VMD-L Mailing List

From: Sean Seyler (slseyler_at_asu.edu)
Date: Thu Jun 18 2015 - 16:48:48 CDT

Hi all,

I have successfully set up a 3D Systems Geomagic Touch (used to be Sensable
Phantom Omni) haptic device on 64-bit Windows 7 using the latest
OpenHaptics 3.2.2 Toolkit and Geomagic Touch Device Drivers. After much
struggle and some tweaks, I have built a VRPN server (version 7.30) that
seems to play nicely with the Touch device. The Touch device is connected
to the same machine running the server. This was tested by running the
server using an appropriately modified vrpn.cfg file:

vrpn_server.exe -f <path to .cfg file>

The client-side connection was tested using:

vrpn_print_devices.exe Touch_at_localhost

where "Touch" is the device name specified in vrpn.cfg. The output reflects
the correct six DOFs and two buttons present on the Touch device. From
the *Troubleshooting
VRPN* page on the VRPN Github repo: "If the vrpn_print_devices program is
able to connect to your server and run properly, then VRPN is 5 out of 5
for being okay." I take this to mean that the VRPN server works correctly.

The last step is getting VRPN to talk to VMD1.9.2 using a .vmdsensors file;
Windows does not allow file names beginning with ".", and couldn't find if
the naming convention matched that of the .vmdrc/vmd.rc Unix/Windows
convention. I have tried naming this file to both "vmd.sensors" and "
vmdsensors" and placing it in the same location as the vmd.rc file in my
home directory. Here is the file:

### Based on the .vmdsensors file for the Sensable PHANTOM via VRPN
### 3D Systems Geomagic Touch
### The Touch haptic device connected locally to the computer

device phantomtracker vrpntracker://localhost/Touch
scale 10
rot left 0 0 -1 0 1 0 1 0 0
device phantombuttons vrpnbuttons://localhost/Touch
device phantomfeedback vrpnfeedback://localhost/Touch

However, I cannot get VMD's Tools... dialog to populate with the Touch
device names. (Note that I also tried placing these files directly in the
VMD install location in Program Files to no avail.) From reading previous
threads on the mailing list, I see two potential problems:

   1. VMD isn't reading my vmd.sensors or vmdsensors file due to naming
   issues.
   2. VMD is not talking to the VRPN server because the VRPN libs for VMD
   are too old. Two possible solutions:
      - Compile a working version of VMD from source, or
      - Find an older version of VRPN that works with VMD1.9.2's
      client-side VRPN libs

I would greatly appreciate if anyone could shed light on these and/or other
possible issues, and if there are any straightforward ways I can test what
the problem may be.

Many thanks,
Sean 

-- 
Sean L Seyler
Alternate E-mail: sls374_at_cornell.edu
Cell phone: (607) 227-3374