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WHEELCHAIR SIMULATOR PACKAGE
(Draft 2 4-Feb-88)
*
T. Mathews, M. Smith and J. McLaughlin
Department of Electrical Engineering,
University of Calgary,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
*
Technical Resource Centre,
Suite 100, 525 11 Avenue, S.W.,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2R OC9.
Contact person: M. Smith.
(403) - 220 - 6142 (MDT)
FUNDING:
This project was initially funded as a special project
by the
University of Calgary
and the
Calgary Celebral Palsy
Association.
DISTRIBUTION AND COPYRIGHT
This package remains the copyright property of the authors.
However, you are free to copy and distribute the package
provided this notice remains with the package. You may not
charge for any package that includes this program other than for
the cost of the diskette to which it is copied. AMIGA user
groups and the ubiquitous FRED FISK can copy and distribute it
as per normal.
If you find the package useful, then in the spirit of
SHAREWARE, you are requested to send a tax deductable donation
(suggested $20) to the
Wheelchair Simulator Project,
c/o J.
McLaughlin at the Technical Resource centre address, so that
another student can be hired to do further development work.
WARNING:
Although much care and attention has been given to the
development and testing of the programs involved in this
package, no warranty is given that the programs will behave
exactly as described.
PROGRAM HISTORY:
The
WHEELCHAIR SIMULATOR
was suggested as a project by J.
McLaughlin to T. Mathews to fulfill the requirements for a
graphics course taught by M. Smith. The course, ENEL513, is part
of the program in
COMPUTER ENGINEERING
taught at the University
of Calgary Electrical Engineering Department
(UCEE).
Further
development work by T. Mathews and M. Smith occured across the
summer of 1987 using funds provided by the University of Calgary
and the Calgary Celebral Palsy Association. Credit is due to
the therapists and patients of the Alberta Children's Hospital,
Calgary who made many useful suggestions and tested the
program.
The
MAKER
program is based on a project developed by S.
Worthington again to fulfill a course requirement for ENEL 513.
It has been extensively modified by M. Smith who also designed
the
LYNNETTE
graphical interface which allows the program to
run on the AMIGA.
FEEDBACK
Please send your feedback to
Dr. M. R. Smith,
Department of Electrical Engineering,
University of Calgary,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4.
(403) 220-6142 (MST)
who is currently directing the software development of the
project (and having a fun time hacking when his new baby
daughter lets him onto the terminal. Do you really think that 6
months is TOO early?)
Please let him know what you think of the program. (I don't
like the wall colours either but something keeps changing them
back to those colours and I can't find what.) Any suggestions on
different reinforcers etc., and information on bugs would be
useful.
In reporting bugs, please don't say "THIS DOES WORK". Say
instead if you do this, and then this, and then that, then this
happens. That way, I can trace what might be happening. For
example, under certain conditions (which I can't replicate) all
the bulletin boards and other objects move up to the highest
horizontal wall. If this happens, select the DELETE ALL option
and start again. If you can make it happen consistently, let me
know how and I'll fix it.
M. Smith 4th
February 1988
PACKAGE CONTENTS
This package of programs is designed to enable therapists to
evaluate the types of control for a wheelchair used by the
handicapped. It is also useful in providing some training for
persons who need to become more familiar with the use of a
wheelchair in a non-threatening and safe environment.
The package is designed to be run on an Amiga computer with
512K memory, a colour monitor, a joystick, a keyboard and a
mouse. The programs have been written in "C" and can be ported
to other computers that have colour graphic capability (e.g.
Apple G.S.). Because of the size of the program, the need for
graphic capability and other factors, it is believed that
porting to a computer such as an Apple 2E would not be
feasable.
The package contains 5 programs, CONTROLLER, MAKER,
WHEELCHAIR3D, WHEELCHAIR2D, ANALYSIS and a series of predesigned
floor plans.
CONTROLLER:
This is a program designed to allow the easy calling of the
other programs in the package. People who become familiar with
the AMIGA will probably find that the direct calling of the
programs from the keyboard is a faster process. It also allows
changing of the date, patient name and other useful utilities.
MAKER:
This program enables the user to design a floor plan through
which the wheelchair operator can move. Walls, doorways, tables,
cones and other objects can be placed as desired on the floor
plan. Objects include arrows on the walls, happy faces and
bulletin boards with messages. Other objects can be added by
getting the authors in a good mood via buttering up their egos.
