if you can use 2 wiimotes - I have a large projected area I’d like to cover. I believe Johnny Lee had said multiple wiimotes would give you better camera resolution. Can you do that with this software?
Thanks!
Evan
Hi Evan,
I already thought about adding this feature. It would help in case the Wiimote’s view to the IR pen is blocked from a certain angle (case 1), or to cover a larger area as you pointed out (case 2). It could also be used to track the location of the IR pen in 3D (case 3) like they did here, especially check out the video.
Case 1 and 2 are substantially easier to do but there are still several questions: Support only 2 or even more Wiimotes? What if the position data coming from the Wiimotes differ? * Average them? * Favor data from a particular Wiimote? * Calibrate all Wiimotes at once or one after another? * All at once isn’t possible if a Wiimote only covers part of a screen (1). * All at once would be best in case multiple Wiimotes are used to cover the same area (2).
Did I miss something? Any other thoughts?
One last problem is simply that I just have a single Wiimote. And I don’t see myself buying another one just to add this feature (that I will hardly use). Don’t get me wrong, I really like improving the Whiteboard program. But “donating” money besides my spare time to this (non-profit) project is currently not an option for me.
Uwe
All very valid points. Not sure how the calibration would work. I built a IR pen, and have this working on my wall through my projector. It’s pretty good. Maybe a brighter LED would help. I’d buy you another wiimote plus some if you’re interested in making it work!!! It’s incredible and I have a real world use for this. I’m wanting to cover a 12’ by 10’ area or so with projection and be able to draw on it.
Thanks!
Evan
I’m assuming you need 4 points per remote to get the math to work out, If they were only covering parts of the screen (a 1/2 each, or so), could there just be a 8 point calibration? would that give the ones that didn’t see some of the points would still have enough to convert to a mouse pointer reading?
Evan
I am a big fan of the idea of 2 WiiMotes covering the same area for greater accuracy.
blockquote>I’d buy you another wiimote plus some if you’re interested in making it work!!!
Thanks for the offer, but I explained in a previous post that I do not accept donations as a form of payment for requested features. However, I don’t have a problem to use donated money towards the improvement of the software on my terms.
Having said that, I will use the first 40€ (currently about $63) to buy another Wiimote and then try to get it working with multiple Wiimotes. I make no guarantees whatsoever if or when it will work.
I will of course keep you all updated about the amount of donations I receive. So anyone feel free to make a donation if you accept my conditions.
Uwe
I’m sure everyone agrees with me, but I certainly appreciate all the work you’ve put in to this, and will gladly accept anything you decide to do in the future! That being said, I’ll send you a donation so you may be able to keep it up. Are all the wiimotes the same? You could probably find it for cheaper off a USA site - not sure if they’d mail to where you are though. They are only $39.99 in the states. I’ll check back regularly!
Thanks again,
Evan
Thank you for your generous donation of 60 euros. No more money is thus required to buy me a second Wiimote. Although I don’t mind if anyone still wants to donate :)
Are all the wiimotes the same? You could probably find it for cheaper off a USA site - not sure if they’d mail to where you are though. They are only $39.99 in the states.
All Wiimotes are the same as far as I know. It is very common though that electronics here in Germany cost roughly the same amount in euros than they cost in dollars in the US. I intended to buy the Wiimote at Amazon.de for 40€ and I can’t get it much, if at all, cheaper at a Germany store. I’m pretty sure that buying from a US site will cost me more in the end because of shipping and it also has to go through customs.
I’ll check back regularly!
You can also subscribe to the recent changes feed instead of checking my site manually.
Uwe
Hello,
At first thx for this superb application! It’s just awesome how well the IR pens work.
Now, I had fun with this app, I want to use it for a VJ project. Just a small patch in vvvv to build a kind of drawing application to live-paint on events.
I read some articles about TUIO, and I understand that it’s kind of OSC. vvvv can handle OSC perfect, but lacks in full TUIO support like I read in the vvvv forum. But sometimes people had luck and were able to receive some messages with the OSCdecoder
ke10 wrote, he could handle the TUIO messages in MaxMSP also as OSC messages. Maybe ke10 or Uwe can give a some further information on this topic, or anybody else who has maybe handled this nice whiteboard application with vvvv.
