Opensource project

The Vmarker Sensor and Vmarker pen are opensource. This includes the hardware designs and the custom firmware.

Making the Vmarker sensor and pen opensource means that everyone can make there own vmarker or derivatives, or even make custom firmware for the sensor or pen. It allows users the adapt the vmarker to exaclty his needs.

All vmarker sensors have a fast ARM Cortex M3 processor from ST and most importantly they have a custom CMOS camera that can track IR dots in a 2D plane, think WiiMote. This is a very powerful combination which allows more that only interactive whiteboard stuff.

Some ideas that are possible:

  • Head tracking for better VR
  • Tracking positions of robots in a room
  • Gesture sensing

It is possible to reflash all hardware as the pcb's have programming ports and debugging ports.

Even more the IR sensor is expandable as the not-used IO ports of the processor are also accessible through a jumper on the PCB.

But of course the Vmarker still stays available as ready to use product with our support. The Vmarker solution stays available with the same support.

You can find almost everything here:

The Vmarker project is released under the Mozilla Public License, v. 2.0. You can obtain at  http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/

Vmarker IR-sensor USB

General

The Vmarker IR-sensor has an cmos 'ir-sensor' with integrated blob detection, the information of this camera is received by an processor whitch after processing can send the informatio through a USB connector to a computer.

Beside of the cmos IR-sensor also an 38kHz IR-receiver is integrated. This enables to detect special IR-codes send by the IR-pen to enable extra functionality.

 

Source

Hardware: Vmarker IR-sensor USB

https://bitbucket.org/robint91/vmarker-hardware

Software: Vmarker Sensor Firmware

https://bitbucket.org/robint91/vmarker-sensor-firmware

 

Specifications

  • STM32F103RBT, 72MHz ARM Cortex M3 with 128kByte Flash and 16kByte RAM
  • PAC7010L, 1024x768 200Hz Object detection sensor with uart interface
  • AP7333, 3.3 Volt regulator
  • TSOP39338, 38kHz IR receiver

Vmarker pen

General

The Vmarker pen is an cpu controlled IR-pen.

The IR pen has  3 double action switches: on in the tip and two on the side.

Further more it has a 3 axis accelero sensor, a 3 axis magnetic sensor and a 3 axis gyro sensor to be able to detect a variaty of human interaction. The Vmarker pen has an IR-LED in the tip to communicate with the IR-sensor.

 

Source

Hardware: Vmarker pen

https://bitbucket.org/robint91/vmarker-hardware

Software: Vmarker IR pen firmware

https://bitbucket.org/robint91/vmarker-ir-pen-firmware

 

Specifications

  • STM32F100C8T6, 24MHz ARM Cortex M3 wtih 64kByte FLASH and 8kByte RAM
  • LSM303DHLC, 3D accelerometer and 3D magnetometer module
  • L3GD20, low-power three-axis angular rate sensor

Vmarker Utility

General

The Vmarker Utility to configure the Vmarker IR-sensor USB was already opensource. This utilty build with QT is used to configure the Vmarker IR-sensor USB with the Vmarker firmware.

The utility offers a graphical interface to align and calibrate the Vmarker IR-sensor USB. It is used to change settings, but also to enable disable features.

The utility is prebuild for WIndows, linux and Mac, you can find these on the Downloads page.

Source

The source of the Vmarker Utility:

https://bitbucket.org/robint91/vmarker-utilty