VMD-L Mailing List

From: Cesar Delgado (beettlle_at_hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Oct 30 2003 - 15:17:22 CST

I'm sorry if I sounded a bit pushy in my last email but every computer I
touch today seems to break or die in some horific way so I'm kinda mad at
myself right now...

Everything worksup to step 5 in the instructions you sent me. I try to use
Button 1 or 2 and they both send the molecule to the back of the 3D space
and then the molecule disapears. The ball doesn't do anything no matter in
what direction I try to move it.

I am using a Spaceball 5000, and when I start the xdriver to run the demos
stuff, I hear a double beep followed by a little delay and then another
double beep. With VMD I just hear one double beep when it starts, with the
xdriver not running. Could this be a sighn of something going wrong?

-Cesar Delgado
---------------------------------------------
Research Computing Facility @ UNL
http://rcf.unl.edu
cdelgad2_at_bigred.unl.edu, beettlle_at_hotmail.com

>From: John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu>
>To: Cesar Delgado <beettlle_at_hotmail.com>
>CC: vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu
>Subject: Re: vmd-l: VMD and Chromium
>Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 13:51:51 -0600
>
>
>Cesar,
> Trust me, I wrote the code :-)
>If you run the xdriver, it will fight with VMD over who gets to control
>the spaceball. The low-level Unix serial driver will let them both talk
>to the ball, and each one will get some of the I/O's from the spaceball,
>which is why you're getting corrupted spaceball packets, causing the
>erratic behavior.
>So, to fix your problem:
> 1) Turn off the xdriver first.
> 2) Once the xdriver is definitely off, you'll need to power-cycle the
> spaceball to reset any crazy values that have been programmed into it
> by the xdriver. If its an older model, the easiest way to do that is
> to unplug the cable from the back of the spaceball. If its a newer
> 3003 FLX or 4000 FLX model, you can just unplug it from the computer
> for a moment.
> 3) Make sure no VMD instances are running, and close any other spaceball
> aware programs just in case...
> 4) Plug the spaceball back in.
> 5) Start VMD. The Spaceball should beep when VMD starts, indicating
> that VMD successfully sent it the reset and initialization sequence.
> 6) Press the "1" button on the ball, this should reset the VMD view.
> Pressing "2" cycles through the various Spaceball modes in VMD.
>
>Once you've done those steps, you should see that by applying torque
>to the Spaceball, you can rotate the VMD axes etc.. If you still have
>problems after following these steps, let me know and I'll help you
>get it sorted out.
>
>Which Spaceball model are you using by the way?
>
>Thanks,
> John Stone
> vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
>
>
>
>On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 07:37:15PM +0000, Cesar Delgado wrote:
> > The problem is that if I don't start xdriver then the ball, on the
> > spaceball, doesn't do anything. The button do work, but all of them just
> > send the molecule back to infinity, or at least that is what it seems.
>When
> >
> > I start VMD the spaceball beeps just like it does when I start the
>xdriver.
> >
> > I don't know if that is good or bad.
> >
> > -Cesar Delgado
> > ---------------------------------------------
> > Research Computing Facility @ UNL
> > http://rcf.unl.edu
> > cdelgad2_at_bigred.unl.edu, beettlle_at_hotmail.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >From: John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu>
> > >To: Cesar Delgado <beettlle_at_hotmail.com>
> > >CC: vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> > >Subject: Re: vmd-l: VMD and Chromium
> > >Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 13:28:30 -0600
> > >
> > >
> > >Cesar,
> > > Disable the 'xdriver' program, it is interfereing with VMD.
> > >You can re-enable the xdriver when you're not using VMD if you need
> > >to use the Spaceball with other programs.
> > >
> > >VMD contains its own spaceball driver and doesn't need to use
> > >the xdriver. It directly communicates with the Spaceball over
> > >the serial port.
> > >
> > >Thanks,
> > > John Stone
> > > vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 06:03:45PM +0000, Cesar Delgado wrote:
> > >> We just received a Spaceball to work with. I have it connected to my
> > >> development machine for the moment to try the spcaball out. It's a
> > >> 3DConnexion spaceball and it came with a driver (xdriver 4.5). I've
> > >tried
> > >> to run VMD with the driver running and it behaves eraticaly. When I
> > >move
> > >> the ball around, not pressing any of the buttons, I get these strange
