Roborealm Support?

Question

Hello Everyone, Sorry if this has been answered, I could not find a search function. Does the ex-robot controller/software support the use of Roborealm software?

irobot58 · Answer

@templargfx you will find the search function box directly above the Recent Posts in the community forum tab and there are 28 threads related to your question!

templargfx · Answer

HA! I see, its only on the main forum page, and not the sub pages. That explains it Thankyou. Ok I just went through the search, and unless I missed something there is no mention of support for roborealm. There is a few non-dev posts asking about it, and a few "possible integration" related posts from 2 years ago. But I cannot find a definitive answer. I need to know, because if it does not support roborealm I will have to find another robot.

irobot58 · Answer

Under the tab Explore , down to the bottom ..Learn..and supported platforms for choosing a robot. I believe the answer to your question is no. The supported software languages are.... " EZ-SDK (C#, C++, VB) Our powerful Open EZ-SDK Robot Library uses C#, Visual Basic or C++ to control physical hardware for robotics. Your custom program will communicate with the EZ-B Robot Controller over a wireless connection from your Laptop or PC. The SDK exposes every powerful method that our graphical ARC application is built with. Includes speech recognition, servo control, digital I/O, ADC input, visual processing, joystick/wiimote input devices, tcp server, and much more! The download includes dozens of code examples to start right away. " This Forum has many robot enthusiasts who are very generous with their knowledge and can help in many ways. There will be others who will chime in as the "earth turns" and people wake up and start their day, on this subject.

templargfx · Answer

Thankyou for the responses. I need to look more into ARC. The reason I want to use roborealm is that I have already created a very complex and highly robust navigation and mapping system in VB based around the functionality and video processing that roborealm provides and I would prefer it if I did not have to re-write it! It is heavily dependant on being able to quickly filter the camera feed to find edges, and without this, the system will not work Ive downloaded the SDK manual to see what it is all about!

DJ Sures · Answer

Hi TEmplargfx! I'm unsure if EZ-Robot is supported by RoboRealm. I know they were working toward an implementation - and had been asked by dozens of our members. Sadly, I don't think they have done it yet. The EZ-SDK and ARC are two different ways to use EZ-Robot. There is a video on the Downloads page that explains the difference. ARC is a very very very very very very very very very powerful program I think you'll be happy with ARC There was also someone creating an EZ-Robot/RobotRealm merging program... Not sure what happened to that either. We're quite biased about our ARC software, so our time is spent with new updates and features to make it awesomer and awesomer. PS, awesomer is a word! I invented it

templargfx · Answer

hahaa! Do you think something along these lines would be possible with your software directly?  (the white line represents the point that the robot should not attempt to cross) The basics are : Contrast unify the webcam image (make everything the same brightness) Apply colour correction / white balance (increase colour range in image) Apply uniform blur to image Run basic edge detection on blurred image Convert result to black/white (white being the edges) count pixels up from the bottom on every column to find distance to edge Use arrayed information to map vision using trig The filtering and image manipulation was extremely easy to do in roborealm and it works so well I am hoping to not have to come up with a new system!

DJ Sures · Answer

Sure, you can do that by identifying a specific color using the MultiColor setting. You can fine tune specific colors and hues and luminance ranges. You can also have your robot understand speech recognition, and a billion other things with ARC. This isn't a ARC vs Roborealm discussion - however, it depends what your attempt is. I think Roborealm is neat and has it's purpose. If you're a VB programmer, I would spend a few minutes of your time to create a RoboRealm to ARC bridge - since they have an SDK and our ARC has a great network service. Great thing about ARC is it also runs on your mobile device and has nearly a hundred control mechanisms - including scripting ability. I would recommend downloading and installing ARC. If you don't chose it, good luck with RoboRealm and say hello to them as well.

irobot58 · Answer

Thanks DJ for the definitive answer! I guess I chimed in too early @templargfx you have an amazing achievement! WOW! There are many if not all the robot builders here on the Forum who would love to see more of your amazing work and integrated into ARC! This thread is going to be swamped I guarantee it! Congrats!

JustinRatliff · Answer

I could probably make a bridge application for folks using RoboRealm. I wonder how many people are looking for a integration application like that? Any RoboRealm user's out there want to give me some input on what they would like to see in a bridging application?

templargfx · Answer

For myself, it is the video based processing side of Roborealm that I want to be able to use with my next project. What is really needed is a way to get the video feed to roborealm (as a webcam maybe?) and be able to trigger movements/sequences in ARC. Then you can build your own control system in one of its many supported languages.  Here is my avoidance system in action in a larger area. Roborealm sends simple axis movement values to the onboard processor which takes care of gait and stance. If gait/walking and gestures can be created with ARC and then triggered from within roborealm this would practically be drag and drop!  This is my personal version of face recognition using colour, size and shape. Again using the same method to interface with the robot I went from this MSR-H01 robot to a Sony Aibo I managed to get my hands on. Partly due to the costs of running the MSR-H01 ($60 a servo!). Unfortunately the Aibo turned out to be a letdown (could be my model) due to the inaccuracy of its sensors. I created a mapping system for it based solely on a distance sensor by "mentally" tracking its position from its starting point that was promising, however the sensor in the Aibo was just not up to the task.  Some mapping results from my virtual environment. The room rotates to simulate the bot being placed in random positions at random directions. I am torn between going for another robot like the MSR-H01 (maybe lynxmotion) or going for a system like EZ-Robot. If there is a way to interface Roborealm to EZB then its a no brainer! --edit-- I hope the videos work!

