Re: Essential Reality P5 glove

Hi Andy,

This looks intersting from the specs. How do you rate it as a potential
for playing a virtual instrument?

I've been looking for a way to play a virtual instrument - just a 2D
instrument on the screen, but to let one play it with polyphony
and velocity sensitive - say a rectangular keyboard of square
cells or whatever.

One idea is to ask the user to calibrate it roughly by touching opposite
corners of the board before they start to play.

Then the program could faintly display the position of all their finger
tips as they move them over the board, whenever they are closer
than a certain distance, show them more boldly as they get
closer - sort of like a shadow - then when they touch the
screen to within some minimum distance, depending on the resolution
of the glove, it would play the note, with the volume of the note
depending on the speed with which the finger hit the note.

So, the 3D part of it would be exploited to show the fingers
"shadows" and to make the virtual instrument velocity sensitive,
or indeed if one has time varying distance data, one
could surely make it acceleration sensitive too
or maybe to detect further finger movements after the ntoe
is already pressed down (e.g. to vibrate the fingers
sideways with the note held down to vary the amplitude
or pitch or to apply polyphonic aftertouch
or something).

Any thoughts about whether it might be suitable for
something like this. (If so I'll put it in my
enormously long list of things I'd like to program
some day - but if it seems like it would be
not to hard to program and that it would
also work reasonably well it would move towards
the head of the list as it could be so useful
to have!).

After all once you are able to make the design
completely virutal like tat you are free
to explore any kind of layout you like.
Even explore ideas for physical instruments
and tuning of them prior to making them
too perhaps for those who are into building
instruments.

Robert

> >> >...recently bought a Essential Reality P5 glove,
> >> >
> >> >http://www.essentialreality.com/p5_glove.asp
> >>
> >> awesome! ...free SDK too! ..doesn't get much better than that.
> >Thx for
> >> the link.
> >>
> >
> >Yo... http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=P5
> >
> >$12.50! I bought 3... LOL...
>
> >This page consolidates most Glove music apps:
> >http://www.audiomulch.com/simulus/p5glove/
> >
> >Enjoy! It's a bit of a pain to get it to do what you want musically,
> >but I found Nicholas Fournel's MIDI controller app to be pretty
> >interesting.
>
> Already got it at Overstock.com for twice as much [oh well]. Still a great
> deal compared with orig retail of $99. It'll be perfect for the app I'm
> writing.
>

Hi Andy,

> There's a P5 yahoo group that will know better than I, but from what I've
> learned and experienced so far the glove is limited in what it can do due to it
> being designed for consumers.
>
> Motion works by having 8 led lights on top of glove that invisibly strobe a
> base receptor (set 1 to 1-1/2 ft away). Glove to receptor communication is
> key in getting it to work well and since there are no led's on bottom of glove
> you can't do things like face your palm toward screen unless you move
> receptor to position not intended and re-write the driver to adjust coordinates
> received by receptor. IMO it would be possible, but difficult, to implement the
> kind of instrument you described and the results would probably not have
> enough accuracy to be usable. Check out the P5 yahoo group though and take a
> look at what they've done recently with it. It's pretty interesting and it
> could become a nice alternative input device if they get the interface smoothed
> out. Looks promising.

Oh right, thanks for explaining. I don't know if it is any easier but another
way to do it is to simply have a board marked out on a piece of paper (or
user can print it out) and place that on a table top, then the user can
calibrate it again by touching opposite corners, and the screen can display
the position of the hand over the board just as it displays a mouse position
although the mouse itself isn't hovering over the screen, but over a mouse
pad.

Indeed, they don't even need to print it out come to think of it, they
can just play on a blank area of the table top and as they move their hand
watch the screen rather than the table top to monitor the position of their
hand over the board.

I wonder if that might work better. Would the receptor be suitably positioned
to monitor a hand in a typical playing position on a table top?

I'm not too hopeful given your description as it seems it would be
asking rather a lot in the way of precise 3D positioning in space.

However, I'll join the p5 group and keep an eye on what they
talk about. Thanks for the tip.

> --Robert, What else you working on? You do C++ ?

I do pure C. I'm rather inclined towards a low level way of programming
so only write in C++ if I have to, and am not at all fluent in it.

Mostly working on FTS actually but some work on 3D graphics using
OpenGL and VRML in my 3D programs Lissajous 3D and Virtual Flower.
So the idea of a virtual 2D or 3D musical instrument brings those
interests together.

How about yourself?

Robert

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Walker"
<robertwalker@n...> wrote:
> Hi Andy,
>
>
> > There's a P5 yahoo group that will know better than I, but from
what I've
> > learned and experienced so far the glove is limited in what it
can do due to it
> > being designed for consumers.
> >
> > Motion works by having 8 led lights on top of glove that
invisibly strobe a
> > base receptor (set 1 to 1-1/2 ft away). Glove to receptor
communication is
> > key in getting it to work well and since there are no led's on
bottom of glove
> > you can't do things like face your palm toward screen unless you
move
> > receptor to position not intended and re-write the driver to
adjust coordinates
> > received by receptor. IMO it would be possible, but difficult,
to implement the
> > kind of instrument you described and the results would probably
not have
> > enough accuracy to be usable. Check out the P5 yahoo group
though and take a
> > look at what they've done recently with it. It's pretty
interesting and it
> > could become a nice alternative input device if they get the
interface smoothed
> > out. Looks promising.
>
> Oh right, thanks for explaining. I don't know if it is any easier
but another
> way to do it is to simply have a board marked out on a piece of
paper (or
> user can print it out) and place that on a table top, then the user
can
> calibrate it again by touching opposite corners, and the screen can
display
> the position of the hand over the board just as it displays a mouse
position
> although the mouse itself isn't hovering over the screen, but over
a mouse
> pad.
>
> Indeed, they don't even need to print it out come to think of it,
they
> can just play on a blank area of the table top and as they move
their hand
> watch the screen rather than the table top to monitor the position
of their
> hand over the board.
>
> I wonder if that might work better. Would the receptor be suitably
positioned
> to monitor a hand in a typical playing position on a table top?
>
> I'm not too hopeful given your description as it seems it would be
> asking rather a lot in the way of precise 3D positioning in space.
>
> However, I'll join the p5 group and keep an eye on what they
> talk about. Thanks for the tip.
>
> > --Robert, What else you working on? You do C++ ?
>
> I do pure C. I'm rather inclined towards a low level way of
programming
> so only write in C++ if I have to, and am not at all fluent in it.
>
> Mostly working on FTS actually but some work on 3D graphics using
> OpenGL and VRML in my 3D programs Lissajous 3D and Virtual Flower.
> So the idea of a virtual 2D or 3D musical instrument brings those
> interests together.
>
> How about yourself?
>
> Robert

That might work. Check out "absolute mode" on the P5 group. That's
what will need to be used. Don't use the Essential Reality SDK for
absolute mode, though. It says it works in the SDK docs but it
really doesn't. Only relative mode works (similar to mouse input).

As I'm thinking more on this, you probably wouldn't want to limit it
to just a single flat surface. You could stack virtual surfaces and
just play in the air since it's all on screen. That would be cool!

As far as languages go, I use C++ due to it's massive use in the SDKs
I'm linked to. I like the purity of C but love the reusability /
encapsulation of C++! It fits my programming style really well, too,
but that might be because it's what I've groaned used to.

Regards,
Andy F.