[Soc-2010-dev] status report (fancy input devices)

[Mike Erwin]

this week --

Ran the Intuos4 through the tests I'd built during the first weeks. Got
capabilities, ranges, and so on. Found out how each button and control makes
itself known to the system, so we can use that in blender.

Pushed the limits of the tablet's OLED displays to discover their
unpublished specs. We'll be needing 64x30 icons in 16 shades of gray.

Learned how to set up keymaps. Got SpaceNavigator input through GHOST,
through the window manager, all the way to operators. Right now it's
essentially blinking once for yes and twice for no, but soon it will sing!

Wrote helper functions for SpaceNav motion and pen tilt, to get "standard"
data into its most useful forms.

Got official word on including 3Dconnexion's Mac SDK in our source tree, and
the word is no. This is an annoyance, not a show stopper (much like the
QuickTime SDK on Windows). A driver-free HID implementation is a better
route, as it's done now on Windows (and soon on Linux). I'll poll the
mailing list about whether it's worth a quick rewrite on the Mac.

next week --

I'm going to focus on navigating the 3D view with the SpaceNav device, now
that all the low-level stuff is in place. Even with the previous
implementation available there are plenty of wrinkles to iron out. This will
probably take several days to get it right.

Untangle the tablet-handling code from ghost window code, which I should've
done already. Extra data from tablet tools will accompany their cursor
events all the way through the system.

progress --

I wish we had a few more months! But since we don't, I'm having to decide
what needs to be wrapped up and what else can wait. For example, I no longer
plan on using pen tilt for anything, just making it more usable for other
folks. Other than that, most of the items in this project's proposal are
finished or on track.

Mike Erwin
musician, naturalist, pixel pusher, hacker extraordinaire
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