How to Install and Run Pentabulous Table of Contents Introduction... 1 Minimum Requirements... 1 How to obtain a copy of Pentabulous... 1 How to Install Pentabulous... 2 The Location of the Wiimote... 4 Running Pentabulous for the First Time... 5 Connecting the Wiimote to your computer... 5 The Pentabulous Window... 6 Calibrating Pentabulous... 8 Using Pentabulous... 12 Introduction In December 2007, Johnny Chung Lee, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, released a program that allowed users to use the wireless remote from Nintendo's Wii gaming system with an infrared light pen as an interactive whiteboard. The Wiimote Project was born. Now, Penteractive.us has released Pentabulous. Pentabulous is a simple to install, easy to calibrate, and easy to use program that allows a classroom teacher to easily connect to a Wiimote and control the teacher's computer from the front of the classroom using nothing but an infrared light pen. Minimum Requirements Be sure that you have the following before attempting to install or run Pentabulous: Windows XP or Vista. It should run on Windows 7 but has not been fully tested. Microsoft.NET 3.5. (Download from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e3821449-3c6b-42f1-9fd9-0041345b3385&displaylang=en) A Bluetooth adapter (or built-in Bluetooth). (You can purchase a Bluetooth adapter at http://penteractive.us) A Wireless Remote for the Wii gaming system (Henceforth referred to as a Wiimote.) An infrared light pen emitting infrared light with a wavelength of 940 NM. (Pens are available at http://penteractive.us) A projector and a hard flat surface like a whiteboard - onto which to project your computer's image or a large LCD screen. How to obtain a copy of Pentabulous To obtain a copy of Pentabulous, visit http://penteractive.us and follow the link at the right of the page to Pentabulous.
How to Install Pentabulous OK. So you have a Wiimote, a projector, a whiteboard, an infrared light pen, and a copy of Pentabulous. Now it is time to install Pentabulous. The installation of Pentabulous is very simple. Locate the file pentabulous_setup.exe on your computer. Open the file. You will be greeted with a Read Me window like the one below. Be sure to read the text carefully and follow the instructions contained there.
Once you have read and agreed to the text contains in the ReadMe window, select Next to proceed. Select to folder in which to install Pentabulous. (Or accept the default location of C:\ Program Files\pentabulous.) Select Next. Pentabulous will be installed to the location selected and you will see a window like the one here. Yes, installation is that simple.
The Location of the Wiimote Before running Pentabulous, you must give some very serious thought to where you will place the Wiimote relative you your whiteboard. The placement of the Wiimote relative to the whiteboard is perhaps the most crucial part of your Wiimote whiteboard project. Here are some tips on placing the wiimote in your classroom. In order to get the Wiimote placed correctly, perhaps it is important to understand how the Wiimote, the infrared light pen, and the Bluetooth adapter work together as an input device for your computer. The Wiimote is a remarkable piece of technology that pairs a Bluetooth radio with an infrared camera. The infrared camera can see sources of infrared light and the Bluetooth radio can communicate with the Bluetooth adapter on the computer. The Wiimote will see the infrared light pen and send the location of the infrared dot to the computer via the Bluetooth radio. Once the location of the infrared dot is passed to the computer, Pentabulous reads the location of the dot and reacts accordingly. The most important piece of this puzzle to understand is the interaction between the infrared light pen and the Wiimote. This interaction requires a clean line of sight between the point of the infrared light pen and the Wiimote. NOTHING CAN BE IN THE WAY OF THE END OF THE INFRARED LIGHT PEN AND THE CAMERA IN THE WIIMOTE. The camera in the Wiimote has a field of vision of approximately 40 degrees in the horizontal plane and 30 degrees in the vertical plane. Perhaps the best location of the Wiimote is slightly above the top of the projected area at a distance of 2 to 3 meters from the whiteboard. This should allow the Wiimote to see the entire projected area while being close enough to see the infrared pen. There are modules in Pentabulous that will greatly help in placing the Wiimote to get the best results. It may be difficult for you to mount the Wiimote from the ceiling of your classroom especially for testing purposes. In this case, you should place your Wiimote about 2 meters from the whiteboard slightly to the left or the right of the projector as you look at the board pointing toward the middle of the projected area. For more on Wiimote camera angles http://www.wiimoteproject.com/wiimote-whiteboard/wiimotecamera-angles/
Running Pentabulous for the First Time Connecting the Wiimote to your computer When you run Pentabulous, you will be greeted with a small window with two options like this one. The first thing that needs to be done is to connect your Wiimote with your computer. This connection process is the process of pairing the Bluetooth radio in the Wiimote with your Bluetooth adapter in your computer. This is similar to pairing a Bluetooth headset to a Bluetooth enabled cell phone. Fortunately, Pentabulous makes this very simple. Select the button named Connect Wiimote in the window shown above. You will then see a window like the one shown here: Press buttons 1 and 2 simultaneously on the Wiimote. The four blue LEDs on the Wiimote will start flashing. The Wiimote LEDs will flash for 20 seconds. If the LEDs stop flashing before the Wiimote connection window changes, press buttons 1 and 2 again. It may take more than 20 seconds for the Wiimote connection software to complete the connection.
