Firefly 1.004 Now Available

Jason K. Johnson and I are proud to announce the release of Firefly version 1.004 - a set of tools dedicated to bridging the gap between Grasshopper (a free plug-in for Rhino), the Arduino micro-controller, the internet and beyond. This release adds a few new components the toolbar, including the new Ports Available component which polls your device manager and returns the COM number assigned to Arduino board, as well as a new Wave component. We're also excited to release the new reacTIVision component, which enables real-time camera tracking of fiducial markers. If you're new to reacTIVision, take a look at their website and download their engine (and printable fiducial markers) for free: http://reactivision.sourceforge.net/. We've also improved the efficiency of several of the existing components and updated everything for the latest Arduino UNO board.

In addition, we have also released an update to the Firefly Primer - a manual which provides an in-depth look at each individual component and walks you through the entire process of using this powerful new tool (from installation to final output). It also includes some basic tutorials, links and references to get you up and running quickly.

This build requires Rhino 4.0 SR8 (or Rhino 5.0 beta) and Grasshopper 0.8. The installation for this build has changed slightly from previous versions (given the new special roaming folder created for Grasshopper 0.8) and the fact that the reacTIVision component requires the installation (copy/paste) of an additional library (libTUIO.dll). The installation instructions can be found here and should be easy to follow if you are familiar with the Grasshopper interface.

To download the latest build, check out our website at: www.fireflyexperiments.com

As always, we'd love to hear your feedback so feel free to contact us as: info@fireflyexperiments.com Or sign up for our mailing list and find out about all the new Firefly features and events.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mårten Nettelbladt on February 5, 2011 at 2:24pm

Fantastic! Thanks Andy and Jason for this new release!

(The link to the FireFly website is missing a colon)

Permalink Reply by Mårten Nettelbladt on February 5, 2011 at 3:31pm

I had to rename some of the firmata folders in order for the .pde files to appear in my Sketchbook in the Arduino window. Apparently the folder and the .pde need to be named exactly the same for this to work in my setup.

The naming of these three folders differ from their .pde files

Firefly_MEGA_Firmata_1004_Standard / Firefly_MEGA_Firmata_1004.pde

Firefly_Uno_Firmata_1004_Standard / Firefly_Uno_Firmata_1004.pde

Firefly_Wii Nunchuck / Wii_Nunchuck.pde

Sorry to point out these rather insignificant issues, but perhaps it can help someone with their installation... Thanks again!

Permalink Reply by Andy Payne on February 5, 2011 at 3:45pm

Hey Marten,

Thanks for the heads up. I changed the name of the folder, and replaced the download file... So you wont have to do the step you mentioned above if you re-download the link (of course, your way also works if you just want to keep it). I appreciate your input, and let us know if you catch anything else.

Cheers,

Andy

Permalink Reply by Mårten Nettelbladt on February 5, 2011 at 5:17pm

Thanks Andy. Now I get this instead though:

Also, did you check the download link in this this post and the blog post? I think there is a colon missing after "http" (It looks right, but the actual link is different).

Having said all that, the new release works great! (At least analog inputs...) I'm eager to try the reactivision stuff. Thanks for your work!

Mårten

Permalink Reply by Andy Payne on February 5, 2011 at 5:38pm

I guess I should have double checked all the links before posting... thanks for bringing that to my attention. The links should be fixed now (in both posts). Also, I renamed the Wii Nunchuck folder again (Arduino is so picky about the naming conventions...) I replaced the download file so hopefully everything should be good to go now. Hopefully everything is consistent now. Many thanks for catching all of this. Feel free to post other things if you find anything inconsistent.

Cheers,

Andy

Permalink Reply by Alessio Erioli on February 15, 2011 at 12:51am

Hi Andy,

recently I ran into a problem which might be due to the Firefly plugin (not sure, but it came up when I installed release 1.0004 and before that I had no such issues; after removing Firefly.gha everything is smooth again). To not flood the group I am just posting a link to a discussion I opened yesterday night:

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/rhino-crashes-when-closin...

Now, as I say in the discussion, everything looks ok after removing the assembly, but I don't think this might be a "solution"... :-)

Any clues of why this happened? Did this happen to me alone?

Thank you for your kindness and for all the effort!

Alessio

Permalink Reply by Mårten Nettelbladt on February 15, 2011 at 1:46am

I have this problem too.

Permalink Reply by Daniel Piker on February 15, 2011 at 3:39am

Me too

Permalink Reply by Andy Payne on February 15, 2011 at 4:43am

Hi Alessio,

Thank you for reporting this. It appears there is a bug in the reactivision component which is causing an issue when the document is closed. I will try to fix this and post a new version very soon. Thank you for your patience.

-Andy

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