BraveSirRobbin
Moderator
Mario Creates the Ultimate (MainLobby) Garage Door Flash Icon for the Ultimate Garage Door Monitor
by BraveSirRobbin
Mario Cascio of Cinemar visited our chat room this past Friday and we started discussing my Ultimate Garage Door Monitor How-To. Since I use MainLobby, I was curious if he could develop a "library" flash icon which showed the garage door in its actual state (i.e. its actual percentage opened). Since I went through all the trouble of knowing the garage door's position to within a couple of inches, I wanted a "dynamic" representation of that position with a MainLobby scene.
I had some still screen shots that my friend Fungun developed for me, but they were only in ten percent increments. Therefore I had to develop code that would "best" represent the garage door's position. His pics were very much appreciated, but it did have inaccuracies due to their limited span.
Mario said he could develop a garage door (MainLobby) flash icon and have the door's position dynamically represented by the (HomeSeer) analog to digital converter's device which showed a true door "percent opened". (This would work much the same way as a MainLobby “slider’s†value based on a HomeSeer variable). He actually worked on a prototype during our chat session.
He was gracious enough to Email me this result and I promptly developed a MainLobby scene with it. I was amazed as to how accurate this represented the garage door's actual position. As a matter of fact I was so impressed that I set up a video camera to look at my garage door and had our chat participants compare that live image to screen shots of my MainLobby scene (you just never know what will happen during our Friday chat sessions).
Another feature that Mario employed was the ability to place an image "behind" this garage door. I took a picture of my actual garage and scaled/cropped it so it fit behind that garage door flash icon. He also refined the prototype icon a few times to get it "just right".
I then took screen shots of my MainLobby scene and at the same time took some actual pictures of the garage door (so you can compare the two).
The results are shown below. Take a close look at each garage door’s image and compare it to its corresponding MainLobby scene. (Click on one picture, leave it displayed on your desktop, then go back to this article and click on the next one so you can compare the two). Pay very close attention to the details of where the door is in relation to the vehicles and while doing so you will see how accurate this system is.
Also, you can dynamically place an image behind the garage door based on a (HomeSeer/MLServer) variable's value. So in other words, if you have a way to "track" your vehicles status in the garage, you could load the appropriate image behind the garage door. For instance if only one vehicle is home, load a picture showing just that one vehicle!
There are many ways to track a car's status. RFID is one, my Palm Pad Hack for Car Status is another, and using a motion to Detect Car Status is yet another.
I think this is very cool and really represents the "status" of the garage door (and the vehicles inside the garage. I deliberately did not tint the MainLobby garage door icon just so you can see that this was an actual dynamic value/position based on the analog to digital converter's HomeSeer variable which showed the actual percentage of the garage door (if I tinted it like Mario said I can do, people would think I just imposed a screen shot from my digital camera on my MainLobby scene!).
Look at the screen shots below and you will see why this is so cool, and better yet, why one would want to accurately monitor their garage door's position. Also note that you could use this technique for other important monitoring needs such as a driveway entry gate or possibly a pool gate. We were also talking about monitoring salt level in our water softeners (Mario is already thinking of how to create a dynamic flash icon to represent this!).
One last thing I did was to have the icon "clickable" and assigned it a MLServer toggle command so it toggles a garage door remote that is connected to my home automation system (My Ocelot's RLY-8XA unit to be specific). Details on how to do this are described in THIS How-To! Now when I click on the garage door it opens or closes depending on it's initial state. Very cool!
I would like to thank Mario for this effort and also state that it was fun working with him on this project. I also want to note that this indeed took a few hours to develop and I now have a much better appreciation of the time involved in developing those great looking MainLobby libraries.
