Progress/Experience using Chordata

Chibiin

Hi there!

In this thread I'll document my progress from start to finish, it could be useful for other people that might also struggle. Note that I had no real experience with this sort of things.

TL;DR (so far):

install Raspbian + Notochord on SDCard using Etcher, put the SDCard into the RaspberryPie
wire the HUB and RaspberryPie together using jumper cables
plug PowerBank/PhoneCharger (5v) -> MicroUSB -> RaspberryPie -> MicroUSB -> HUB
login: pi // password: chordata
test if HUB is detected using i2cdetect -y 1 if you see a 73 you're good to continue, otherwise check your wiring between Raspberry & HUB

Whole testing story

Raspbian + Notochord
I downloaded installed the pre-made Notochord+Raspbian, I figured that if they actually made it in advance, it would have been better than trying myself to integrate it and spend countless hours on something that wasnt necessary. The install process was super easy & quick using Etcher.

Pluging everything together
In the tutorial it was shown that you needed to plug the PowerBank to the HUB, and then the HUB to the RP, but when I did I got a message when launching the system that it was "undervolted", I already had that problem in the past, so I switched the order to PowerBank -> RP3B+ -> HUB, from that point it stopped showing me the thunderbolt icon & the error message about being undervolted, while still using the MicroUSB to output 5v to the HUB like the tutorial mentionned.

Boot
I plugged a keyboard to the RP and booted the whole thing, to be greeted by a message asking me to insert a login then a password. This wasn't part of the plan, it wasn't written in the Step 2 tutorial page, the only thing written was to make a hotspot/rename my wifi to be easier for Notochord to connect directly to the Wifi. After a bit of research on the wiki page, I found out that the login was "pi" and the password "chordata". Now the problem is, I don't know if it's related to the build itself, or if it's a Raspbian thing, but apparently when you type the password, it doesnt show anything, on a regular app/website it'd show some ****** for each letter, and it kinda threw me off, I actually thought I wasn't able to input a password at all. After finally realizing my mistake, I configured the Wifi, and was ready to launch my first test of the HUB and the K-ceptor that I previously plugged in.

First Test
I was ready and excited to try the system for the first time and see how it worked, so I went on and tried to run Notochord with --scan this was the result:

    info~[   0]Notochord start @ bla bla bla date of the day
    info~[ 19] Verbosity level 0
    info~[ 26] K-Ceptor revision 2
    info~[133] I2C adapter initialied on /dev/i2c-1
    info~[140] Starting Armature scanning.
    info~[148] Scan: No HUB found
    error~[157] Fatal error: No armature, aborting.

I was very surprised, the HUB wasn't found, but the blue light was turned on, so I went ahead and switched my configuration back to PowerBank -> HUB -> RP3B+ to see if it worked, nope, still the same problem, so I decided to send Chordata an email asking for help.

The wiring
They replied rather quickly, telling me that I actually missed a step in the tutorial and sent me a video about the subject, the "Wiring the Hub and raspberry" one, I thought this step was only if you used the 3v3 rail from the SBC.
I plugged eveything, tried the command i2cdetect -y 1 and my HUB was finally detected! I jumped on the occasion to turn off everything and plug one of the K-Ceptor to the J1 spot and used

cd notochord/bin
./notochord  --scan

The K-Ceptor was initialized as fore-arm, so I ran Blender with the Chordata plugin and tried to connect it, nothing seems to happen, tried again by typing the local IP (192.168.5.X) of my RP3B+ during the ./notochord -- scan 192.168.5.X and then typing the same inside Blender, still does not work.

I just realized that the next step is to calibrate the whole thing, will update this post once I've done that 😃

Cheers!

daylanKifky

Hi @Chibiin,
thanks for taking the time to put this log together! this type of document would really help others on the process of making their own suit work.

Chibiin After a bit of research on the wiki page, I found out that the login was "pi" and the password "chordata". Now the problem is, I don't know if it's related to the build itself, or if it's a Raspbian thing, but apparently when you type the password, it doesnt show anything, on a regular app/website it'd show some ****** for each letter, and it kinda threw me off, I actually thought I wasn't able to input a password at all.