Darathian · Answer

I have been working on integration between ARC and a specific module of roborealm called AVM. I have the basic sending of roborealm variables working but was waiting for the EZB and camera to work on the rest. I had some luck using the xml based API from roborealm and the example 52 from DJ in the SDK to at least get the values from roborealm into variables inside ARC. The next step is getting the EZB camera feed into roborealm but I am not sure when that will happen or what would be involved. Also the code itself is in no state to be released. Thanks

Darathian · Answer

The work I have done on this was really for a proof of concept and I am not sure if and when an actual app will see the light of day. If someone wants to work on a bridging app there are examples on the roborealm website for c# and other languages for accessing the API. They also have an example of parsing the xml for different functionality of roborealm. I think the key is getting the video from the EZB camera into roborealm. @DJ Sures is there method in the EZ-SDK that will send a stream of the video from the camera so it can be read by a third party app. If so it may not be too hard to get the video where it needs to go.

templargfx · Answer

So I finally had the time to really sit down and read up on EZ-Revolution and I am sold! I am sure the software will continue to evolve, but to be honest I did not initially realize exactly how powerful ARC is! I think you need to modify your website to emphasize alot further the built-in features of the software. It wasn't until I watched the video that I understood the software was more than just an animator. The text-to-speech and speech recognition that is built in is amazing! You really have to dig for this information, when it should be on the front page! Im going to order myself a JD and a distance sensor for his chest to get me started. Coincidentally my initials are J.D. LOL Roborealm definitely has more advanced image filtering systems available, and integration would be great, but having ARC offer (some of) these things natively would be even better! Does/Will ARC allow you direct access to the image from the webcam for data analysis?

JustinRatliff · Answer

Through HTTP you can currently get a static image from the camera, this image is refreshable as a service through HTTP. If you have at least a webcam of some sort you could experiment with it now in ARC by connecting to the webcam. Add the camera and HTTP Server to your project. Turn on the camera and HTTP server. Then from a web browser enter: https://localhost:80/CameraImage.jpg?c=Camera You may need to enter the default user id which "admin" then after that you can call up a static camera image. If a 3rd part app like RoboRealm were able to use this (either on demand one picture at a time or via looped process to keep pulling static images) then you could feed that application the view from ARC. - This is the process that did not work in EZ-Face (but that also involved technical obstacles with the EMGU CV framework that performs the face recognition).

Putt Putt · Answer

Hi, I have in the past used RobotRealm and the Atom Bot board with an SSC-32 serial servo controller, there is no reason why you cant use the EZ-B and RobotRealm the only issue is that EZ-B is not supported by RR yet. You could just go through serial interface to EZ-B from RR. The EZ-B camera is usb based so again it can be used on your computer that is running RR, process the video, send back serial commands to EZ-B or any other controller you like.

Rich · Answer

@Putt Putt, the camera which ships with the revolution robots and V4 is not USB based. The camera connects directly to the EZ-B V4, the EZ-B then streams the data to the PC (to put it briefly and simply).

Putt Putt · Answer

ok, hmm, sounds like more proprietary stuff, i'm not sure what the video stream is from the EZ-B V4 but it has to be serial, wifi, or RF or something like that, at any rate chuck the EZ-B cam and get yourself a 1.2 GHz , or whatever freq you want , wireless cam TX/RX and use it in RR.

DJ Sures · Answer

You can access the v4 image through the sdk or http request. If the roborealm software uses an http JPEG stream, then it can get the image from the v4. With all of the requests for roborealm to support ez-robot, I don't know why they just don't implement it. They support boring old robot platforms like the roomba, but not ez-robot? Seems silly to me I had a great conversation with one of the guys from roborealm over Skype once about revolution and their support for our platform. They were excited at the time - I'm not sure what changed. Specifically since we can add tens of thousands of users to their software if it's properly supported The largest challenge with roborealm is the lack of real-world tutorials. And by that I mean tutorials that regular non-programmers can understand. We can help them with that - since our videos are top notch and edited by professionals. The point to ez-robot is to allow everyone to build or own a robot that does science fiction quality functions. Making a product for programmers doesn't provide any value because programmers can already do what you've done - in theory. So if you can convince roborealm to support ez-robot, or at the least to contact us so we can provide some direction - I'm certain a roborealm ARC module could be possible. Such as Add Control, Camera, Roborealm.

