VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Thu Oct 30 2003 - 13:51:51 CST

Cesar,
  Trust me, I wrote the code :-)
If you run the xdriver, it will fight with VMD over who gets to control
the spaceball. The low-level Unix serial driver will let them both talk
to the ball, and each one will get some of the I/O's from the spaceball,
which is why you're getting corrupted spaceball packets, causing the
erratic behavior.
So, to fix your problem:
 1) Turn off the xdriver first.
 2) Once the xdriver is definitely off, you'll need to power-cycle the
    spaceball to reset any crazy values that have been programmed into it
    by the xdriver. If its an older model, the easiest way to do that is
    to unplug the cable from the back of the spaceball. If its a newer
    3003 FLX or 4000 FLX model, you can just unplug it from the computer
    for a moment.
 3) Make sure no VMD instances are running, and close any other spaceball
    aware programs just in case...
 4) Plug the spaceball back in.
 5) Start VMD. The Spaceball should beep when VMD starts, indicating
    that VMD successfully sent it the reset and initialization sequence.
 6) Press the "1" button on the ball, this should reset the VMD view.
    Pressing "2" cycles through the various Spaceball modes in VMD.

Once you've done those steps, you should see that by applying torque
to the Spaceball, you can rotate the VMD axes etc.. If you still have
problems after following these steps, let me know and I'll help you
get it sorted out.

Which Spaceball model are you using by the way?

Thanks,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
    

On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 07:37:15PM +0000, Cesar Delgado wrote:
> The problem is that if I don't start xdriver then the ball, on the
> spaceball, doesn't do anything. The button do work, but all of them just
> send the molecule back to infinity, or at least that is what it seems. When
>
> I start VMD the spaceball beeps just like it does when I start the xdriver.
>
> I don't know if that is good or bad.
>
> -Cesar Delgado
> ---------------------------------------------
> Research Computing Facility @ UNL
> http://rcf.unl.edu
> cdelgad2_at_bigred.unl.edu, beettlle_at_hotmail.com
>
>
>
>
> >From: John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu>
> >To: Cesar Delgado <beettlle_at_hotmail.com>
> >CC: vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >Subject: Re: vmd-l: VMD and Chromium
> >Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 13:28:30 -0600
> >
> >
> >Cesar,
> > Disable the 'xdriver' program, it is interfereing with VMD.
> >You can re-enable the xdriver when you're not using VMD if you need
> >to use the Spaceball with other programs.
> >
> >VMD contains its own spaceball driver and doesn't need to use
> >the xdriver. It directly communicates with the Spaceball over
> >the serial port.
> >
> >Thanks,
> > John Stone
> > vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >
> >
> >
> >On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 06:03:45PM +0000, Cesar Delgado wrote:
> >> We just received a Spaceball to work with. I have it connected to my
> >> development machine for the moment to try the spcaball out. It's a
> >> 3DConnexion spaceball and it came with a driver (xdriver 4.5). I've
> >tried
> >> to run VMD with the driver running and it behaves eraticaly. When I
> >move
> >> the ball around, not pressing any of the buttons, I get these strange
> >> messages in mthe vmd console:
> >>
> >> Info) VMD for LINUX, version 1.8.1 (June 15, 2003)
> >> Info) http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
> >> Info) Email questions and bug reports to vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >> Info) Please include this reference in published work using VMD:
> >> Info) Humphrey, W., Dalke, A. and Schulten, K., `VMD - Visual
> >> Info) Molecular Dynamics', J. Molec. Graphics 1996, 14.1, 33-38.
> >> Info) -------------------------------------------------------------
> >> Info) Multithreading available, 1 CPU detected.
> >> Info) OpenGL renderer: Quadro4 900 XGL/AGP/SSE2
> >> Info) Features: STENCIL MSAA(4) RN MDE CVA MTX TCM PP
> >> Info) Textures: 2-D (4096x4096), 3-D (512x512x512), Multitexture (4)
> >> Info) Opening Spaceball on port: /dev/ttyS0
> >> vmd > Info) Spaceball set to dominant axis rotation/translation mode
> >> Info) Spaceball reset view orientation
> >> Info) Spaceball set to scaling mode
> >> Info) Spaceball set to rotation/translation mode
> >> Info) Spaceball set to dominant axis rotation/translation mode
> >> Info) Spaceball reset view orientation
> >>
> >> I have also tried to run it without the "xdriver" running and letting
> >VMD
> >> take care of talking to the space ball but then the ball doesn't work.
> >Some
> >>
> >> of the buttons do stuff, but that is it.
> >>
> >> Thanks for the help,
> >>
> >> -Cesar Delgado
> >> ---------------------------------------------
> >> Research Computing Facility @ UNL
> >> http://rcf.unl.edu
> >> cdelgad2_at_bigred.unl.edu, beettlle_at_hotmail.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> >From: John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu>
> >> >To: Cesar Delgado <beettlle_at_hotmail.com>
> >> >CC: vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >> >Subject: Re: vmd-l: VMD and Chromium
> >> >Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 02:32:50 -0500
> >> >
> >> >Cesar,
> >> > Interesting, I had forgotten that Chromium still didn't do anything
> >> >with the X mouse cursors etc. An alternative to using the mouse, which
> >> >would
> >> >still be less expensive than a full-up haptic device would be to use
> >> >something
> >> >like a Spaceball or a Magellan, via VRPN. Let me know if you've got
> >one
> >> >in your lab and I can give you further suggestions along those lines.
> >> >Otherwise, I'm not sure that I have any great ideas in the short-term,
> >> >as I'm already swamped debugging various small items before release of
> >> >VMD 1.8.2. Let me know if you've got a Spaceball or a Magellan
> >around..
> >> >
> >> > John
> >> >
> >> >On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 06:13:57PM -0500, Cesar Delgado wrote:
> >> >> I have been using VMD with Chromium with no problems. Now I want to
> >do
> >> >> some IMD on the tiled wall. The problem is that the mouse does not
> >> >> render on the tiled display wall so I don't know where I am pointing
> >> >> which makes it impossible to grab anything.
> >> >>
> >> >> Has anyone ever tried this and found a solution?
> >> >>
> >> >> -Cesar Delgado
> >> >> ---------------------------------------------
> >> >> Research Computing Facility @ UNL
> >> >> <http://rcf.unl.edu> http://rcf.unl.edu
> >> >> <mailto:cdelgad2_at_bigred.unl.edu> cdelgad2_at_bigred.unl.edu,
> >> >> <mailto:beettlle_at_hotmail.com> beettlle_at_hotmail.com
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >--
> >> >NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> >> >Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> >> >University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> >> >Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349
> >> > WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078
> >>
> >> _________________________________________________________________
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> >--
> >NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> >Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> >University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> >Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349
> > WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078
>
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-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349              
  WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/      Fax: 217-244-6078