The lack of visual feedback while inputting the password is indeed a counter intuitive behavior, but it's common to all linux terminal environments. It happens to everyone the first time trying to log in into a linux shell.

I now highlighted in bold the password information, and added a comment about the lack of **** on the password prompt to this chapter of the wiki:
https://wiki.chordata.cc/wiki/User_Manual/1.Chordata_parts/1.1.Microcomputer#Flash_the_SD_card

Chibiin

Hi there,
It's been a while, I've tried calibrating a couple K-Ceptors, it apparently went ok so far.
Now I have the same problem as before, it doesnt detect anything inside Blender. I followed the tutorial, the video, I disabled my firewall, everything, nothing comes out on Blender, I even tried to plug the Debug node out of the Notochord, still doesnt change anything, I don't really know how to check if anything is actually working, if the K-Ceptor/HUB is actually sending data to my PC.

Edit:
I might aswell explain everything that I did to this point

plug everything together and turn it on, every light is blue, seems ok
using i2cdetect -y 1 shows 73 and 2 other things, seems fine
used cd notochord/bin ./notocord --scan 192.168.5.3 (my RPi is #7, my computer with Blender is #3)
Launch blender, initialize the plugin, add Kceptor, plug the Debug node into it, dont change anything inside the Notochord node, press Connect, nothing happens
Change the Notochord node with the RPi address, press Connect, nothing happens

NakedRabbit

Chibiin I found the video tutorial extremely helpful when I went into Blender. I don't know if you did some of the things I'm about to mention and simply did not list them, or if they are new to you. But I had Blender trouble too until I did it this way:

Open New Project in Blender
Delete EVERYTHING. That box, the camera, the light, everything.
Select Window > Chordata > Add a KCeptor Model to the scene
Select the "Mocap" tab that appears
There will be two nodes, the Notochord node and the Target Node
Make sure the Notochord node is not in "Demo Mode"
Start Notochord on the Pi with
./notochord --scan 192.168.1.X
Where "X" is the computer running Blender.
Hit "Connect" on the Notochord Node in Blender
Make sure the target Node is set to the KCeptor Model.
Make sure the Sub-Target is set to the connected KCeptor, in this case kc-CH_1-0. It defaults to something like 2_2.
Now the Kceptor should move according to the actual movement of the module.

Dhuny

Hi everyone,

Writing to share my first test experience. I have been able to test one node properly as present in fourth tutorial. Currently waiting for new tutorials to come out.
To share a few points here:

The Raspbian image seems to be a normal RPI image to me. I booted it up normally first without connecting the HUB. The advantage is that you can connect your monitor and devices to configure device. The username is pi and password is chordata. Once booted, you may need some minor configurations like setting up your wifi.
Wifi may be disabled by default by rfkill. So use the Liunx command rfkill unblock wifi.
Once this is done, it may happen that you don’t have SSH and i2C enabled.
Use Sudo raspi-config to enable same. You may also set the distro to autologin if you wish.
Configure you WIFI SSID and passphrase to get access to WIFI.
To further stabilize your work in future a static IP address might be more appropriate. You may edit /etc/dhcpcd.conf to set a static IP. (consult the web for same, else let me know, I’ll detail it.)
Once done you may need to enable the ports for proper communication.
If you are not used to work with Linux you may try Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW). TO install same, use sudo apt-get install ufw
Once installed, type sudo ufw allow 22 to open port 22 for communication.
Type ifconfig on Linux to get your IP address. Get on to another device, try connecting using ssh. If you are using a windows machine use Putty. If you successfully log in then move to next step.
Type sudo init 0 to switch off the Pi and connect the HUB as shown in video tutorials. Make sure cables are well connected to the pins and that the USB adapter provides the required minimum voltage.
Proceed with the video tutorials everything should work fine. When you reach the point where you need to type ./notochord –scan [put IP address of device running blender]
In my case I was running blender on a Windows machine. I had to open the port 6565 on my firewall as it will be used to communicate with the Linux server.
I hope this short post helps someone else on this forum.

