Shortly after I was asked by my project supervisor if I could help out quickly on another project. I'm always keen to work on a variety of projects.
The task was to simply pull together some already existing code to create a data logging program that logs stereo image from the +Point Grey Research bumblebee camera and log GPS positions, all this was going a remotely operated boat for the +Environment Agency.
I wrote a little C++ class to connect to a COM port and read off GPS data. This worked fine. The bumblebee however proved to be more of a challenge. I consulted a Masters student who had used it more than I had to obtain some code from him to read the images. The logging laptops are +Dell 6400 ATG's, theses are rugged laptops, perfect for use on the boat. Fresh installs of Win7 x64 were on these machines as they'd been hacked to pieces (not in the literal, more in the coding sense) in the past for various projects. So with the code working on a 32bit WinXP machine we ported the source over to +Microsoft Visual Studio (Link) in Win7 installed all the relevant +Point Grey Research drivers and..... nothin'.... 2 days went by of trying every sodding combination of drivers and libraries but none of the laptops were having any of it under x64. So we binned it and went back to trusty old XP.
We had hoped to get out onto the river yesterday (28/05/13) but a morning re-coding session to log grayscale stereo rectified images instead of colour un-rectified images, delays from +Leica Geosystems AG in obtaining a theodolite, problems with a bluetooth 5Hz GPS system that needs a power cycle if something tries to connect at the incorrect baud rate and not forgetting the British weather pissing it down all afternoon.
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| Student with his boat... finally. |
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