MouseWhisper
From d.e.w.e.y.c.o.o.t.e.r
MouseWhisper was originally written in September 2009 to facilitate creating sequences for servos to be used with Aurora Sequencer. The user can move the mouse to simulate servo movements and ultimately save them to a sequence. Sequence files can be saved as Aurora sequences or as flat files for use in other applications.
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[edit] Download
[edit] Installation
Unzip the file and run setup.exe.
[edit] User Guide
[edit] Record
The Record tab is used to generate your sequence commands. This can be done using a mouse or a Wii Remote (future version). Select the desired Input Device and click Start to begin recording. Move the mouse to mimic the servo movement. If you wish to sequence to music, play the music in another application as you sequence. (Is there a desire to be able to kick off the music player simultaneously?) When finished, press a letter on the keyboard.
The data is recorded no more than every 0.025 seconds. This represents 40 samples per second and corresponds to the maximum DMX broadcast rate.
The sequence has now been created. The data recorded represents pixel positions on the screen with the (x,y) coordinates of (0,0) in the upper left of the screen. Anywhere you move the mouse on the screen gets saved. You may wish to constrain your movements as appropriate. Proceed to the Process tab if the limits need to be modified.
[edit] Process
In the process step, the recorded data may be scaled to match desired servo or lighting profiles. For example, let's assume that you saw x-axis values between 62 and 744 during the recording data. You may wish to scale those values to 0 to 240 to match lighting profiles. Or, if you never wanted the lights to go below 50% intensity, you could scale them it 120 to 240. If the data is to be used with another servo controller application, perhaps the commands should be limited to 250 to 1250.
Invert motion - invert motion allows the motion direction for a given input to be reversed, ie, a left to right motion becomes a right to left motion. This may be particularly useful in lighting profiles. Mouse movement downward results in increasing values in the y-axis. You may wish to have low values of y translate to higher lighting intensities. In this case, invert the y-axis.
Offset time - The first event recorded within the recording step is assigned time=0. If you wish the first command to happen at time = 2.4 seconds, enter 2.4 into the Time Offset textbox.
[edit] Save
After recording a sequence and performing any processing, the sequence may be saved. The resulting file will be a comma separted value file (.csv) that can be opened in a spreadsheet application like Microsoft Excel.
The sequence file will contain 5 lines of header information. The 6th line will contain the column names for the data with the first column always being "Ticks". (Ticks are a measure of time representing 100 nanoseconds.) The next two column names can be modified on this display, or in an editor after saving the sequence. The data begins on line 7.
The file defaults to the SaveDir as specified in the MouseWhisper application configuration file, but you may save the file in any location. You may also modify the MouseWhisper application configuration file to use a different default directory.
The file may be opened in a spreadsheet or text editor to do any advanced processing. Keep the format the same for use with other MW functions Merge and Converting to Aurora sequences.
[edit] Merge
The merge tab allows you to combine multiple MouseWhisper sequence files into a common file. This is a helpful step prior to generating an Aurora sequence.
The .csv files in the default save directory are displayed in the grid. You may select another directory by clicking the Change Directory button. Check the checkboxes for the files you want to merge, then click Merge. Depending on the size and number of files that you are merging, this step may take a minute or two.
All columns from the selected files are merged into the final file by using a common Ticks column. When merging 2 files, tick values for the two files are merged into one if they are within 0.0125 seconds of each other (half the maximum DMX broadcast rate).
[edit] Convert
The convert tab allows you to create an Aurora sequence from a saved MouseWhisper sequence file. Assign a sequence file and a media file (like a .wav or .mp3). Click Create. The Aurora DLS file will be created in the same directory as the input sequence file, and will be saved using the same name but the .dls extension.
This is a basic Aurora file - the network and device numbers will be 1 and the channels will be created sequentially starting at 1. The device type will be blank and there will be no drawing data.
