VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Thu Feb 02 2006 - 17:31:45 CST

Hi Pietro,
  Here're a few tips for you on the questions you asked:

  1) The NVidia 8178 drivers for linux are quite buggy, they'll work so long
     as you stay clear of using GLSL in VMD, but I recommend upgrading when
     they fix the bugs that various people have reported.

  2) Spaceball: I may need to send you a small test program for you to use
     in determining why VMD isn't communicating with it correctly. It's
     possible that yours is one of the newer models that doesn't work quite
     right with the libsball code yet. Another possibility is that the
     3DConnexion driver is setting the device to a mode that the libsball
     code cannot recover it from, and thus is "deaf" to ball events for
     some reason. We'll have to try a few things to figure out what's
     going on there.

  3) Some older MSMS binaries malfunctioned on new Linux distributions.
     Several people reported this and I believe Michel Sanner has released
     new binaries on his web site which fix the problem with the socket
     interface not working. If you're happy with using the VMDMSMSUSEFILE
     environment variable, then this may not matter to you.

  4) For tracker devices other than the Spaceball and simple joysticks,
     you'll need to use the VRPN library, or write your own Tracker device
     class and add it to the VMD source. In the past VMD was primarily used
     with CAVElib or FreeVR when using head tracking and VR type stuff.
     If you're not using a head tracker and are just after a pointer/wand
     type thing, then VRPN is probably the way to go as that's already built
     into VMD. If you DO want head tracking, then CAVElib or FreeVR are
     the best immediate choices. If those aren't suitable, then you'll
     need to write your own DisplayDevice and tracker subclasses that
     implement the head tracking and take input from your device.

  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 10:04:58PM +0100, Pietro Amodeo wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've just installed VMD (both 1.8.3 and 1.8.4b6 version) on my IBM
> IntelliStation M Pro (with Quadro FX 1440 graphic board), equipped with
> eDimensional 3D Glasses (correctly working after setting
> VMDPREFERSTEREO=1), a NaturalPoint TrackIR:3 head tracking device (any VMD
> support existing or planned?) and a serial Spaceball 4000FLX.
>
> The Spaceball correctly works with VMD under Windows, while both tested
> VMD Linux versions behave in the same (strange) way:
> - if I launch VMD in a new window for the first time, I hear a double beep
> from the device and a "Opening Spaceball on port: /dev/ttyS0" message is
> printed in VMD console, but nothing happens when I move the ball or press
> the buttons;
> - after exiting the program and restarting it in THE SAME window, I obtain
> the same beeping and message, but now (ONLY) buttons 1 to 8 works (buttons
> 9 and A,B,C give no output in the console window and the ball movements
> produce no effect on molecules in any Spaceball user mode)!!!
> - if I issue ANY unix command between two VMD launch commands in that
> terminal window (either when the first session is still active, or after
> exiting it) in the second VMD run the spaceball returns to its fully
> inactive state, while if I ONLY issue VMD launch commands in the window I
> always obtain the "partially active" state.
>
> So, I never ended with a fully functional Spaceball...
>
> Additional data:
> 1) in the VMD launch script I defined VMDMSMSUSEFILE (as a workaround to the
> observed impossibility to use socketPort 1357), VMDPREFERSTEREO and
> VMDSPACEBALLPORT=/dev/ttyS0 variables;
> 2) when I activated Spaceball xdriver, all tests ran flawlessly
> (obviously, xdriver in not active when I run VMD, and I halted and
> restarted the workstation before running again VMD);
> 3) I've installed Fedora Core 4 (fully updated yesterday) and the last
> release (8178) of NVIDIA video drivers.
>
> Sincerely,
> Pietro
>
> --
> Dr. Pietro Amodeo, Ph.D.
> Istituto di Chimica Biomolecolare del CNR
> Comprensorio "A. Olivetti", Edificio 70
> Via Campi Flegrei 34
> I-80078 Pozzuoli (Napoli) - Italy
> Phone +39-0818675072
> Fax +39-0818041770
> Email pamodeo_at_icmib.na.cnr.it 

-- 
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