In the last couple of weeks, I have made further progress in the development of the software components of the superfret system. Firstly, I developed a Uart driver that allows the web app being hosted on the Raspberry Pi to communicate directly to the Teensy microcontroller via a simple interface. We have additionally conducted rudimentary tests to check the communication and were able to successfully send entire midi files as well as interrupt signals using the midi driver. Tasks that are left on this component include refining the communication standard more as the hardware develops to enable seamless communication and synchronization between the two processors. This puts me on track with our projected schedule. Additionally, I began working on the dynamic scrolling note feed since our team determined it would be a very nice feature to have from the perspective of our users. This is a much more involved task so I broke it down into separate categories:
– Display Alignment
– Display synchronization
– Midi file parsing and sending
– Translation from note number to fret and string number
Currently, I was able to make significant progress in the Display alignment category. This task involved creating a dynamic webpage with moving shapes. I implemented this behavior using HTML canvas graphics manipulated by frontend JavaScript. I created a demo webpage that helped debug the page and showcases its functionality:
For next week I hope to have made significant progress on the dynamic guitar display. Progress in any of the categories for this task will help improve its functionality and help determine the viability of the feature.