Riyad

daylanKifky

Thanks to @NakedRabbit and @Dhuny for the advices!
@Dhuny: are you a beta tester? if so we wil give you betatester permissions, so you can start threads with the betatester tag.

Adding a couple of comments to some you your observations:

Dhuny The Raspbian image seems to be a normal RPI image to me
Yes it is, it's just an easy way to install the Chordata sofware over raspbian

Dhuny Wifi may be disabled by default by rfkill

Great observation! the reason for it is that each user should set the country the RPi is being used, so the RF WIFI specs are compatible. So everyone will have to set their country using sudo raspi-config. This is something we should add to the documentation.

by the way SSH and i2c should be enabled in the image. we provide

The points between 6. to 9. can be of great help for advanced users, but I wouldn't like to confuse others. For example: the UFW Firewall Duhny is suggesting has nothing to do with the problem @Chibiin in is having. My hypothesis is that in Chibin's case the PC or LAN firewall are blocking the messages, and he's using it to open port 22 for the SSH (this is only necessary in the case the raspi-config utility don't do it).

HalloweenBob

NakedRabbit I followed your numbered list exactly. My Rasperry Pi gave me a success message and told me my K-Ceptor was kc-CH_1-0 as you can see from my pics. I clicked connect on the Blender node and got the message that Chordata Engine had started (also in my pictures. I was connected by SSH, so I know the Pi's WiFi was working.

The other Node is where I'm having issues. Even though I am using K-Ceptor R2.3, the ONLY choice that came up in the Object box was KCeptor_R1. There was nothing else to select. I hit the Sub-Target and you can see the list that shows up in the pictures. None of them were kc-CH_1-0. I did ping my computer from the Pi and I did get pings back. It seems to just keep on pinging, however. Over 100 times and still counting. I will shut down the Pi and try again. I also did open port 6565 from my computer's firewall. so communications are there and Blender does say that it started the Chordata Engine. Any ideas what to try next?

I guess I don't know how to upload a picture anymore. I tried using the upload icon, but it gave me an error that simply said error. To see the pictures, you can copy and paste those URL's into a browser What are the requirements for pictures? Max filesize, ect. These are just from my phone. Weird.

Chibiin

Hi there @NakedRabbit & @Dhuny

Thanks for the replies, overall what you two said is exactly what I've been doing, the only difference, and my current problem, is that the K-Ceptor named kc-CH_1-0 isnt detected at all inside Blender, I can only see the default 2_2, the Debug node outputs nothing aswell.

daylanKifky

Hi Chibiin

Chibiin Debug node outputs nothing aswell

This is a clear sign that the packets are not arriving to you PC. If the notochord runs without errors it is unlikely that it's not sending any. In order to confirm this we can try a couple of tests:

Simple test

Boot the RPi and issue the following command:

ping 192.168.X.X #this should be the IP address of your PC

Do you get the pings back?

Advanced test

The more advanced test requires to receive the packets in the same raspberry.
In one raspberry terminal window* clone the COPP_server, which is the software in charge or receiving packets inside the blender addon. This might sound hard, but you only need to issue the following lines (requires access to internet):

cd ~
git clone https://gitlab.com/chordata/copp_server.git

That will download the copp_server module inside your home folder.
now you can initiate the server to listen for incoming packets

cd ~ #this line is optional, it will change the current working directory to you home folder if you are somewhere else
python3 -m copp_server 6565

Now, in another terminal window run the notochord as you normally will, but make it send messages to localhost (ip: 127.0.0.1)

cd notochord/bin
./notochord --scan 127.0.0.1 6565

If you dont see packets printed in the copp_server terminal then the notochord got the coronavirus 🤡

(*) several windows?

