Two days ago, when I was cycling, suddenly I had the answer: Imagine you have two Windows Phone 7 devices and want to establish a two-way connection between them. For example to play a game of Tic-Tac-Toe. You can do this either with a server on the internet, that connects the clients with each other, or the multicast protocol on WiFi-networks. The same WiFi network may not always be available to both users, but you don’t want to set up a server either (maybe, because you’re only doing this for fun, or you don’t have the resources). The only way to send messages to a WP7 app via the internet is to use push notifications. But how do you exchange the channel addresses between the devices? One way is to use a QR code: Establish a push notification channel on both devices Encode the channel URI into a QR code…
TCD.Mathematics
UPDATE: Source and samples for WinRT and WPF are now on GitHub: https://github.com/michaelosthege/TCD.Mathematics This is just a quick post to introduce you to TCD.Mathematics, which is a NuGet package that adds several extension methods to the System.Windows.Media.Media3D namespace. If you’re unfamiliar with this namespace, it contains Point3D, Vector3D, Line3D and Plane3D classes which can be used for three-dimensional calculations. EDIT: I just submitted an update to the NuGet package, wich adds support for WinRT. Please not that WinRT does not have neither Point3D, Vector3D, nor the System.Windows.Media.Media3D namespace. So in WinRT all classes, including substitutes for Point3D/Vector3D are located under TCD.Mathematics. EDIT: Since version 1.2.0 TCD.Mathematics is a Portable Class Library that targets everything: Silverlight 4+, .NET4+, .NET for Windows Store, Windows Phone 7+, Xbox360 – make sure you’re running version 2.1+ of NuGet Package Manager! The extension methods, which are added to the mentioned Point3D/Vector3D classes are: Vector3D.AsPoint3D() Point3D.AsVector3D() Vector3D.Normalized() Point3D.CenterOfClusterWithOtherPoint3Ds () Point3D.ProjectOnLine3D() Point3D…
TCD.Kinect
EDIT: If you’re interested in Skeleton tracking and calculating 3D stuff, take a look at TCD.Mathematics too^^ EDIT: There’s a WPF application that I once wrote, featuring SkeletonPainter3D: Kinect Sword. There’s a Youtube video of it (http://youtu.be/2j6GCd4M1bA) and that’s the source code: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7813771/Blog/CodeSamples/KinectSword.zip Hello there, I’ve created another UserControl, this time for Kinect and .NET 4.5, which hopefully has the potential to save you a lot of time. It can be used to draw three-dimensional Skeletons and explore the virtual space around them in real-time. A picture may be more appropriate: The control can be constructed in XAML: xmlns:kinect=”clr-namespace:TCD.Kinect.Controls;assembly=TCD.Kinect.Controls” <kinect:SkeletonPainter3D x:Name=”painter” Background=”Black” IsAnaglyphEnabled=”False” CameraFieldOfView=”70″ CameraPosition=”0,0.5,-1″ CameraLookAt=”0,0,2″ /> And populated with Skeletons using painter.Draw(skeletons), where skeletons is an Skeleton[] from inside the SkeletonFrameReady event. You can either get the TCD.Kinect package from NuGet, or refer to the sample implementation: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Implementation-of-f175b025 Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions, and by the way: SkeletonPainter3D has an experimental…
TouchInjector
Hello world, Today I proudly present: TouchInjector TouchInjector is a Windows 8 Desktop application that translates TUIO into Windows Touch messages. It’s lightweight, easy to use and does not get in the way. No installation is required and with one click you can customize it to autorun with the system (on logon). As I frequently change my display settings, TouchInjector observes them and reacts accordingly. You can download it here. There are no further software requirements than a Windows 8 system. Just unzip, unblock and run it. (Allow access through the firewall and make sure that no other TUIO clients block the port.) Have fun! ~theCake
Windows 8 TouchInjection with C#
