Processing

Arduino, Processing and sensors Part 2

| Wendy

In my search for up-to-date tutorials on connecting sensors to Processing I found a few valuable threads.
They are clear, the code is GPL, the aesthetics are – well I guess not my taste – but opinions are very easy to get by – good tutorials – less easy to find (=a critical compliment). Jeremy goes a step further than the usual Hello World “Blink a led sketch”. I didn’t do what he does at 20 years old.

He starts with an introduction to Arduino:
http://jeremyblum.com/category/arduino-tutorials/

In tutorial 6 he already goes from receiving information from a sensor to sending out serial information for Processing to receive.
Tutorial 7 continues on this visualizing sensor information thread.

These two tutorials combined with this one from the Arduino playground website, will hopefully enable me to visualize my flex sensor data – my deadline is tonight. (Gloups – Gulp – Slik)

Found through the use of a search engine and this blogpost.

Arduino, Processing and sensors 1

| Wendy

I want to visualize some date from real world sensors to my computer – they are self-made variable resistors.  For this I need to flash software on the Arduino chip, have the right libraries and use particular sketches in Processing.

Before you get to the Processing software part, you need to install Arduino. The instructions on how to do this are really good and they are here:

You can choose for adding Arduino to your repositories, or you can install the software manually.

These introductory films give you a clear insight into this construction, on how the microcontroller counts on a library and how the software depends on that too . They do however bluntly tell you that, when you work with Linux, you are on your own..  Boo!

The Arduino playground wiki is a bit confusing, but it does complement the video and one of the errors I got kindly referred me to the Processing wiki.

Here I’ll go over some Linux (in my case Ubuntu) & Processing quirks:

– Processing needs Java – if you are running Ubuntu: here I found the best tips.

– Obstacle number two to get Processing running, is making this executable:

-> Click right on the file and choose properties

Whereas you just have to choose the following – Allow executing file as a program:

Now your Processing file is executable: just double click and choose Run (it is a bash script)

– Apparently Compiz – fancy 3D graphics  – can give you trouble – so it’s best to turn it off.

– Proecssing needs Java -> you need to choose between OpenJDK of Sun Java -> when you choose Open JDK, you always get this error when you start Processing. It does work!

– The next tutorial I’m following is Arduino meets Processing, physical computing and computer graphics, which dates from 2005, so I’ll check the strength of their tutorial (6 years old seems like an eternity in tutorialland…).
** Update ** This tutorial is outdated!
Go Arduino, Processing and sensors 2 for more up-to-date links.