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mavis webcam code JGCASEY 09-07-2006
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Posted by JGCASEY on September 7, 2006, 7:52 pm

Hi,

Has anyone being using the Mavis code,

http://robinhewitt.com/mavis/index.html

with respect to the Leaf robot project,

http://members.cox.net/rbirac/

?


I was interested in using it and wondered
if any other hobby robotists have already
done so and in particular what language
they used with the dll?

My problem as a Basic and c programmer is
deciding what c++ compiler to use and where
to find suitable tutorials on win32 using
that compiler.

I have *played* with vc5 but the teach
yourself vc5 in 21 days didn't really help.
It is also incompatible with the vc6
examples I find on the net.

The latest free vc++.net 2005 express I find
in incompatatible with everything before it
including vc++.net 2003. There is a conversion
program but it always seems to fail. I haven't
found a tutorial for vc 2005.net

I have downloaded Dev-cpp but again there is
a lack of compiler specific tutorials for
that product as well.

I was able to run the CImage demos with it
and they are rather good. The vc.net 2003 demo
failed because I have vc.net 2005.

http://cimg.sourceforge.net/

However they forgot to add a GrabImage() from
a webcam method :)

--
John


Posted by Gordon McComb on September 8, 2006, 1:15 am
Your best bet is to contact Robin herself. She can probably tell you who
is using it. She also wrote a multi-part article for SERVO magazine
you'll want to find as well.

She wrote the DLL in C++, but you can use any programming language that
can interface to a standard Win32 flat DLL. That's the benefit of a
Windows DLL; it doesn't matter what language the person used to code it.
You do not need C, unless that's the language of choice for you. VB6 or
VB5 could just as easily use those DLLs.

-- Gordon



JGCASEY wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Has anyone being using the Mavis code,
>
> http://robinhewitt.com/mavis/index.html
>
> with respect to the Leaf robot project,
>
> http://members.cox.net/rbirac/
>
> ?
>
> I was interested in using it and wondered
> if any other hobby robotists have already
> done so and in particular what language
> they used with the dll?
>
> My problem as a Basic and c programmer is
> deciding what c++ compiler to use and where
> to find suitable tutorials on win32 using
> that compiler.
>
> I have *played* with vc5 but the teach
> yourself vc5 in 21 days didn't really help.
> It is also incompatible with the vc6
> examples I find on the net.
>
> The latest free vc++.net 2005 express I find
> in incompatatible with everything before it
> including vc++.net 2003. There is a conversion
> program but it always seems to fail. I haven't
> found a tutorial for vc 2005.net
>
> I have downloaded Dev-cpp but again there is
> a lack of compiler specific tutorials for
> that product as well.
>
> I was able to run the CImage demos with it
> and they are rather good. The vc.net 2003 demo
> failed because I have vc.net 2005.
>
> http://cimg.sourceforge.net/
>
> However they forgot to add a GrabImage() from
> a webcam method :)
>
> --
> John

Posted by JGCASEY on September 8, 2006, 3:55 am

Gordon wrote:
> Your best bet is to contact Robin herself. She can probably
> tell you who is using it. She also wrote a multi-part article
> for SERVO magazine you'll want to find as well.


Yes I have just sent Robin an email for suggestions but
don't know what sort of reply she has time to give.


> She wrote the DLL in C++, but you can use any programming
> language that can interface to a standard Win32 flat DLL.
> That's the benefit of a Windows DLL; it doesn't matter what
> language the person used to code it. You do not need C,
> unless that's the language of choice for you. VB6 or VB5
> could just as easily use those DLLs.


Deciding on a language has always been something of problem
for me. I really only know standard Basic and C. Recently I
have been playing with c#.net 2005. In true M$ tradition
it is incompatible with everything before it including the
c#.net 2003 sources I found on the net!! And that includes
the source code for the WiMo robot project you made reference
to in a recent post, subject RobotRealm. I have rejected the
RobotRealm software at this stage. I don't really like its
proprietary rights. Ideal software I think would be C++ with
Linux/Windows compatible libraries for things like webcams.
Java comes close but I didn't like that language much, too
stuck with the old way of programming I guess.

I did play around with a webcam and vb5 many moons ago.
My interest in all this tends to wax and wane, mainly wane :)
Did a bit of image segmentation based on color but the grabs
were too slow for a real time vision system.

The problem is getting a programming language that is fast
enough and has the tutorials to explain, by stepping through
examples, how to do things like using a dll for hobby
programmers like me with limited spare time.

The problem is spending the least amount of time learning
what I don't need to know in order to work out what I do
need to know.

The leaf project is closer to what I would like to end up
building but with a robust body so that if I ever reached
old age I would have something to tend my needs :)


--
John


Posted by Gordon McComb on September 8, 2006, 11:38 am
JGCASEY wrote:
> In true M$ tradition
> it is incompatible with everything before it including the
> c#.net 2003 sources I found on the net!!

I doubt this. While there are some modifications to the framework, there
are no synantical changes, so if your free version of 2005 doesn't open
a 2003 project it's probably because it's the free version. MS has to
make money somehow, and while they are giving away the 2005 Express
versions of their compilers, the full feature set of the IDE is reserved
for people who fork out the cash. This is a sad part of life.

My experience is that all my .NET 2003 projects open and run without
with virtually no hiccups in 2005 (some minor changes because if
anything MS got stricter with some coding styles), and I have some
extremely complex apps with tens of thousands of lines of code.

> The problem is spending the least amount of time learning
> what I don't need to know in order to work out what I do
> need to know.

I know you've said this before but frankly, what else can you expect.
Your experience is with old, outdated software for which you'll be lucky
to find examples for.

But as I said, any Windows programming platform that can call a standard
DLL can interface to the Mavis library. A Microsoft Word macro could
even do this.

-- Gordon

Posted by D. Jay Newman on September 8, 2006, 10:41 pm
JGCASEY wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Has anyone being using the Mavis code,
>
> http://robinhewitt.com/mavis/index.html
>
> with respect to the Leaf robot project,
>
> http://members.cox.net/rbirac/

You can ask the Leaf group; their home page
is at http://www.leafproject.org/

> I was interested in using it and wondered
> if any other hobby robotists have already
> done so and in particular what language
> they used with the dll?

Robin uses C++.

> My problem as a Basic and c programmer is
> deciding what c++ compiler to use and where
> to find suitable tutorials on win32 using
> that compiler.

The non-visual Microsoft compiler is free
for for download. Unfortunately I have no
idea how to use it.
--
D. Jay Newman ! Author of:
jay@sprucegrove.com ! _Linux Robotics: Programming Smarter Robots_
http://enerd.ws/robots/ ! "Heros aren't born, they're cornered."

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