The Pentabulous Window Once the Wiimote is connected to the computer, Pentabulous will display a window like the one here. There are 7 items in this window: The Wiimote Battery indicator The Wiimote Calibration Button The Wiimote Sensitivity setting The Smoothing setting The Cursor Control Toolbar Button A display of the number of IR dots seen by the Wiimote camera The Tracing Utilization Window The battery indicator is an approximation of the battery life remaining for the batteries in the Wiimote. The Calibration Button will be used in the next step to calibrate Pentabulous. The Wiimote Sensitivity setting controls the sensitivity of the infrared camera in the Wiimote. The higher the setting, the more sensitive the Wiimote camera will be. The sensitivity needs to be set high enough to see the light pen but not too high as to react to false positives from other possible infrared light sources. The Smoothing setting should be set to 9 unless you have a slow processor. The cursor control toolbar button will turn on the cursor control bar. (More on this later.) The Visible IR dots will show how many infrared dots are visible at that instant. This should be 1 when the infrared light pen is lit. You should adjust the Wiimote sensitivity so this reads 1 when the infrared pen is lit and 0 when the pen is off. The Tracking Utilization window will help you place your Wiimote. (See below)
In this example, notice the Tracking Utilization window. It shows that the calibrated area for the projected screen area is 30% of the area that is seen by the Wiimote's camera. This is an acceptable calibration. This does indicate that it is possible to move the Wiimote closer to the whiteboard. As long as the white quadrilateral is located completely within the gray area, the Wiimote camera can see and react to the infrared pen at any point on the projected area. If the white quadrilateral is too small, the Wiimote should be moved closer to the whiteboard. If the white quadrilateral does not fit within the gray area, the Wiimote needs to be moved and the calibration needs to be repeated. (See more in the Calibration section.)
Calibrating Pentabulous This is the most challenging and most important part of using Pentabulous. Once you get a good calibration, using Pentabulous is quite simple. To calibrate Pentabulo us to be used with your Wiimote, press the Calibrate Location (Wiimote A) on the Pentabulo us Window (or press the A button on the Wiimote). You will be greeted with a white calibration screen with a red target near the top left hand corner of the screen like this: Touch your infrared pen to the center of the target and press the button on your pen to illuminate the pen. (Remember. You will not be able to see the illumination from the end of the pen since the human eye cannot see light of 940 NM wavelengths but the Wiimote camera can.) The upper left hand target will disappear and a new target will appear in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Touch your pen in the center of that target and press the button. Repeat the process for the lower right and lower left targets as they appear. If any of the four targets do not disappear when you click the pen in the center of the target, the Wiimote camera did not see that click. If this happened, you should press Esc on the computer keyboard to stop the calibration process. The Wiimote camera will need to be moved and/or re-aimed in order to see the target that failed in the previous attempt. Once the Wiimote has been moved and/or re-aimed, press the Calibrate Location (Wiimote A) button again (or the A button on the Wiimote) and repeat the process until Pentabulous reacts to all four of the targets. Remember that there MUST be a clear line of sight between the Wiimote camera and the tip of your infrared light pen. Repeat this process until all four targets are recognized by Pentabulous.
Once your calibration is completed, you will see a window that looks like the one shown here. At this time we are most interested in looking at the area at the bottom of this window entitled Tracking Utilization. In this area, we will see a white quadrilateral inside a gray rectangle. The gray rectangle represents what the Wiimote camera can see. The white quadrilateral represents the projected screen area that has been calibrated with the Pentabulous calibration process. In this example, the calibrated area is 70% of what the Wiimote camera can see. This represents an excellent calibration. In this case the Wiimote is positioned in front of the projected area at an appropriate distance away from the screen. We want the percentage of utilization to be as high as we can get it while positioning the Wiimote in the best location for our classroom environment. These two issues often counteract each other and we must compromise one for the sake of the other. Below, we will show some possible views for the Tracking Utilization window.
