Visualizing "Reality-Mining" with Arduino Sensors

I was browsing the CSAIL event calendar at MIT, and noticed that next Thursday, there's an event on "reality-mining". It sounded like a pretty catchy idea, and after doing some digging, I realized that the concept of reality mining has a lot to do with opening up transparency into digital data about social interactions, etc. BUT! In a general sense, it also has to do with the process of understanding "machine-sensed environmental data."

Translation for mere mortals like me: "sensors"

:-)




The coolest part about reality-mining is the notion of visualizing the output of sensor type data in novel ways. So I figured I'd apply that concept to the Modern Device / Liquidware sensors. Starting with the Compass Sensor.

This is the code that gets uploaded onto the Arduino:



#include <Wire.h>
#include <LibCompass.h>
#include <HardwareSensor.h>

LibCompass compass = LibCompass(0);

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
Sensor.begin(19200);
}

int c;

void loop() {
c = (int)compass.GetHeading();
Sensor.print("1", c);
Sensor.print("2", 360-c);
delay(5);
}


And this is the code that gets uploaded onto the TouchShield Slide:



#include <HardwareSensor.h>

void setup() {
Sensor.begin(19200);
background(0);

}

int val,x,y;
int lastx = 0;
int lasty = 0;
char name[5];

void loop() {

if (Sensor.available()) {
int value;
value = Sensor.read();
x = lastx; y = lasty;
if (strcmp ( Sensor.getName() , "1" )) x = value / 4;
if (strcmp ( Sensor.getName() , "2" )) y = value / 4;

stroke(128); line(300,10,300,230);

if (x < x =" 0;"> 100) x = 100;
if (y < y =" 0;"> 100) y = 100;

if (x != lastx) {
noStroke();
fill(50);
rect( 20+3*x, 26 , 279-3*x , 81 );
fill( 0);
rect( 20 , 26 , 3*x , 81 );
};

if (y != lasty) {
noStroke();
fill(50);
rect( 20+3*y, 133 , 279-3*y , 81 );
fill( 0);
rect( 20 , 133 , 3*y , 81 );
};


lastx=x; lasty=y;
}
}



The code on the Arduino polls the Compass Module Sensor, and then sends the values to the TouchShield Slide using the HardwareSensor.h library that Chris built (available as a built-in library if you download the Arduino Antipasto IDE). Then the TouchShield Slide polls the Arduino's sensor values, and displays bar graphs. The result is nice, smooth-flowing, no-flickering bar graphs that show the values of the sensor in real time...

Here's a picture showing the bar graphs tilted to one side:


And this is probably my favorite picture of the bunch:


Enjoy!