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SlicerArduino

Key Investigators

• Paolo Zaffino (Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, Italy)
• Maria Francesca Spadea (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany)

Presenter location: In-person

Project Description

SlicerArduino is a Slicer extension that allows to stream data from/to Arduino (and Arduino-like) board. The extension is already deployed but several improvements can be made.

Objective

1. Add Bluetooth support
2. Manage connection drop
3. Think about switching from pyserial to qt serial module

Approach and Plan

1. Edit SlicerArduino code having Arduino board with Bluetooth module on the side
2. Discuss with people about switching from pyserial to qt serial module
3. Manage connection drop

Progress and Next Steps

1. Bluetooth connection was investigated. Preliminary tests were done just by interfacing Arduino board with the computer, without including Slicer in the loop (for the moment).
2. Connection drop management is now implemented and working. Right now it is in a separate git branch, some code cleanup is required. When the connection drops a vtkErrorEvent is invoked on the arduinoNode and a popup appears to the user.
3. QSerialPort is not included by default in the current Slicer build but it can be done. Performance/feasibility tests have to be carried on to understand if migration is worth it.
4. We had a (very nice and useful) meeting to discuss SlicerArduino both from a developer and user point of view.

Illustrations

Background and References

SlicerArduino paper SlicerArduino GitHub page SlicerArduino website