Various options such as wheelchair speed and rotation rate can
be set for use by the wheelchair simulation programs.
WHEELCHAIR3D:
This displays, in animated 3D, a view of the floor plan,
bulletin boards, etc., as seen by a person seated in a
wheelchair. The wheelchair can be moved through the plan or
rotated by using the joystick.
WHEELCHAIR2D:
Designed to allow the user to become familiar with the floor
plans generated by the therapist. It is more of a game than
anything else but does allow some familiarity with the joystick
to be obtained. If the game aspect of using the joystick is
important in the therapy, buy a commercial package such as
PACMAN rather than use this program. There are some very good
(free)
PUBLIC DOMAIN
games available on FISH disks. Contact your
local AMIGA user's group or computer shop for details. The
games are free except for the cost of the disk onto which you
copy them.
ANALYSIS:
(not yet in existance.)
This is designed to allow the therapists to analyse the progress
of the patient. Suggestions as to what useful analysis should
be made are requested.
STARTUP PROCEDURE
Connect your AMIGA computer with monitor, joystick and mouse
as suggested in your manual. If you are using a custom joystick
be careful when connecting to an AMIGA 1000 computer as they
have a live (5 Volt) pin on the joystick connector. Make sure
that your joystick has this pin disconnected. We have not yet
found a joystick that causes a problem, but everybody has heard
of Murphy.
For the AMIGA 1000 computer, insert the
KICKSTART
disk into
the disk drive and switch on the computer and monitor. With the
AMIGA 500 and 2000 computer you simply switch on the computer:
no KICKSTART disk is necessary.
When requested by a prompt on the screen, remove the KICKSTART
disk and insert the
WHEELCHAIR SIMULATOR
disk into the disk
drive. In a short period of time, the
CONTROLLER
program will
load into memory and run itself.
Using the
BACKUP
command of the controller program, you
should first make copies of the wheelchair simulator disk and
then put away one of the disks in a safe location as your
master disk. It is suggested that one disk be used per
patient.
Once backup copies of the disks have been made, choose the
options to run the
MAKER
or
SIMULATOR
programs as required.
CONTROLLER
The commands for running this program will appear on the
screen. Type the first letter of the command and press the
RETURN
key. The command will become highlighted. Entering
another letter and pressing RETURN will enable you to change
your choice. Once the correct command has been selected, press
return key again and the command will be executed.
The available commands are
A - ANALYSIS
provides an analysis and print out of the results
of the patient sessions using the simulators. (Not available Feb
1988.)
B - BACKUP
which causes a copy of the master disk to be made.
It is suggested you make a new disk for each patient and keep
your master disk in a safe location.
C - CHANGE
which enables you to change the floor plan or change
the options for the simulation of an existing plan. You will be
provided with a list of the names of the floor plans. Type in
the name of the plan you wish to change and press the return
key.
D - DELETE
which enables you to delete an unwanted floor plan
from the disk. You will be provided with a list of the names of
the floor plans. Type in the name of the plan you wish to
delete and press the return key. To avoid accidental removal of
the plans by the patient, a password is required to cause the
deletion. The password is
Get on with it
L - LIST
provides a list of the available floor plans on the
current disk.
M - MAKE
will allow the making of a new floor plan. You will
be provided with a list of the names of the floor plans already
existing so you can choose another no conflicting name. Press
RETURN when you are ready.
P - PATIENT
allows the changing of the patients name on the
disk. The patient name is used as a file name into which to
store the analysis results from the simulator.
R - REMOVE
removes the existing floor plans from the disk.
Useful command if you can't find the master disk when a new
patient comes in. Copy another patient's disk and then remove
the plans from it. To avoid accidental removal, a series of
passwords are required to cause the deletion. The passwords are
Get on with it
and
or else!!!!
T - TIME and DATE
allows the setting of the current time and
date of the session for use by the analysis program. Once the
time and date are set, they are automatically changed by the
computer until it is powered down.
2 - 2D simulation
A list of the names of the floor plans
available is first provided. Type in the name of the plan you
wish to run and press return.
3 - 3D simulation
A list of the names of the floor plans
available is first provided. Type in the name of the plan you
wish to run and press return.
MAKER
This program is a graphics program to allow simple
interactive entry of a floor plan. Rather than entering random
floor plans, it is suggested that the therapist build a floor
plan of a situation with which the patient is familiar (e.g.
hospital ward, home, school).
DESCRIPTION
If you are developing a new floor plan using the
M - MAKE
option of the controller program, you will be provided with a
small box called a
REQUESTER.
