this is for holding javascript data
Craig Ashley added System Hardware.tex
about 10 years ago
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\subsection{System Walkthrough}
To fully understand the system that has been developed, this section will cover what happens from initial setup to usage from a user perspective.
Firstly, the phidget program must be executed. After this, the full hardware kit contains 3 USB powered devices. All of these must be plugged in in order to proceed with application usage. When all devices have been plugged in, a short delay allows the user to switch to Google Earth and allow the system to fully take control of the system.
When Google earth has been focused and the system has booted completely, the hardware can be used immediately. Firstly, the user will likely want to zoom in to see a closer view of the planet and satellite imagery. To do this, the user would push the slider forward which would emulate a key press on the keyboard and would zoom the view in. To do the opposite, the user can pull the slider back and similarly, the view would zoom out. To stop zooming, the user would place the slider bar somewhere in the middle of the range of motion. This is outside the thresholds and causes no action, and further allows other phidgets access to the system.
The next action a user may want to perform is to navigate around the map in a similar way to using arrow keys. This has been implemented in our system using the circular phidget. The phidget is logically split in software into 8 distinct sections. These sections replicate up, down, left and right and any combination of diagonal movement using these keys. The circular phidget can be very senesitive, so before actually actioning any commands, we first check that a finger or physical contact has been made with the device. When this has been confirmed, the current position is checked against our rules and the actions performed. When the user releases the phidget, the virtual keys are released.
Now that the user can zoom and navigate around, to make use of the new 3D imagery and height mapping available in Google Earth, the joystick has been implemented to look around both vertically and rotate around the z axis. This movement is triggered when the jostick is moved beyond a certain threshold in the x or y axis. When this occurs, the camera can point up or down (by pushing the joystick up or down respectively) as well as look left and right using the same physical pushes on the joystick. This movement is fluid and feels natural in its use.
One of the more interesting features of the system is that of the RFID sensor. We have 3 tags available in the system. Each of these tags has a predefined location within the software upon first run. These work in a way such that when a tag is scanned, an event is fired within the software to detect the unique tag that was scanned. Upon detection, the software will look up the stored location (e.g. Swansea University). We then use a combination of virtual mouse click and keyboard presses to effectively "Search" for the location. This operation is hidden behind the physical screen cover of the system.
Although a great feature, fixed RFID tags can be quite limited in their scope. These may prove to be ideal for a museum style environment, however we decided that in order to develop a system that can cater for a range of environments, we would need to be able to reprogram these tags "on the fly". To demonstrate this, we used the pressure sensor of the phidget kits to effectively act as a reprogramming button. If the button was depressed past a certain threshold, that would tell the software to put the RFID scanner into "reporgramming mode". From here, the system would still operate completely as normal, apart from a visual cue on screen alerting the user that reprogramming mode is active, and the RFID scanner waiting for a tag to be detected. Upon detected a tag, a piece of code would be launched that will automatically action a placemarker within google maps. The coordinates will then be copied to the system clipboard. After this has been done, the coordinates will be parsed correctly into the software and saved to the unique RFID tag. Upon a subsequent detection of that RFID tag, the search would launch for a specific latitude and longitude coordinate saved from before. This produces the desired result of saving and retrieving a location using reporgrammable RFID tags.
We believe that the final system is intuitive and logical in its usage and implementation, and allows a full sense of feedback and interaction to the user.
