Robot Application Readme
------------------------

Ivan Judson
judson@mcs.anl.gov
http://www.mcs.anl.gov/home/judson

Thise can also be found at: 

	http://www.mcs.anl.gov/home/judson/robot/Readme.html
---

** Important **

This software runs on specific architectures and has _NOT_ been ported yet.

They are:

	stex -> SGI Onyx (at least 3 processors, running IRIX 5.3).

	rdev -> IBM (running AIX 4.1.4)

** 
If you don't have these machines available, please wait until your
platforms are supported.  You can send me mail to let me know what
platform you are interested in having the software ported to, or even
better send me diffs to make the software work on your machines :-)
**

Introduction
------------

This is the networked robot application, driven from the CAVE(tm).  If
you don't have a CAVE handy, this probably won't be much use to you,
except perhaps as example code for Nperl, Nexus, and CAVE programming.


Summary
-------

The robot application, named stex (stereo textures, => s tex => stex),
is a CAVE application that connects via TCP/IP network to a program at
Argonne National Laboratory (or your own site, to your own robot) to a 
robot that I've built.  This robot has three cameras, two positioned to 
provide stereo video, one that has a user controllable zoom/focus.  
These cameras are mounted on a pan/tilt unit, which the user can also
control.  The pan/tilt unit is mounted on a (very heavy) cabinet that's
placed atop an Arrick Robotics Trilobot, a user controllable small robot.

Multiple applications can connect to the robot and pass control around, 
presently only two (-master and -slave options to stex) are supported.

Inside the application the user has seven choices of things to do.  They
may change from stereo to mono video, or back.  The user may turn left or
right at 10 degree steps, or move forward and backward in 6 inch steps.
The user can also pass control to someone else.  The person who starts 
the application with the -master option has the ability to take control 
from any of the other running applications.

----
Ivan Judson
Math/Computer Science			       | judson@anl.gov
Argonne National Laboratory	               | judson@mcs.anl.gov
http://www.mcs.anl.gov/people/judson	       | ivan@ccs.neu.edu