[Bf-committers] About programming Blender device control interface

[Anthony LAU]

> Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 03:06:23 +0000
> From: Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com>
> 
> If you need to deal with event system internals we have a
> low level
> library called GHOST, you'd probably need to use this if
> you wanted to
> add a new input device or event types.
> But this is really low level and I dont think its a good
> starting
> point unless your main goal is to extend event system
> code.
> 
> Id suggest looking into existing modal operators, these are
> tools
> which take user input, and handle their own events.
> 
> Examples are the knife tool, viewport manipulation
> pan/zoom/orbit, fly
> mode, border select and painting tools.
> These can be written in C or Python:
> The view manipulation operators are in view3d_edit.c.
> 
> A python view-editing-template can be accessed from the
> text editor,
> Text -> Script Templates -> Operator Modal Draw.
> To run it first tun the script to define the operator, then
> use the
> spacebar operator search menu in the 3d view to execute
> it.
> See other view properties:
> http://www.blender.org/documentation/blender_python_api_2_54_0/bpy.types.RegionView3D.html

  Thanks for your advice, Campbell :)
  I think at this stage I will try to tackle from Python scripting first (the templates
are really helpful) and get reference from the existing source codes handling input devices 
to find a way to communicate between Blender and the external system I tried to build.

> Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:47:48 +0400
> From: Sergey Kurdakov <sergey.forum at gmail.com>
> Hi Anthony,
> 
> >on creating a new interface that can
> >translate the real-life actions into 3D coordinates.
> 
> You could  be interested in this project -
> http://forge.lifl.fr/PIRVI/wiki/MTUtils/blenderTUIO it
> adds 3D input from
> screen, the code is on the site - so you might look at what
> they changed.
> 
> Regards
> Sergey

  Wow... that's a nice reference. Thanks for sharing the link, Sergey.

Anthony


>> On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Anthony LAU <lauliullt at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > ?I'm currently doing a academic research on creating a
> new interface that can
> > translate the real-life actions into 3D coordinates.
> To test the efficiency of
> > such system, it's best to test it with some existing
> 3D programs.
> >
> > ?THis makes Blender as my first choice as I could
> access the source codes for
> > ease of customizing the interface with Blender 3D
> environment.
> >
> > ?I've already downloaded the SVN and is able to
> compile it in either 32-bit or 64-bit
> > Window platform. I'm also trying to read the online
> documents to look for clues how to
> > program such control interface in Blender.
> >
> > ?Nonetheless, I'm still a bit lost on where I should
> start from, e.g. like which part of
> > Blender is dealing with cursor control, handling mouse
> events, etc.
> >
> > ?Would anyone mind giving me some clues or guidelines
> where I should start to look
> > into on the programming the input interface? Thanks.
> >
> > Anthony