This is to be used to enter in the
name of the plan. There should be a small greyish box (the text
cursor) inside the requester. If there is not, then move the
mouse so that the arrow on the screen points into the black area
of the requester and press the (left) button on the mouse. The
text cursor should appear. (The text cursor will be in the
wrong place when a requester appears on the screen, if the
mouse buttons get touched shortly before the requester is due to
appear. This fact should be remembered as it is a fairly common
thing to cause happen in other parts of the controller program
as you become familiar with the program and become quicker off
the mark.)
Enter in the name of the new plan and press the return key.
If you have deliberately chosen the name of an existing plan, a
requester will appear at the top of the screen to ask for
confirmation. Use the mouse to move the arrow to point to either
the
OKAY TO DELETE
or the
CHOOSE NEW NAME
option and press the
left mouse button for the program to continue.
If you used the
CHANGE
option from the CONTROLLER program,
then the old floor plan will automatically be read in so that
you can modify it.
Using the MAKER program to create floor plans.
A grid of grey lines will appear on the screen. This will be
the
WORKING AREA
where the floor plan is designed.
At the right of the screen, is a series of coloured boxes.
These performed a function in the original program and since
they looked pretty, I left them in. In version 2 of this
program, these will be used for selecting objects (happy faces,
etc.) in an easier way than currently done.
On the left of the screen, a series of commands appear ( the
MENU
). Move the red CROSS on the screen to one of the options
by moving the mouse and press a mouse button. The command chosen
should become highlighted in WHITE. If you choose the wrong
menu item, move the cross to another option and press the mouse
key twice: the first to unchoose the unwanted item, (highlight
disappears), and the second time to choose the correct item.
The MENU options are
QUIT
used for leaving the maker program and returning to the
controller program.
WRITE PLAN
used to save the plan you have designed onto the
patient disk.
SHOW TRUE
To make it easier to use the program, it is not
necessary to place items such as happy faces and bulletin
boards EXACTLY at the right location on a wall. You simply
place it close to a wall. When the plan is saved, the program
works out the nearest wall and moves the object to there. Since
the program makes some decisions, the objects don't always move
where you want them. Using the SHOW TRUE option allows you to
find out what the computer will do. If you don't like what
happens, use the CHANGE command to move an item to somewhere
else.
CHANGE
This option allows you to delete incorrect items added to
the floor plan, change the messages printed on the bulletin
board, change the operating options of the simulation. For more
details on the CHANGE command see the section entitleed
"Building a floor plan".
START
Allows the initial placement and direction of the
wheelchair to be set in the floor plan.
BULLETIN
Allows the placement of bulletin boards and messages.
Details later.
OBJECTS
Allows the placement of tables, cones, arrows, happy
faces. Details later.
DOORWAYS
Allows the placement of doorways in walls. Details
later.
WALLS
Allows the placement of walls in the floor plan. The walls
are the fundamental unit of the plan. Details later.
BUILDING A FLOOR PLAN
First select the WALL option. That option should become
HIGHLIGHTED. Now move the cross-hair using the mouse. Place the
cross-hair close to one of the intersections of the GRID in the
WORKING SPACE and press the (LEFT) mouse button ONCE and
RELEASE. You don't have to get very fussy of "how close is
close" as the computer will choose the nearest intersection
automatically.
Now move the mouse in either a horizontal or vertical
direction. A thin RED line will appear on the screen and move as
you move the mouse. This is the wall that will later be drawn.
Move the mouse UP, DOWN, LEFT and RIGHT until the wall suits
your fancy. Then press the mouse button. The RED line will
disappear and a YELLOW line will appear. This line does not move
with the mouse and shows the final placement of the wall.
DELETING
a wall that is in the wrong place can be done by
the following stages
Select the
CHANGE
option. A new MENU will appear.
Select the
DELETE LAST
item option and the wall will
disapper.
Select the
FINISHED
option and the main menu will reappear.
Now add any more walls that you want. You can choose other
options and then come back to add even further walls.
Adding
DOORWAYS
to existing walls is easy. Choose the
DOORWAY option from the menu. Choose the middle of an existing
wall with the cross-hair and press the mouse button. The red
line will again appear and move with the mouse movement. This
shows the location of the doorway. Make the doorway as large as
you require and press the mouse button. A
PURPLE
line will
appear in the wall. This represents the doorway. For best
effects in the 3D simulation, always place doorways into walls.
