Released nodm 0.7

I have released version 0.7 of nodm.

It only fixes one silly typo in autotools, which made it fail to build on Fedora.

Released nodm 0.6

I have released version 0.6 of nodm.

It is purely a bug fix release, trying harder to detect a console in order to get rid of a bug introduced with version 0.5

Released nodm 0.5

I have released version 0.5 of nodm.

New features:

• truncate ~/.xsession-errors on startup: finally that file stops growing, and growing, and growing...
• dynamic VT allocation: it can now avoid opening a virtual terminal if it is already in use.

Getting dbus signatures right from Vala

I am trying to play a bit with Vala on the FreeRunner.

The freesmartphone.org stack on the OpenMoko is heavily based on DBus. Using DBus from Vala is rather simple, if mostly undocumented: you get a few examples in the Vala wiki and you make do with those.

All works fine with simple methods. But what with providing callbacks to signals that have complex nested structures in their signatures, like aa{sv}? You try, and then if you don't get the method signature right, the signal is just silently not delivered because it does not match the method signature.

So this is how to provide a callback to org.freesmartphone.Usage.ResourceChanged, with signature sba{sv}:

public void on_resourcechanged(dynamic DBus.Object pos,
                   string name,
                   bool state,
                   HashTable<string, Value?> attributes)
{
    stderr.printf("Resource %s changed\n", name);
}

And this is how to provide a callback to org.freesmartphone.GPS.UBX.DebugPacket, with signature siaa{sv}:

protected void on_ubxdebug_packet(dynamic DBus.Object ubx, string clid, int length,
        HashTable<string, Value?>[] wrongdata)
{
    stderr.printf("Received UBX debug packet");

    // Ugly ugly work-around
    PtrArray< HashTable<string, Value?> >* data = (PtrArray< HashTable<string, Value?> >)wrongdata;

    stderr.printf("%u elements received", data->len);
}

What is happening here is that the only method signature that I found matching the dbus signature is this one. However, the unmarshaller for some reason gets it wrong, and passes a PtrArray instead of a HashTable array. So you need to cast it back to what you've actually been passed.

Figuring all this out took several long hours and was definitely not fun.

Mapping using the Openmoko FreeRunner headset

The FreeRunner has a headset which includes a microphone and a button. When doing OpenStreetMap mapping, it would be very useful to be able to keep tangogps on the display and be able to mark waypoints using the headset button, and to record an audio track using the headset microphone.

In this way, I can use tangogps to see where I need to go, where it's already mapped and where it isn't, and then I can use the headset to mark waypoints corresponding to the audio track, so that later I can take advantage of JOSM's audio mapping features.

Enter audiomap:

$ audiomap --help
Usage: audiomap [options]

Create a GPX and audio trackFind the times in the wav file when there is clear
voice among the noise

Options:
  --version      show program's version number and exit
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose  verbose mode
  -m, --monitor  only keep the GPS on and monitor satellite status
  -l, --levels   only show input levels

If called without parameters, or with -v which is suggested, it will:

1. Fix the mixer settings so that it can record from the headset and detect headset button presses.
2. Show a monitor of GPS satellite information until it gets a fix.
3. Synchronize the system time with the GPS time so that the timestamps of the files that are created afterwards are accurate.
4. Start recording a GPX track.
5. Start recording audio.
6. Record a GPX waypoint for every headset button press.

When you are done, you stop audiomap with ^C and it will properly close the .wav file, close the tags in the GPX waypoint and track files and restore the mixer settings.

You can plug the headset out and record using the handset microphone, but then you will not be able to set waypoints until you plug the headset back in.

After you stop audiomap, you will have a track, waypoints and .wav file ready to be loaded in JOSM.

Big thanks go to Luca Capello for finding out how to detect headset button presses.

Simple tool to query the GPS using the OpenMoko FSO stack

I was missing a simple command line tool that allows me to perform basic GPS queries in shellscripts.

Enter getgps:

# getgps --help
Usage: getgps [options]

Simple GPS query tool for the FSO stack

Options:
  --version          show program's version number and exit
  -h, --help         show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose      verbose mode
  -q, --quiet        suppress normal output
  --fix              check if we have a fix
  -s, --sync-time    set system time from GPS time
  --info             get all GPS information
  --info-connection  get GPS connection information
  --info-fix         get GPS fix information
  --info-position    get GPS position information
  --info-accuracy    get GPS accuracy information
  --info-course      get GPS course information
  --info-time        get GPS time information
  --info-satellite   get GPS satellite information

So finally I can write little GPS-aware scripts:

if getgps --fix -q
then
    start_gps_aware_program
else
    start_gps_normal_program
fi

Or this.

Voice-controlled waypoints

I have it in my TODO list to implement taking waypoints when pressing the headset button of the openmoko, but that is not done yet.

In the meantime, I did some experiments with audio mapping, and since I did not manage to enter waypoints while recording them, I was looking for a way to make use of them anyway.

