Week 9: Part 1 Completed!!

I realized that I was having trouble with the data conversion step because my data was glitchy. After tweaking my placement and conversion code repeatedly, I decided to pivot and take a look at my data. That’s when I realized some sensors were missing. That could’ve been due to losing Bluetooth connection momentarily or sensors disconnecting because of the heat (it was pretty hot when we gathered data on the tennis court). 

Also, I realized that OpenSim only needed 8 sensors to generate a full motion body so I decided to simplify and go with that instead of the 11 sensors I previously had. 

I decided to gather some new data to have a fresh plate to start from. I made sure that my sensors were aligned correctly and taped on securely.

The data conversion code worked when I feed in the new data. I could now run the simulation yay! However, two major problems then arised. One, the arm sensors were not moving. Two, the skeleton was rotated weirdly.

I repeatedly looked over my code to see if my arm sensors got lost somewhere but everything seemed fine. I also checked my data format and saw that the arm sensor values were changing. I shifted the quaternion values by one coordinate to see if maybe the arm sensor followed a different structure than the other sensors. I also added more precision to the code and rounded the Q values less but nothing seemed to work. These changes just made the skeleton stationary or turned weirdly.

I then turned towards checking the sensors. I increased the frequency the data was collected from 10Hz to 100Hz but that just made my quaternion values stay the same causing the skeleton to be stationary. I then played around and altered the bandwidth, axises, and other components of the sensors to see if anything would help but nothing worked.

It was getting extremely frustrating so I decided to recalibrate all the sensors to see if that was the issue. After doing that, the motion started moving!! The lower body and torso data looked correct but the model was still sideways and the arm sensors weren’t moving. I repeatedly tried tweaking my code but sometimes it just made the motion even worse.

I tried rotating the model using the rotation tool in the GUI but it still didn’t work. 

I decided to pivot towards another direction and see if maybe the model was the problem. After searching through the models OpenSim had, I realized there was a newer full body model (2016 vs 2015). I tried the data on the 2016 version and everything worked!! All this trial and error just for the fix to be changing the model. 😅

Now that the data conversion process is finally working, I’ll aim to move on to Part 2 of my project, which is generating tips and feedback for users!! See you guys in the next one.