Inputting signals into vvvv

There are many options of inputting signals into your computer. Connecting external hardware and sensors opens up many new possibilities with vvvv.

You will need an interface to get the signals into your computer. Unfortunately there is no single best solutions for an interface. The best interface depends on the number of channels, the range of input voltages, the quality of the drivers, the reliability and way to often on the price.

This page tries to clarify the different options.

The Gameport

Older pcs (not "legacy free") usually have four analog ports + four switch inputs build in in their game port. If a game port is available, this is the cheapest and best solution, if you only need to connect a small amount of butons or dials. The game port is an excellent opportunity for some soldering. See the HowTo GamePort for details

RS232 interfaces

Any device which has an rs232 port can be connected to vvvv. Writing serial connection drivers and hacking serial protocols in vvvv is quite fun after you know the basic tools. See the HowTo RS232 for details.

Cinetix Sensorbox

The Sensorbox byhttp://www.cinetix.de is a small, sturdy and versatile box, which can be fully controlled with RS232. The IO (Devices Cinetix Sensorbox) allows for reading the digital inputs within vvvv. The Box has many more features. Currently there is no complete vvvv driver, but you can control all parts by exchanging commands over the RS232 port.

The USB version of the Sensorbox installs an virtual COM Port on you computer, so you can access it also with the RS232 node.

Perhaps somebody here on the board is willing to write a module for this versatile box.

Wolfgang Schemmert of Cinetix put an excellent (german) online resource on his web page athttp://www.as-workshop.de/index.htm where he explains in detail of how to connect sensors and actuators to his sensor box. most of his tips will work with other interfaces as well.

I-CubeX

The I-CubeX productline from Infusion Systems offers a lot of different sensors that are easily used and configured using the serial port with one of the following interfaces:

• USB-microDig (8 analog/10-bit inputs at >5 kS/s, 8 digital/1-bit outputs and 4 I²C ports) uses the serial port over USB.
• Wi-microDig (8 analog/10-bit inputs at >1 kS/s, 4 I²C ports) uses the serial port over Bluetooth wireless.

Arduino

The Ardunio Microcontroller board is a very simple way to connect many different sensors and actors to vvvv. Check the Arduino Tutorial

Digital Multimeters

Many more advanced multimeters for the electronics workshop do have a serial port. With this port you can get the values displayed. The sample rate might be low, but you can easily measure many different things like voltage, current, resistance, temperature, frequency, capacitance etc.

MegAsic Silicon board

A small board by MegAsic Silicon made for professional sensors. The board allows you to connect various analog sensors, do some analog pre-processing and output a 16bit value over rs232. each sensor will need its own board. http://www.hy-line.de/de/co/sensor-tec/hersteller/megasic/index.html

TCP/IP interfaces

Similar to RS232 interfaces you can connect TCP/IP based or HTTP based interfaces to vvvv.
There is a built in node for Wiesemann&Theis Digital EAhttp://www.wut.de interface, which is a good choice for permanent installations.

Midi controller boards and keyboards

If you´re willing to take a detour over midi you could use a similar board as zepi? fromhttp://www.doepfer.de/pe.htm.

if you like to solder a "big solution" for many purposes have a look at http://www.ucapps.de

I-CubeX

The I-CubeX productline from Infusion Systems offers a lot of different sensors that are easily used and configured using MIDI with one of the following interfaces:

• Digitizer (32 analog/12-bit inputs at >200 S/s, 8 digital/1-bit outputs).
• microDig (8 analog/10-bit inputs at >1 kS/s, 4 I²C ports).

About MIDI, note that, while 14 bits (16384 different values) are used for pitch-bend messages, it allows only seven bits for most control-change messages. Therefore, if you use control-change messages you can distinguish only between 128 different values. This is okay for simple potentiometers, but may not enough, if you want to do precise measurements over a large range. See the HowTo MIDI for details.

Keyboards and Mice

You can easily re-solder a keyboard or a mouse to connect switches to it.

Code Mercenaries provides chips and kits to built your own mice, keyboards, if you want to build your own device from scratch. See their JoyWarrior, KeyWarrior and MouseWarrior Productshttp://www.codemercs.com/D_index.html.

USB Interfaces

There are more and more USB interfaces for analog and digital input. While USB is quite handy in general, it has a specific disadvantage: There is no consumer-level standard for connecting USB interfaces to windows computers. Although vvvv supports generic USB-HID devices, not all human interface devices you will get in a shop actually are HID devices. Using USB interfaces therefore means very often that you need to have a a specific driver and a specific node in vvvv.

The following usb interfaces are supported with built in nodes. They provide a convenient solution for extending the pc with up to 24 digital inputs or outputs

BMC USB-PIO

A very simple to use intelligent cable going from USB to a SubD plug featuring 24 digital IO portshttp://www.bmcm.de. Each Cable has its onwn ID number programmed into its chip, so you can easily connect multiple interfaces to vvvv without taking care about the plug-in sequence.

IOWarrior modules

The Iowarrior modules is a little printed circuit board, which is supported by a standard vvvv node:http://www.codemercs.com/IOWarriorD.html

Phidgets

Users Dujocom and Phlegma wrote some very fine nodes for controlling the Phidget series of interfaces. See this thread

Many other devices are in fact HID devices, which you can acess via the HID-Nodes. Please report your findings here

Whats the fastest input on standard PCs at all?

This is quite difficult to say in general, as it is mostly dependant on the drivers.

• latency is always a problem.
• latency jitter is always a more serious problem.

Some heuristics:
drivers for devices for people who care about latency are better optimized that those for those who dont.
read: midi-interfaces and joysticks should have quite good latencies - even over usb.

drivers for devices which predate windows should be quite fast as well. read: onboard serial ports, onboard parallel ports, ps2 keyboards should have low latency.
rs232 is better than udp, which is better than tcp.
video input is always ugly. sound most likely also.

Best is setting up an oscilloscope to actually see whats going on, before delving into a myriad of registry settings and driver versions