The Windows 8 platform provides an API to inject touch events (WM_TOUCH..) via a C++ API. The API is relatively easy to use, but not available in C#, unless you do DllImport/PInvoke. I found this to be kind of tricky, but finally I succeeded to make a C# library that can be used to use the TouchInjection API from C#. You can find TCD.System.TouchInjection on NuGet, or have a look at the TouchInjection.cs file itself. You may notice that I renamed all the strucs, enums and classes to look nicer than their C++ counterparts. The IntelliSense descriptions are available for almost everything! (I got them from the documentation on msdn..) I’ve made a sample application for the MSDN Code Gallery as well. Here’s a small collection of useful resources regarding the TouchInjection API: C++ sample application C++ TouchInjection API walkthrough
TCD.Controls
This is a summary and manual for all controls inside the TCD.Controls package. I’ll try to keep it updated. Windows 8 SilentTextBox – If AcceptsReturn=False and the user hits Enter normal TextBoxes make a ‘bling’ sound. SilentTextBox does not. HeaderedTextBox – A TextBox with a grey header above HeaderedTextBlock – A TextBlock with a grey header above; Automatically hides itself if the Text property is empty (unless AutoHide is set to False). LabeledProgressBar – a ProgressBar coupled with a TextBlock/Label; use it at the top of your page to indicate background progress (like the SystemTray.ProgressBar on Windows Phone) LayoutAwarePage – same as in all the samples Flyout – most recent post and how to use on Flyout SettingsContractWrapper – the easy way to integrate with the settings contract Windows Phone CustomMessageBox – Async CustomMessageBox on Windows Phone ReverseAutocompletePopup – Making a reverse Autocomplete-TextBox on Windows Phone
CCV + MTV on Windows 8 Release Preview
UPDATE: MultiTouchVista is not required anymore! Take a look at TouchInjector instead!
Q&A App
Hey, When my professor put a machine-readable quiz on his website, I made an app for my Phone to do the quiz.. Today I ported it to the desktop and I’d like to share it: Download Q&A App.zip It requires .NET Framework 4.0. To feed it with questions, you need a text file (preferable in UTF-8 encoding) that follows these simple rules: question-answer blocks are separated by one empty line question-lines begin with ‘Q: ’ answer-lines begin with ‘A: ‘ category-lines begin with ‘C: ‘ multiple Q/A/C-lines per block are allowed There’s a sample file in the *.zip. You can load a file from your computer, or from a remote location (eg. a textfile in a public dropbox folder). have fun!
TCD.Device
Just another TCD namespace: TCD.Device. Its purpose is to contain additional namespaces that use features like Camera, GPS, Accelerometer, Compass.. Everything that has an effect on the App permissions the user sees on the Windows Phone or Windows 8 application. (Like ‘This app has access to your location, compass..’) TCD.Device.Camera CodeScannerPopup is another async control, specific to the Windows Phone platform, that can be used to scan for QR codes. (In theory other 2D-codes as well.) Usage: add the TCD.Device.Camera NuGet package add using directives for TCD.Device.Camera and TCD.Device.Camera.Barcodes in the calling method (eg. a Button.Click event) hide/show ApplicationBar, attach/remove BackKeyPress event Code sample: private async void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { CodeScannerPopup scp = new CodeScannerPopup(Microsoft.Phone.Shell.SystemTray.IsVisible, Format.ALL_1D); //important: hide ApplicationBar and handle BackKeyPress ApplicationBar.IsVisible = false; this.BackKeyPress += scp.HandleBackKeyPress; //now let’s go ScanResult r = await scp.ShowAsync(“BARCODE SCANNER”, “scan”); if (r != null) output.Text = string.Format(“{0}n{1}”, r.Text, r.Format.ToString()); //clean…
TCD.Controls – Flyouts for XAML/C#
Hey there, Let’s start with the most important news: TCD.Controls is now available on NuGet (click here if you don’t know how this works, or why you want to use it) From now on, I won’t link *.zip packages with the sources anymore, because NuGet really make life easier. If you want access to the source files, just drop me an email There’s been one more or less important change to the Flyout control you should know about: It now has a property called “IsIgnoreLightDismissal”. To understand its purpose, imagine the following scenario (video below) You have a Button control that opens a FilePicker/FolderPicker, asking the user to select a File/Folder. This Button is hosted inside a Flyout control. Now when the user taps the Button, the Picker will popup, stealing the focus from your applications Window. Flyouts are required to hide on App-switch by the design guidelines, which is…