> > >> messages in mthe vmd console:
> > >>
> > >> Info) VMD for LINUX, version 1.8.1 (June 15, 2003)
> > >> Info) http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
> > >> Info) Email questions and bug reports to vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> > >> Info) Please include this reference in published work using VMD:
> > >> Info) Humphrey, W., Dalke, A. and Schulten, K., `VMD - Visual
> > >> Info) Molecular Dynamics', J. Molec. Graphics 1996, 14.1, 33-38.
> > >> Info) -------------------------------------------------------------
> > >> Info) Multithreading available, 1 CPU detected.
> > >> Info) OpenGL renderer: Quadro4 900 XGL/AGP/SSE2
> > >> Info) Features: STENCIL MSAA(4) RN MDE CVA MTX TCM PP
> > >> Info) Textures: 2-D (4096x4096), 3-D (512x512x512), Multitexture
>(4)
> > >> Info) Opening Spaceball on port: /dev/ttyS0
> > >> vmd > Info) Spaceball set to dominant axis rotation/translation mode
> > >> Info) Spaceball reset view orientation
> > >> Info) Spaceball set to scaling mode
> > >> Info) Spaceball set to rotation/translation mode
> > >> Info) Spaceball set to dominant axis rotation/translation mode
> > >> Info) Spaceball reset view orientation
> > >>
> > >> I have also tried to run it without the "xdriver" running and letting
> > >VMD
> > >> take care of talking to the space ball but then the ball doesn't
>work.
> > >Some
> > >>
> > >> of the buttons do stuff, but that is it.
> > >>
> > >> Thanks for the help,
> > >>
> > >> -Cesar Delgado
> > >> ---------------------------------------------
> > >> Research Computing Facility @ UNL
> > >> http://rcf.unl.edu
> > >> cdelgad2_at_bigred.unl.edu, beettlle_at_hotmail.com
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> >From: John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu>
> > >> >To: Cesar Delgado <beettlle_at_hotmail.com>
> > >> >CC: vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> > >> >Subject: Re: vmd-l: VMD and Chromium
> > >> >Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 02:32:50 -0500
> > >> >
> > >> >Cesar,
> > >> > Interesting, I had forgotten that Chromium still didn't do
>anything
> > >> >with the X mouse cursors etc. An alternative to using the mouse,
>which
> > >> >would
> > >> >still be less expensive than a full-up haptic device would be to use
> > >> >something
> > >> >like a Spaceball or a Magellan, via VRPN. Let me know if you've got
> > >one
> > >> >in your lab and I can give you further suggestions along those
>lines.
> > >> >Otherwise, I'm not sure that I have any great ideas in the
>short-term,
> > >> >as I'm already swamped debugging various small items before release
>of
> > >> >VMD 1.8.2. Let me know if you've got a Spaceball or a Magellan
> > >around..
> > >> >
> > >> > John
> > >> >
> > >> >On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 06:13:57PM -0500, Cesar Delgado wrote:
> > >> >> I have been using VMD with Chromium with no problems. Now I want
>to
> > >do
> > >> >> some IMD on the tiled wall. The problem is that the mouse does
>not
> > >> >> render on the tiled display wall so I don't know where I am
>pointing
> > >> >> which makes it impossible to grab anything.
> > >> >>
> > >> >> Has anyone ever tried this and found a solution?
> > >> >>
> > >> >> -Cesar Delgado
> > >> >> ---------------------------------------------
> > >> >> Research Computing Facility @ UNL
> > >> >> <http://rcf.unl.edu> http://rcf.unl.edu
> > >> >> <mailto:cdelgad2_at_bigred.unl.edu> cdelgad2_at_bigred.unl.edu,
> > >> >> <mailto:beettlle_at_hotmail.com> beettlle_at_hotmail.com
> > >> >>
> > >> >
> > >> >--
> > >> >NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> > >> >Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> > >> >University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> > >> >Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349
> > >> > WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078
> > >>
> > >> _________________________________________________________________
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> > >
> > >--
> > >NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> > >Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> > >University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> > >Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349
> > > WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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>--
>NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
>Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
>University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
>Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349
> WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078

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