You can get some interesting features if the doorway is in the
middle of no-where. Add all the doorways you want. They can be
removed by using the change command in the same way as described
for the walls.
Adding
OBJECTS
to the floor plan can be down by first
selecting the
OBJECT
menu option. Now move the cross-hair to
the desired location on the working area and press the mouse
button. A small white dot will appear on the screen marking the
location chosen. At the bottom of the screen a requester will
appear. You can type in the name of object you want and then
press the return key. The object will then appear on the
screen. The objects available are:
^ V < >
which represent
UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT ARROWS.
Note
that UP is a term relative to the screen at the moment. When
the simulation works, an UP arrow means an arrow that will
point north (towards the top of the screen. Interesting
visual effects can be acheived by putting an UP arrow near an
EAST-WEST wall to provide additional reinforcement. Note that
these objects should be placed CLOSE but not ON a wall if you
want them to remain on the expected side of a wall when the
floor plan is saved to a disk.
T C
represent TABLES and CHAIRS that can be placed as
obstacles or as objects towards which the patient can be
directed. These remain where you put them and do not move to
the nearest when the plan is saved.
H
represents HAPPY FACES. Happy Faces appear on the wall WHEN
the wheelchair gets close to them and is facing them. They
appear as blank black areas on the wall until the wheelchair
comes close.
(KNOWN BUG:
Unpredicatable things happen if
two happy faces are on the same wall. Happy Faces only appear
in a very short range of wheelchair positons relative to the
wall.)
A useful reinforcer is the
BULLETIN
board. You are allowed up
to 8 bulletin boards per floor plan. This is an artifical
constraint and could be changed. You enter a bulletin board by
selecting the bulletin menu option. Now move the cross-hair to
the desired location and press the button. A small dot marks the
location. A requester will appear at the bottom of the screen.
Type in the desired message (maximum 25 letters aprroximately)
and press the return key. The location of the bulletin boards
are indicated by the symbols
B1
through
B8.
The messages in
the bulletin boards can be changed by selecting the
CHANGE
menu
option and then the bulletin sub-option in the new menu that
appears. During the simulation, the message only appears on the
bulletin boards when the wheelchair is close and in front of the
bulletin board.. At other times, they appear as blank areas.
The starting location of the wheelchair can be chosen via the
START
menu option. Select the starting location required in the
floor plan and press the mouse button. A requester will appear
asking for the starting direction to be indicated. The options
are
L R U D
which correspond to LEFT, RIGHT, UP and DOWN. The
start position can be changed by deleting the old position via
the CHANGE command and selecting a new position. If no start
position is chosen, then the program automatically selects the
centre of the floor plan facing North (up). If this happens to
be a wall then so be it.
The
CHANGE
menu option allows the deletion of unwanted
items, changing of simulation options, bulletin board messages.
Selecting this item causes a new menu to appear with the
following choices.
FINISHED
leaves the CHANGE option and returns to the main
menu.
DELETE LAST ITEM
will remove the last item drawn on the
screen.
DELETE ITEM
allows the deletion of a specific item or group
of items. Once selected, move the cross-hair to a location a
little to the left and below the object to be deleted: press
the mouse button. Now move the cross-hair to a location a
little to the right and above the object to be deleted. As
you move the mouse, a small grey rectangle appears on the
screen. When you press the mouse button, all items that
start or end in the box will be deleted (never to return).
WARNING:
If you try to delete a wall that is touching
another wall, it is difficult not to delete both walls. If
you do accidently delete an unwanted wall or two, then put
them back using the WALL command.
DELETE ALL
allows the deletion of everything in the plan. The
name of the plan remains. If you want to completely delete a
plan, then the DELETE option in the CONTROLLER program allows
you to do this.
BULLETIN
allows the changing of the messages in the bulletin
board. On selection of this item, a requester will appear.
Type in the bulletin board number you want to change. Another
requester will appear showing the old message. You can edit
the message by using the arrow keys to the right of the
keyboard, the backspace key and the normal keyboard keys.
Press the return key when you have an acceptable message. The
arrow keys at the side of the keyboard allow you to before
some editting on the old message rather than simply deleting
it using the back space key.
OPTIONS
allows the changing of the options used by the
simulator when it runs. The options are
f F S (default S) name FLASH
turn the FLASH off/on or replace it by a STOP sign
respectively. The flash is used to indicate when the
wheelchair runs into something. The lack of some
indication that the wheelchair has run into something is
confusing. However, the flash can be an undesired
reinforced.