Enter findvoice:

$ ./findvoice  --help
Usage: findvoice [options] wavfile

Find the times in the wav file when there is clear voice among the noise

Options:
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose         verbose mode
  -p NUM, --percentile=NUM
            percentile to use to discriminate noise from voice
            (default: 90)
  -t, --timestamps      print timestamps instead of human readable information

You give it a wav file, and it will output a list of timestamps corresponding to where it things that you were talking clearly and near the FreeRunner / voice recorder instead of leaving the recorder dangling to pick up background noise.

Its algorithm is crude and improvised because I have no background whatsoever in audio processing, but it basically finds those parts of the audio file where the variance of the samples is above a given percentile: the higher the percentile, the less timestamps you get; the lower the percentile, the more likely it is that it picks a period of louder noise.

For example, you can automatically extract waypoints out of an audio file by using it together with gpxinterpolate:

./findvoice -t today.wav | ./gpxinterpolate today.gpx > today-waypoints.gpx

The timestamps it outputs are computed using the modification time of the .wav file: if your system clock was decently synchronised (which you can do with getgps), then the mtime of the wav is the time of the end of the recording, which gives the needed reference to compute timestamps that are absolute in time.

For example:

getgps --sync-time
arecord file.wav
^C
./findvoice -t file.wav | ./gpxinterpolate today.gpx > today-waypoints.gpx

Geocoding Unix timestamps

Geocoding EXIF tags in JPEG images is fun, but there is more that can benefit from interpolating timestamps over a GPX track.

Enter gpxinterpolate:

$ ./gpxinterpolate --help
Usage: gpxinterpolate [options] gpxfile [gpxfile...]

Read one or more GPX files and a list of timestamps on standard input. Output
a GPX file with waypoints at the location of the GPX track at the given
timestamps.

Options:
  --version      show program's version number and exit
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose  verbose mode

For example, you can create waypoints interpolating file modification times:

find . -printf "%Ts %p\n" | ./gpxinterpolate ~/tracks/*.gpx > myfiles.gpx

In case you wonder where you were when you modified or accessed a file, now you can find out.

Recording audio on the FreeRunner

The FreeRunner can record audio. It is nice to record audio: for example I can run the recording in background while I keep tangogps in the screen, and take audio notes about where I am while I am doing mapping for OpenStreetMap.

Here is the script that I put together to create geocoded audio notes:

#!/bin/sh

WORKDIR=~/rec
TMPINFO=`mktemp $WORKDIR/info.XXXXXXXX`

# Sync system time and get GPS info
echo "Synchronising system time..."
getgps --sync-time --info > $TMPINFO

# Compute an accurate basename for the files we generate
BASENAME=~/rec/rec-$(date +%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S)
# Then give a proper name to the file with saved info
mv $TMPINFO $BASENAME.info

# Proper mixer settings for recording
echo "Recording..."
alsactl -f /usr/share/openmoko/scenarios/voip-handset.state restore
arecord -D hw -f cd -r 8000 -t wav $BASENAME.wav

echo "Done"

It works like this:

1. It synchronizes the system time from the GPS (if there is a fix) so that the timestamps on the wav files will be as accurate as possible.
2. It also gets all sort of information from the GPS and stores them into a file, should you want to inspect it later.
3. It records audio until it gets interrupted.

The file name of the files that it generates corresponds to the beginning of the recording. The mtime of the wav file obviously corresponds to the end of the recording. This can be used to later georeference the start and end point of the recording.

You can use this to check mixer levels and that you're actually getting any input:

arecord -D hw -f cd -r 8000 -t wav -V mono /dev/null

The getgps script is now described in its own post.

You may now want to experiment, in JOSM, with "Preferences / Audio settings / Modified times (time stamps) of audio files".

How to read the Freerunner's accelerometers

This code has been take from moko_eightball by Jakob Westhoff: it just continuously prints the value of the three accelerometers.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdint.h>

void processInputEvents(FILE* in)
{
    int x = 0, y = 0, z = 0;
    while (1)
    {
        char padding[16];
        uint16_t type, code;
        int32_t value;

        // Skip the timestamp
        fread(padding, 1, 8, in);

        // Read the type
        fread(&type, 1, 2, in);

        // Read the code
        fread(&code, 1, 2, in);

        // Read the value
        fread(&value, 1, 4, in);

        switch( type )
        {
            case 0:
                switch( code )
                {
                    case 0:
                        fprintf(stdout, "x%d y%d z%d\n", x, y, z);
                        break;
                    default:
                        //warning( "Unknown code ( 0x%02x ) for type 0x%02x\n", code, type );
                        break;
                }
                break;
            case 2:
                switch ( code )
                {
                    case 0:
                        // Update to the new value
                        x = value;
                        break;
                    case 1:
                        // Update to the new value
                        y = value;
                        break;
                    case 2:
                        // Update to the new value
                        z = value;
                        break;
                    default:
                        //warning( "Unknown code ( 0x%02x ) for type 0x%02x\n", code, type );
                        break;
                }
                break;

            default:
                //warning( "Unknown type ( 0x%02x ) in accelerometer input stream\n", type );
                break;
        }


    }
}


int main()
{
    FILE* in = fopen("/dev/input/event2", "r");
    processInputEvents(in);
    fclose(in);
    return 0;
}