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(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at Zero Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at Zero Percent Open
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(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at Nine Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at Nine Percent Open
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(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at 20 Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at 20 Percent Open
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(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at 40 Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at 40 Percent Open
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(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at 74 Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at 74 Percent Open
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(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at 85 Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at 85 Percent Open
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(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at 98 Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at 98 Percent Open
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by BraveSirRobbin
Mario Cascio of Cinemar visited our chat room this past Friday and we started discussing my Ultimate Garage Door Monitor How-To. Since I use MainLobby, I was curious if he could develop a "library" flash icon which showed the garage door in its actual state (i.e. its actual percentage opened). Since I went through all the trouble of knowing the garage door's position to within a couple of inches, I wanted a "dynamic" representation of that position with a MainLobby scene.
I had some still screen shots that my friend Fungun developed for me, but they were only in ten percent increments. Therefore I had to develop code that would "best" represent the garage door's position. His pics were very much appreciated, but it did have inaccuracies due to their limited span.
Mario said he could develop a garage door (MainLobby) flash icon and have the door's position dynamically represented by the (HomeSeer) analog to digital converter's device which showed a true door "percent opened". (This would work much the same way as a MainLobby “slider’s†value based on a HomeSeer variable). He actually worked on a prototype during our chat session.
He was gracious enough to Email me this result and I promptly developed a MainLobby scene with it. I was amazed as to how accurate this represented the garage door's actual position. As a matter of fact I was so impressed that I set up a video camera to look at my garage door and had our chat participants compare that live image to screen shots of my MainLobby scene (you just never know what will happen during our Friday chat sessions).
Another feature that Mario employed was the ability to place an image "behind" this garage door. I took a picture of my actual garage and scaled/cropped it so it fit behind that garage door flash icon. He also refined the prototype icon a few times to get it "just right".
I then took screen shots of my MainLobby scene and at the same time took some actual pictures of the garage door (so you can compare the two).
The results are shown below. Take a close look at each garage door’s image and compare it to its corresponding MainLobby scene. (Click on one picture, leave it displayed on your desktop, then go back to this article and click on the next one so you can compare the two). Pay very close attention to the details of where the door is in relation to the vehicles and while doing so you will see how accurate this system is.
Also, you can dynamically place an image behind the garage door based on a (HomeSeer/MLServer) variable's value. So in other words, if you have a way to "track" your vehicles status in the garage, you could load the appropriate image behind the garage door. For instance if only one vehicle is home, load a picture showing just that one vehicle!
There are many ways to track a car's status. RFID is one, my Palm Pad Hack for Car Status is another, and using a motion to Detect Car Status is yet another.
I think this is very cool and really represents the "status" of the garage door (and the vehicles inside the garage. I deliberately did not tint the MainLobby garage door icon just so you can see that this was an actual dynamic value/position based on the analog to digital converter's HomeSeer variable which showed the actual percentage of the garage door (if I tinted it like Mario said I can do, people would think I just imposed a screen shot from my digital camera on my MainLobby scene!).
Look at the screen shots below and you will see why this is so cool, and better yet, why one would want to accurately monitor their garage door's position. Also note that you could use this technique for other important monitoring needs such as a driveway entry gate or possibly a pool gate. We were also talking about monitoring salt level in our water softeners (Mario is already thinking of how to create a dynamic flash icon to represent this!).
One last thing I did was to have the icon "clickable" and assigned it a MLServer toggle command so it toggles a garage door remote that is connected to my home automation system (My Ocelot's RLY-8XA unit to be specific). Details on how to do this are described in THIS How-To! Now when I click on the garage door it opens or closes depending on it's initial state. Very cool!
I would like to thank Mario for this effort and also state that it was fun working with him on this project. I also want to note that this indeed took a few hours to develop and I now have a much better appreciation of the time involved in developing those great looking MainLobby libraries.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at Zero Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at Zero Percent Open
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at Nine Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at Nine Percent Open
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at 20 Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at 20 Percent Open
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at 40 Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at 40 Percent Open
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(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at 74 Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at 74 Percent Open
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(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at 85 Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at 85 Percent Open
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(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
Actual Garage Door at 98 Percent Open
(Click on Picture for Full Sized Image)
MainLobby Screen at 98 Percent Open
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