F0 F1 through F8 (default F0) name FONTS
allowing the size of the letters used on the bulletin
board to be changed. (Only font 0 is present on this
issue)
J1 J2 through J5 (default J1) name JOYSTICK
controls the momentum of the wheelchair. Without this
control, the wheelchair does not stop instantly you
release the joystick. Larger numbers means that the
joystick must be held for a longer period of time before
any action occurs. (At time of writing, this was not
behaving in the manner expected.)
l L (default L) name LINES
places LINES off/on the floor of the simulator. This is a
very useful visual clue in the 3D simulation.
P1 P2 through P5 (default P1) name PADS
places a set of WHEELCHAIR FOOT PADS on the front of the
screen to allow visual positioning of the wheelchair. Only
P1 means anything as we can't decide on useful shapes (arm
rests or what have you.)
R1 R2 through R100 (default R11) name ROTATION
controls the rate of rotation of the wheelchair. This
should be about 7/10 of the value of the SPEED option for
reasonable looking 3D simulations.
S1 S2 through S100 (default S16) name SPEED
controls the speed of forward motion of the wheelchair
during each frame of the animation.
T1 T2 through T100 (default T8) name TIME
controls the time interval (in 1/10 secs) at which the
screen updates. It controls the animation rate of the
screen. Making the SPEED and TIME options both smaller,
means that the movement through the floor plan will be
smoother. However, if the floor plan is complicated with
many walls and objects, the time for each animation frame
may change, which is confusing for the patient.
Z0 Z1 through Z4 (default Z2) name ZOOM
controls the zoom factor used to display the floor plan in
the 2D simulation. Value Z0 is only useful for providing
the patient with an indication of what the floor plan
looks like.
NOTE:
If this program is run directly from the AMIGA command
line rather than from the CONTROLLER program then the syntax is
maker planname
change an old floor plan or
maker
to make a new floor plan.
3D SIMULATION and 2D SIMULATION
These run automatically from the controller program. When
the 3D version is run, a blue screen will appear. Pressing the
joystick will cause the simulation to start. Joystick
forward/back movement will cause the scene to move relative to
the wheelchair. Left and right joystick movements cause the
chair to rotate. These actions follow what is to expected if a
real wheelchair was moving. In the 2D version, the joystick
movement causes the wheelchair to move on the screen in the same
way that the joystick moves and not a real life movement.
To exit the simulators, hold down on the joystick button for
a count of about 5 - 8 seconds and then release the button.
Pull back on the joystick. This removes the chances of the
patient accidently hitting the button and causing an unwanted
stop.
KNOWN BUG:
The simulators can be stopped by hitting CTRL-C but
this will not allow the simulators to be run again until the
computer has been powered down. This might be fixed in a later
release.
NOTE:
If this program is run directly from the AMIGA command
line rather than from the CONTROLLER program then the syntax is
wheelchair2d planname
or
wheelchair3d planname
ANALYSER (Does not yet exist.)
This is a program that analyses data collected by the
simulation programs during a session with the patient. A
session refers to the time spend on one floor plan at one
sitting. The data collected includes floor plan name, session
date, session duration, whether 2D or 3D simulator used, types
and numbers of obstacles encounterd. Indications of the quality
of joystick use are given by the number of times the joystick
was released or the patient bumped into walls or other
obstacles. The settings of the speed, rotation and other options
are recorder.
The commands for tunning this program appear on the screen.
Type the first letter of the command and press the return key.
The command will become highlighted. Once the correct command
haaaas been chosen, press the return key again and the command
will be executed.
the available commands are
A - ANALYSE
graphs? information from several sessions.
L - LIST
provides a list of sessions according to date.
P - PRINT
provides a hardcopy printout of one of the sessions
if a printer is connected to the computer.
S - SCREEN
sends the data printout to the screen.
The format of the printout is as follows
1. Name of the patient.
2. Date of the session.
3. Duration of the session.
4. Floor plan name and whether 2D or 3D.
5. List and number of obstacles used.
6. Total number of obstacles.
7. Number of times patient bumped into walls.
8. Number of times patient bumped into tables or other
obstacles.
9. Number of times joystick was released (i.e. to determine
the quality of joystick use.)
10. Directions patient travelled (i.e. the number of times
patient moved forward, reverse, left and right)
11. Settings of the options used in the simulation (i.e.
reinforcers, speed, rotation rates etc.