From: Sean Seyler (slseyler_at_asu.edu)
Date: Wed Jul 29 2015 - 18:23:35 CDT

Hi John,

Thank you for your reply. I was just checking back to see if you have a
version of VMD compiled against VRPN 7.30 yet. I am planning to give the
Geomagic Touch another go at talking to VMD soon so that I can hopefully
have a workable haptic demonstration by the end of next Monday. Once I give
it another shot, I will post back about the status, successful or not!

Many thanks again,
Sean

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:45 AM, John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu> wrote:

> Hi,
> To get VMD to talk to your VRPN server, you're going to need a VMD that
> has been compiled and linked against VRPN 7.30. Unfortunately, different
> versions of VRPN use incompatible network protocol, and the previous VMD
> builds up to now were compiled against an older rev of VRPN. I should be
> able to get a new Windows build compiled against VRPN 7.30 in the next
> few days, and this should resolve your problem. Once we get this issue
> solved, the file name problem you're having can be overcome several ways.
>
> Cheers,
> John Stone
> vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
>
> On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 02:48:48PM -0700, Sean Seyler wrote:
> > 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
>
>
> --
> NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Phone: 217-244-3349
> http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
>

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