BricxCC Live Sensor tool

[HaWe]

what is the BricxCC Live Sensor tool for and what are the layers 1-4 intended to do?
Are they independly/autonomously working (like, e.g. the brick screen capture tool or the brick explorer) or are they designed to work with the C code ?

[afanofosc]

This is a new tool which lets you poll for "sensor" values which include all 8 ports (4 outputs, 4 inputs) on the EV3. It is possible to "daisy chain" up to 4 EV3 bricks together via USB cables and have 1 of the 4 act as the master without running any programs on the other EV3 bricks aside from the firmware itself. The master EV3 can run a program which controls motors on any of the 4 "layers" as well as read values from up to 16 sensors (4 inputs * 4 layers) and up to 16 motors (4 outputs * 4 layers).

It works like all the other BricxCC tool windows and has nothing directly to do with writing a program that runs either natively or on the EV3 VM.

If you have downloaded the EV3 software you would see a tool in the bottom right corner that shows 8 sensor (4 outputs and 4 inputs) values in a manner similar to this new Live Sensors tool in BricxCC.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0Q1jEFj2jo


John Hansen

[HaWe]

(edited)
ok, so as far as I understand your reply, it uses and works with no compiler at all, thank you!

so what is this feature actually planned to be used for?
What I don't quite understand: I/O remote control of course is extremely important - but using it as a tool without a compiler...?

Is daisy chaining - or, more general, sort of network, maybe bitbus or TokenRing or Aloha or even TCP/IP - already possible with the C compiler?

ps, concerning your videos:
As you might know, my English is very poor and I regularly have to use Google translate for reading and writing. (English was not my favourite subject at school, maybe you would possibly feel the same if you had to communicate in German). So unfortunately I also can't follow American spoken English - even already slowly and clearly pronounced British Oxford English is already hard enough and quite at the borders of my skills...
That's why I unfortunately can understand almost nothing of what you explain in your videos.

[HaWe]

if anyone could please overcome to a statement then I would appreciate this a lot! ;)

[HaWe]

ps:
finally, what does it show and what is it for if I have 4-8 different i2c sensors chained together at each single ev3 sensor port via port splitters or sensor muxers or even additionally motor muxers, either which layer?

[afanofosc]

I encourage you to try it out once you get your EV3 and see what happens when you have multiple sensors connected to the same port via a multiplexer of some kind. My guess is it will do nothing useful, which is fine with me.

John Hansen

[HaWe]

To be honest, I didn't doubt that at any time - so again, what is this tool actually planned to be used for if it's not expected to work with either compiler?

[afanofosc]

Doc, tell me, please, what any of the BricxCC tool windows have directly to do with either a native arm-linux or a VM compiler? They are all useful debugging tools. Watching sensor values live can be very useful in figuring out why a program is doing what it is doing. That's what all the watch tools are about. Preparing to write a program can benefit from examining sensor values manually without any program running on the brick. If you know how a sensor will behave it will be easier to write code to govern behavior based on those sensor values. And it is nice to know what sensor types and mode are currently active since that can also influence program behavior - i.e., if you have defined the wrong sensor type or mode in your program it could be the cause of your device malfunctioning. The Live Sensors tool will show you the currently defined type and mode for each sensor. It can also help you diagnose whether a wire is damaged or not plugged in properly since it will show as None for the sensor type if the EV3 does not detect a device on that port.

John Hansen

[HaWe]

Lord,
I'm using the BCC NXT Screen capture tool on my PC screen when running simulateously a NXC program to watch what's happening there (because the NXT screen itself is too small and too dark because not backlit),
and some years ago I also temporarily used a variable watching tool for debugging (don't remember how it was actually called) (but meanwhile I don't use it anymore, I just debug directly via NXT screen output and BCC Screen capture tool.
I think this is what you mean by "have directly to do with either a native arm-linux or a VM compiler" (anyway, this is sort of what I understand of it's usage).

It sounds a little as if you feel sort of bugged of my question(s) but it's no offense :)
it's simply why I just couldn't imagine why I personally would need a tool to tell me where I have plugged what sensors to what port before because I'm used to use SetSensor(port, SensorType) commands manually for sensor setup (so I can read and look what I have done) and additionally I used printf commands to show values of interest in real-time on the NXT screen.
(of course, newbies to programming like for NXT-G or "EV3-G" surely will appreciate autosensing because I can sympathize how it feels if one searches any adjustments to ports or sensors or variables in those garish colorful icon and wire salads)^^ .

on the other hand, if this Live Sensor Tool was meant to be used simultaneously when running any compiled program to get an additional access to sensor values or encoder values to debug a running program in real-time
or if it had ben created to establish a module for daisy chaining I/O ports which then could be accessed by a C program, too - that indeed would be amazing and would be within the horizon of my skills of imagination ;)

but just don't care , my question actually is not important enough to start a dispute, it was just out of interest.