In this calibration, the Wiimote is placed just to the left of the projected area about 10 feet from the screen pointing toward the screen. It is further away from the projected area than in the previous example. Notice that the quadrilateral is further from looking like a parallelogram. This is due to the angle at which the camera is placed relative to the plane of the screen. This calibration is acceptable and will work well but could be improved by moving the Wiimote closer to the screen. In this calibration, the angle is more pronounced than before. Notice that the quadrilateral is much taller on the left side than on the right. Again, this calibration is acceptable and will work. You may find that you get better performance on the left side of the screen than on the right but is should not be too noticeable. You may need to increase the sensitivity of the Wiimote if your calibration looks like this. In this calibration, the Wiimote is place much too far from the screen. Notice that the calibrated area is only 4% of the viewable area of the camera. If your calibration looks something like this, you need to move the Wiimote closer to the projected surface. This calibration is NOT ACCEPTABLE. You must move your Wiimote closer to the projected surface and try again. Another example of a BAD CALIBR ATION: Notice that the calibrated area is a triangle and not a quadrilateral. In this case it was due to clicking the IR pen when it was not pointed at the target. The calibrated area MUST BE A QUADRILATERAL. If the calibrated area begins to look too much like a triangle, you must re-calibrate and/or reposition the Wiimote.
Here is an example of an excellent calibration. This can only happen if the Wiimote is placed directly in front of the projected surface and at an optimal distance. This may not be possible in your classroom for a variety of reasons. While this is optimal for how the pen interacts with the Wiimote, it may not be optimal for your classroom. Remember that there must always be a clean line of sight between the tip of the IR pen and the Wiimote's camera. Once you have determined the proper location of the Wiimote for your classroom, future calibrations will be quite simple. All you will need to do is to press the A button on the Wiimote (or select the calibration button in the Pentabulous window) and select the four points on the projected display.
Using Pentabulous The hard part is over. Once you have calibrated Pentabulous, you will see a button in the Pentabulous window that reads, Cursor Control Toolbar. You will want to press that button to show the Cursor Control Toolbar and then minimize the Pentabulous Window. The Cursor Control Toolbar looks like this: You will notice that there are four buttons on the Cursor Control Toolbar. L, R, XX, and H/V. L R XX H/V Left Mouse Button this is the default behavior - If this is selected, any pen clicks will be interpreted as left mouse clicks. Right Mouse Button - If this is selected, the next pen click will be interpreted as a right mouse click. Then the control will revert to the default of L. Double Click - If this is selected, the next pen click will be interpreted as a double click of the left mouse button. Then control will revert to the default of L. This will toggle the display of the Cursor Control Toolbar between Horizontal orientation and Vertical orientation. (See below) You can now use your IR pen to control any program on your computer. Simply put the IR pen against the whiteboard and press the button on the pen. The default behavior for Pentabulous is that the click of the IR pen will be interpreted as a left mouse click in the location where the IR pen is pointed. You can drag by pressing the button, hold the button down, and move the IR pen across the whiteboard. If you need to right-click the mouse, select R from the Cursor Control Toolbar (as shown above). The next click of the IR pen will be interpreted as a right-click at the location of the IR pen.
If you need to double-click, select XX from the Cursor Control Toolbar. The next click of the IR pen will be interpreted as a double-click at the location of the IR pen. Also useful for quick access to the right click is the L/R function accessible from the taskbar. Place your pen on the L double click and it turns to R. Your next click will be a right click. When using Pentabulous, always be sure that there is a clear line of sight between the tip of the infrared light pen and the Wiimote's camera. The placement of your hand when you use the IR pen should be as shown in the pictures below: Bad Hand Placement: The teacher here is holding the IR pen like a student would hold a pencil. This increases the chance of obstructing the view of the IR pen by the Wiimote camera. Remember that the light path between the tip of the pen and the Wiimote camera must not be blocked. Good Hand Placement:In this picture, the teacher is holding the light pen as he would hold a piece of chalk to write on a chalk board. (He is old enough to remember chalk. Many teachers today don't remember writing with chalk on a chalk board.) Notice that the tip of the pen is exposed. The Wiimote camera can see the infrared light emitted from the tip of the pen. Remember, the Wiimote can only see the light if the button on the pen is pressed.
If you need to use a keyboard while using Pentabulous, you can use the on-screen keyboard from Microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com/enable/training/windowsxp/usingkeyboard.aspx Many computers already have it installed and accessible. Penteractive.us/Educon Tech would like to thank James Hays of Champaign, IL for his contribution to the creation of this guide. Copyright 2009 Educon Tech All Rights Reserved