Putt Putt · Answer

Thanks DJ, So I'm not sure but i think RR has options for HTTP and if so then thats the way to input the vid signal to RR. DJ, send them ( RobotRealm ) a couple of EZ-B controllers V3 V4 and the sdk in a neat little ribbon wrapped package and maybe they will program a module.

DJ Sures · Answer

Putt putt, they purchased a v3 controller a long time ago There is nothing else I can say regarding this topic - sorry. They have a controller, access to the sdk and a bunch of ez-robot customers asking for support. If that doesn't help them get started, there is nothing more I can do. It's a value add for them to increase their customer base... However, some businesses wish to stay within their comfort zone. I respect that.

mdeming1 · Answer

I'm going to resurrect this thread. I posted an update at 4am this morning but I think that it would be best posted here so I'll close the other one. I thought maybe so I could respond to him with some input from those more knowledgable than I. Good morning all, haven't been able to sleep as I've been ruminating on how to get the kangaroo to work and my chassis dimension issues etc. I was just now scrolling through my email and got a response from Stephen with Roborealm AVM. I bought a license for his AVM. software the other day and mentioned to him the desire for EZ-B support and posted the most recent forum discussion on the subject to that email. He responded below. I listed assistance needed because I'm so new at this and he wanted input as to the type of interface we would like to have. He also indicated he'd be in touch again with DJ. Anyway, I figured I'd give DJ a heads up with this post and would include a link to any responses in this forum thread in a reply. Below is the email. Matt [b]Matt, Thanks for the note. I've spoken with DJ just before the Revolution launch and we lost momentum as both of us just got busy. I'll reach out to him and get things started again. When you mention the integration, at what level would work for you? I.e. we typically will interface directly with hardware but since EZ-robot already has a lot of software would a software to software integration be more desired? Thanks, STeven [ /b] On 5/2/2014 5:37 PM, Matthew Deming wrote: Hi Steven I'm really looking forward to figuring this out, it is an awesome functionality. Also, I might mention that I like to use ez robot and there are many people on that platform that w. ould really like a simple integration with AVM. I'm posting a recent forum link below. https://synthiam.com/Community/Questions/5357&page=2 Hoping you can connect with DJ and maybe cook something up. Thanks again. Matt Deming

Darathian · Answer

For me it would be AVM as well.

mdeming1 · Answer

Thanks Darathien, Definitely the AVM. I guess the question I'm not sure how to answer is this one:  When you mention the integration, at what level would work for you? I.e. we typically will interface directly with hardware but since EZ-robot already has a lot of software would a software to software integration be more desired? Any thoughts?

thetechguru · Answer

I would think software integration would be preferred. That way, we get to continue using the best of ARC but also the functionality that Roborealm can bring to the table. Alan

JustinRatliff · Answer

Software to Software integration would be the way to go for RoboRealm. The other hardware RoboRealm interfaces with are things like servo controllers, cameras or microcontrollers or robots that would benefit from a more robust software interface. EZ-Robot already has a robust software interface so software to software would be desired.

Darathian · Answer

Software is the way to go. Two items I would like to see: 1, Video will have to be provided or pulled from the EZB/ARC into roborealm 2. Data can be retrieved in both directions between ARC/EZB and roborealm I would like to see the ability to have ARC control all functions in roborealm and roborealm to control the EZB/ARC. ( one can dream ) However for me the most important is to control roborealm from ez-script and to get/set variable values inside roborealm via ez-script. Getting video into roborealm is a given. Thanks

RoboRealm · Answer

Hi All, An initial attempt to satisfy some of the above requirements. https://www.roborealm.com/help/EZRobotVariables.php You'll have to download the latest version in order to get that module. We're looking for a good way to set/get video. Right now the HTTP method (using a URL into ARC from the Read_HTTP module within RR) sort of works but its not the quickest way to do this.We're also not sure how to set images back into EZB. Regardless, the new module will allow the exchange of simple variables (arrays are not yet handled) so that should at least be something. Hopefully we'll get even closer integration once we start understanding how everyone is using it. Thanks to Matt for reaching out to us! If there are RR issues that come up please send them our way as we don't monitor the EZB forums. thanks, STeven. www.roborealm.com

DJ Sures · Answer

Steven, let's work together on the integration. I'll take a look at what you have and make some changes to ARC to help

JustinRatliff · Answer

YEA! GO STeven (and DJ), GO STeven (and DJ), , Go STeven (and DJ)!

Darathian · Answer

This news just made my day. I have been working on an app that sits between ARC and Roborealm and sends the variable values back and forth and it's working but direct integration between ARC and Roborealm would be so much better.. Thanks to both DJ and STeven.

yatakitombi · Answer

you guys are awesome!

yatakitombi · Answer

i love to work with robots because i have a bit knowledge in C language but i have problems in financial... i always get information from awesome people in the internet but i cant do what i want... i envy you guys!    accidentally drop the board during etching... i tried to revive and put connecting wires to short...

Dave Schulpius · Answer

Nice board etching. I've always wanted to learn how to do this.

yatakitombi · Answer

@Dave: you can use Eagle software to do that...

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