The TUIO messages are send to the whole network aren’t they? Because in darwiinRemoteOSC I have to specify the receiving IP adress.
Thx in advance, keep on the good work on this helpful app! Gerfried
Hi Gerfried,
TUIO is just OSC in a certain format as far as I can know. I have no experience at all with programs like vvvv (haven’t even heard of it before) but I guess you have to decode the TUIO messages somehow and extract the information you’re interested in. I posted an example of TUIO messages the whiteboard software sends out here.
The TUIO messages are send to the whole network aren’t they? Because in darwiinRemoteOSC I have to specify the receiving IP adress.
No, they are actually sent to the local machine only (localhost). I could add the option to have them transmitted to another computer if you’re interested.
Uwe
I would really like to know how you all make use of the whiteboard software. Could you send in pictures (with optional short description) showing you in action with the program? I thought about making a gallery and putting it on this webpage. For instance, teachers could make pictures from their classroom. But it doesn’t really matter if you’re a teacher, an artist, or just playing with it for fun. Click here for my email address.
What do you think?
Uwe
Here is my suggestion for how to work with multiple wiimotes in 2D (case 1 and case 2). Rather than have to set the software in advance to distinguish between the two cases, I would use the calibration to determine how much overlap there is: start with 4 points and if both wiimotes can see all four, use only those points. During use, if both wiimotes can see the pen, use the average position to improve accuracy. If you want to take this further, you could use a weighted average based on how much of each wiimote’s field of view is being used (so that the “better” wiimote has more influence). If only one wiimote can see the pen, use that position (helps if the presenter stands in the wrong place).
If when calibrating, each wiimote can only see two corner points, then they are being used to cover a wider area. In this case, each one needs another two points (the same two), which could be chosen to be halfway along the screen (making it a six point calibration). if at that point they don’t both register, there should be an error as the wiimotes’ field of view does not overlap.
Hope that makes sense. It sounds complicated but it might keep the user experience as simple as possible.
Thanks for your reply Uwe.
I think I’m on the right way to decode the TUIO messages, since I have been working with the OSC decoder for a while now. The solution to my problem I can’t receive TUIO messages is obvious: I tried to receive them on another computer, since vvvv is running on Windows. I would really appreciate it if you could implement the feature, sending TUIO messages to another computer (IP adress) like darwiinosc does (http://code.google.com/p/darwiinosc/downloads/list).
My setup at the moment is the following one: wiimote -> MacBook receiving with darwiinosc -> sending via OSC/LAN to Server -> decoding and using paramteters with vvvv Now I would add another MacBook using Wiimote Whiteboard to also send OSC data to my vvvv application running on the server.
IF you want to implement the feature, can you maybe post an estimation when this could be done? Otherwise I would write an Processing app, receiving TUIO on localhost, resending it to server.
Thanks in advance! Gerfried
Hi Oliver,
thanks for suggestions. I also thought about this and agree that calibrating all Wiimotes at once is the most user-friendly way to do it. Experimenting will show which averaging strategy actually works best during use. I’ll let the user choose among them if there are several good candidates.
Uwe
Hi Gerfried,
I don’t really understand why you want to forward it to another machine, but that’s alright :) Maybe you can send me a picture of the whole thing once it is working.
_IF_ you want to implement the feature, can you maybe post an estimation when this could be done?
Implementing this feature shouldn’t take too much time. When do you need it?
Otherwise I would write an Processing app, receiving TUIO on localhost, resending it to server.
I found this article on how to tunnel UDP over SSH to another machine. While I assume this would work from Mac to Mac, Windows doesn’t come with the tools in order to do it. This could be a (temporary) solution for you if it even can be done on Windows (try for instance Cygwin), you’re a command line hacker and want to get it working now.
Uwe
The reason is simple: Wiimote Whiteboard runs on Mac OSX without any problems. The windows app doesn’t run as stable and perfect (on our Mac Books on Windows we can’t get the wiimote to work). Our VJ app is done in vvvv whichs only has Windows support. We want to include livepainting on projections. So we need to transfer the pen movement data to the Windows machine.
