FOBTEST

NAME

fobtest — test the connection and setup of an Ascension Flock of Birds system.  

SYNOPSIS

fobtest  

DESCRIPTION

The fobtest program is used to interface with Ascension Technology Flock of Birds (aka FOB) position tracking devices. A Flock of Birds system can consist of up to 32 position trackers (aka birds), of which these can provide position data only, or be equipped with a "birdmouse" which can report button events for the 3 buttons on the device. (NOTE: unfortunately, the buttons on the device cannot be chorded due to a poor design of the birdmouse.)

Data can be "rendered" in one of two ways. By default, tracking data is represented graphically (using a text-graphics method) showing the location and orientation movements away from a zero-point. Alternately, data can be streamed in a line-by-line form with older data scrolling off the top of the screen.

Presently, there are no command-line options, and all parameter adjustments are done through the use of environment variables — this will be corrected in a future version.

The program is terminated by pressing the interrupt key (usually ^C).  

OPTIONS

none (not yet anyway)

ARGUMENTS

none

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

FOB_TTY

Set the serial port to which the Flock is connected. By default the device at "/dev/input/fob" will be used.

FOB_BAUD

Set the baud rate for serial communications with the Flock. The default baud rate is 38400.

FOB_POLL

When set will go into ungrouped polling mode. I.e. it will disable the default stream and group settings. However, it is possible to use grouped poll mode by also setting the FOB_GROUP_ON environment variable.

FOB_GROUP_ON

Enable group mode when set. Group mode sends all the sensor data as a single packet greatly increasing the update rate. Group mode is on by default in Stream mode, and off by default in Poll mode.

FOB_GROUP_OFF

Disable group mode when set (overrides FOB_GROUP_ON variable).

FOB_MOUSE

When set, indicates that an Ascension mouse is active on the given receiver.

FOB_LINERENDER

When set, the output rendering mode changes from the default full-screen mode presentation of the Flock position data to a line based, scrolling output.

EXAMPLES

% fobtest

% setenv FOB_TTY /dev/ttyS3
% setenv FOB_BAUD 115200
% setenv FOB_POLL
% fobtest

% setenv FOB_MOUSE 3
% fobtest  

NOTES

The Flock of Birds uses magnetic pulse technology to calculate the distance and orientation from a transmitting source of electro-magnetic signals. As such, it is negatively affected by ferrous materials in the nearby environment.

Flock of Birds is a trademark of Ascension Technologies Corp.  

BUGS

none reported  

TODO

•

Add command line arguments for setting the settings.

•

Report the frequency of reports (ie. input frame rate) in the screen render mode.

•

Add "reported_unit" as a field to FobUnit, and don't use it to determine where to put the data (since that might cause a core dump). However, we might want to display some warning text when a mismatch occurs.

•

Change FOB_BUTTON to FOB_MOUSE, and use the value to set which receiver has the Ascension Mouse attached.

•

Add an option to fobtest that signifies a limit to how many position inputs should be read before quitting. This may be useful for requesting a data output sample from someone having trouble getting their Flock to run.

•

Write the asc_fob(5FV|7fv) man page.

SEE ALSO

joytest(1fv), eviotest(1fv), vrpntest(1fv), vruiddtest(1fv), dtracktest(1fv), freevr(7fv)

The Ascension web site:

http://www.ascension-tech.com/

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2021, Bill Sherman, All rights reserved. With the intent to provide an open-source license to be named later.

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

ARGUMENTS

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

EXAMPLES

NOTES

BUGS

TODO

SEE ALSO

COPYRIGHT