If you are runing the RPi by plugging a monitor and keyboard, and you are using the version of raspbian we provide (without desktop environment) it might be hard to have two separate terminal windows to operate with. One solution would be to use SSH to create two parallel sessions. If you don't want to use ssh there's this great terminal tool called tmux. It can be used to split the terminal window.

#install tmux
sudo apt install tmux

#enter tmux
tmux

#You will see the terminal changed, there's a bar at the bottom.
#Now split the screen
tmux split-window -h

You can now navigate both panes with CTRL+B and then right or left arrow

Chibiin

Hi there!

Good news everyone, it finally worked! yay
Again, thanks to everybody who helped me so far, I'll update my first post ASAP with the informations I gathered.

So my problem was these 2 bad boys...

As you can see, there were 2 Blender lines in my Firewall, the bottom one wasn't enabled at all.
The top one was already activated for Private, so I thought I'd had to check Public aswell, didn't work (but we already knew that), it's only today, after testing what you guys suggested (also it surprised me a lot that the Ping actually worked from the RPie to the PC, which led me to believe it was def' a firewall issue)
I tried to completely disable EVERYTHING on my computer (firewall, defender, everything) and enabled stuff one by one, turns out it was my Public Firewall that blocked the data from the RPie, so I just checked the bottom one to enable it just for Public, and it worked!

I'm super happy right now, I'll continue some testing & also start printing the 3D printed cases for the K-Ceptors (model available soon with some instructions!)

Edit: I tested a 2nd K-Ceptor and it works aswell, so it was def' the Firewall problem!

daylanKifky

HalloweenBob guess I don't know how to upload a picture

You can just paste the URL when you use external images. I edited your post.

When using the icon below it creates an empty markdown image syntax. The URL goes inside the paréntesis. To upload an image use the upload button

HalloweenBob

I do notice that the notation in blender KCeptor_R1 and KCeptor_R1.001 come from the chordata_1-0-0_d8227990.zip file. Shouldn't it be referring to KCeptor _R2? I don't see anything like that in the downloads. Just an even older version under deprecated software.

daylanKifky

If you don't see the name of your KC in the drop down of the testcube mode it probably means the messages are not arriving to the add-on.
Try plugging a dump node to the main notochord node and turn on all the streams. You should see messages printed on the blender console

HalloweenBob

daylanKifky Thanks for fixing my post. I did use the upload button and it gave me an error. Anyway, being a little slow here, I don't know what a dump node is or where to get one. I must have been absent for that class. I assume that's something I need to do on the Pi and not in blender but I really don't know.

UPDATE: I just found the Dump Node in blender. I will work on that and report results.

HalloweenBob

I don't know if I set it up right, but it doesn't seem to be making any difference. I expected that it would have to come before the Test Cube node, but since it has no output, I had to do it this way. I could have linke it to the Data Out from the test cube, but I don't see how that would help, and I tried it anyway with the same results.

This is Blender version 2.83

duncan006

You could check if the osc stream is even giving an output, that would at least verify if there's any data.

Instructions here

Also, the "KCeptor_R1" in the objects panel is just the name of the 3D model and doesn't correspond to kceptor version.

HalloweenBob

Thanks for the heads up on the KCeptor_R1 label. I was wondering about that. Regardless, my KCeptor did not show up in the download list. I tried checking the Osc Stream as you suggested but got the following result:

I tried it both with `/notochord, and with ./notochord just in case it was a typo or something. The result was the same.

Any other suggestions? This is so close now. The Pi thinks everything is fine, and I can communicate with it through SSH.
That means that it is communicating with my computer. I'm not sure where to go with it next. I was thinking of trying a different cable to connect the KCeptor to the hum, but if that were the problem, I wouldn't have been able to calibrate it.

duncan006

Try this:

./notochord/lib/oscpack_1_1_0/bin/OscDump 6565

And when you run the notochord in another window, make sure it's set to localhost.

HalloweenBob

How do I set it to localhost? I'm using PuTTY and I connect by using the IP address of the Pi.

HalloweenBob

Here was the result