If we want to implement this livepainting feature, we need to start within the next two weeks.
Of course I can send you some pictures. For information on ongoing development visit http://www.lichtarbeit.li/.
Greets and Thanks! Gerfried
Changes: TUIO host and port now configurable added batch file and shell script to start the cross-platform JAR file
Uwe
Wow… You’re awesome! I’ll try it in the afternoon and post some first results.
Greets Gerfried
One further thought is that while multiple wiimotes will help with the issue of obscuring one of them while in use, it’s really important not to do this while doing calibration, or the system will get very confused. It would be worth putting a message on screen for the user to highlight this.
Just thought I’d follow up. I finally got the keynote software to work with it, but I had to use Scriboard. http://www.macmax.org I don’t know if it ever expires or anything like that. Thanks for making the porting the program Uwe
I love your program. I use a Windows PC running XP with a Widcomm stack, and I’m using an IOgear Bluetooth adapter, and it worked perfectly for me. In fact, so far it seems to be the best “Wiimote Whiteboard” Program I’ve tried so far in terms of smoothness of lines and ease of use. Thank you for this great app.
This is amazing! I have been waiting for the Mac version…so glad that there are people who are smarter than me to figure this out and share with the rest of us. I posted a video of my Wiimote Whiteboard on my blog http://ilearntechnology.com. Feel free to link to it. I am so excited right now I can’t even stand it! You made me a hero today with my students :-)
It’s great to hear that you all like the software. I will add a page with links when I have some time. I’m currently adding support for two Wiimotes and hope to have another release soon.
Uwe
Hi Uwe,
I’ve been reading all the nice comments and about the features of your programm but I can’t get it to run :-( When the app is starting it ends with an error saying it failed to connect because not soported on winsock. :(
I’m pasting bellow all the code:
E:\WII_WHITEBOARD\WiimoteWhiteboard_UWE_JAVA>java -jar WiimoteWhiteboard.jar
BlueCove version 2.0.3-SNAPSHOT on winsock
19/04/2008 06:29:45 PM wiiremotej.WiiRemoteDiscoverer getWiiRemote
GRAVE: Error getting device!
java.io.IOException: WiiRemote failed to connect!
at wiiremotej.WiiRemote.construct(WiiRemote.java:301)
at wiiremotej.WiiRemote.
at com.intel.bluetooth.BluetoothStackMicrosoft.l2OpenClientConnection(Bl
uetoothStackMicrosoft.java:657)
at com.intel.bluetooth.BluetoothL2CAPClientConnection.
at com.intel.bluetooth.BluetoothStackMicrosoft.l2OpenClientConnection(Bl
uetoothStackMicrosoft.java:657)
at com.intel.bluetooth.BluetoothL2CAPClientConnection.
Hi Efex,
the program is not working with the “winsock” Bluetooth stack that comes with Windows XP by default. If possible, try using the WIDCOMM stack. Your last chance may be BlueSoleil if this also fails.
WiiRemoteJ is used to connect to the Wiimote over Bluetooth. If it works on your system, my program will work too. The WiiRemoteJ forum might help to solve your problem.
Good luck, Uwe
Hallo Uwe, wäre es möglich zwei Wii Remote so zu verwenden, dass jeweils in zwei Ecken eines Vierecks eine Wii Remote sich befindet. Ich hatte mir das Ebeam interaktiv Usb System gekauft. Ich finde die Handhabung sehr schön, da ich den Empfänger direkt auf das Whiteboard befestigen kann. Die Genauigkeit beim Ebeam kommt hier wahrscheinlich durch die Verwendung von Ultraschall und IR Sender. Ich dachte mir nun, wenn man zwei Wii Remote verwendet, so müsste man nicht die 45° einhalten und könnte die Wii Remote waagerecht zur Wand verwenden. Leider verstehe ich nichts vom programmieren und könnte die Einbindung von zwei Wii Remote Empfängern nicht selbst umsetzen. Die Frage ist, ob diese geplant ist oder ob du dies langfristig umsetzen könntest.
Andre
Can you share more information on how you are using the Apple Remote as an IR Pen?
Craig G.
Thank you from some great software. As a Tech Coordinator for a K-12 School District this project is very exciting. I do have a question, I was wondering if anyone else has tried a different IR camera? The reason I ask is not because I love the wii remote for what it does, many of the students that see it are become more excited to see there type of technology being used in the school. I ask because I would want to use a camera that doesn’t run on batteries. I have been looking and have not seen anything available. For the price it seems that the wii remote will be the best priced, even with a case of batteries, but was just checking to see if anyone else has thought of this.
P.S. Nice Website. I love seeing Drupal used.
Hi Andre,
I would first of all appreciate if you could post in English since less than 10% of visitors are from Germany. On to your question about using two Wiimotes:
As far as I understand you want something similar to case 3 that I explained in a previous post. If so, support for this is currently not planned. The next release of the software will support cases 1 and 2 of the aforementioned post.
Uwe
Hi Ben,
I’m pretty sure you won’t find anything comparable to the Wiimote for this low price. The major advantage of using a Wiimote is that the image processing (to find the 4 brightest IR dots) is actually done on the Wiimote itself. It only transmits the coordinates of those points which takes very low bandwidth in comparison to sending raw images.
I ask because I would want to use a camera that doesn’t run on batteries. […], but was just checking to see if anyone else has thought of this.
Other people have thought of this before. Here you go:
Uwe
I went to BigLots and picked up a $5.00 AC universal adapter, turned it to 3V, and put the 9V leads on the battery leads on the WiiMote, using balled-up tinfoil to make contact. I used a couple of confiscated erasers I’d harked from my students (hey, if they play with it in class, it’s a toy, and it’s mine!) to maintain pressure of the 9V leads to the battery leads. I no longer have to climb on a table and check the batteries every day anymore! It’s wonderful.
Another thing I’m sick of is swapping batteries in my IR pens. I don’t want to use USB cables. I tried putting a rechargeable battery in the wiipen and using bent paper-clips to run from the charger leads to the battery nodes through some holes I’d drilled in the case. It worked, but the batteries I was using are way crappy so it didn’t work well. I’m sure it will work well once I get over being too cheap to spring for some new rechargeable AAs.
I had a closer look at Andre’s post, using my rusty German and a web search for the Ebeam product. It throws up another potential use of multiple wiimotes which I’ll describe here:
The two wiimotes are close to co-planar with the white board. Each one can see the entire board and they are sufficiently far apart to resolve the position of the IR source in 2D (on the two top corners, for example). Each wiimote is effectively just reporting a 1D coordinate, so the maths should be fairly straightforward.
The benefit is that the user is unlikely to obscure the pen and sources away from the board can be ignored. The problem is that the wiimotes’ field of view is about 45 degrees (accordingly to Johnny Lee, haven’t test it myself) whereas 90 degrees would be better for this setup. This could be sorted by putting them further away from the board.
Does this program allow me to use 2 pens and manipulate the screen with more than 1 point?
Hi Uwe,
I tried to use the programs you recommended. Widcomm doesn’t recognize my usb bluetooth adapter. Bluesoleil works fine. I can connect mi wiimote to computer with it, but when I run your wiimotedesktop, it says wiimote failed to connect because bluesoleil doesn’t support it. Does it mena that I can’t get to run your application ??
Thanks
@Efex: Note that WiiremoteJ handles the whole connection - it will fail if you have already connected to your wiimote. Having said that, there are lots of issues of compatibility between adapters and drivers. The wiiremoteJ forum is one place to look for advice, but the consensus there seems to be that the Widcomm drivers are the most likely to work (but check which version because the latest Widcomm drivers don’t work with all Bluetooth chipsets but earlier versions do). Johnny’s original program uses a library that’s compatible with a wider variety of Windows setups, so that’s the best bet for general windows use, but it has fewer of the advanced features that Uwe has built / is building into his software.
Hi ! I’m using ubuntu 7.04 and trying to use your soft, but it dont work…
I have this message : Bluetooth failed to initialize. There is probably a problem with your local Bluetooth stack or API.
I try same kind of soft writen in pyton and it work perfectely. So I think my bluetooth work perfectely.
Can you help me ?