Monday, September 26, 2016

Space Chem: A brilliant game about Chemistry and Parallel computing

If you like programming, you might want to play SpaceChem, a delightful game.


The world doesn't need another platformer, another action RPG, or another First Person Shooter.  These genres have been explored beyond the point of creativity.  I played a game recently that blew my mind: it was a puzzle game that allowed you to write code to create molecules.  If you are left scratching your head, it is because the game truly is a mind-bender.


Spacechem bills itself as a puzzle game about chemical synthesis, but it is really about programming.  You build reactors using blocks which follow simple programming rules.  You can control two devices called Waldos (one Red, one Blue) that run the commands, and allow you to combine or uncombine molecules into elements.  Elements follow their true chemical properties: Oxygen can make two bonds, Hydrogen can only make a single bond.

The game board is limited, and the input and output areas are clearly delineated.  This constrains your programs, as objects cannot overlap on the game board.  And only one instruction can be placed for a single waldo: you cannot have two red instructions in a square.

Since there are two Waldos, sometimes you need to synchronize them to accomplish a task.  This forces you to reckon with parallel programming concepts.  Accomplishing the task is sufficient to advance to the next level, though you are given a graph of time and complexity (reactors used, and symbols used).  These correspond to time spent and space complexity of parallel programs.  To accomplish the goal quickly or with a small complexity, you quickly learn to keep your waldos busy as much as possible, and synchronize little.  This corresponds to high CPU utilization and reduced global barriers in parallel computing.

All put together, this is one of the most innovative games I have played.  There is a story-line which, while innovative,  pales compared to the beauty and elegance of the game.  The combination of Chemistry and Computing and puzzle solving is truly unmatched.

SpaceChem stands out as a wonderful example of gaming both as a creative art form, and a splendid way to motivate and teach programming.

Here is a program I made which creates Titanium Dioxide and Zinc Oxide from Oxygen, Zinc and Titanium.


Monday, September 19, 2016

Shutter Actuations for Nikon camera through exiv2

Digital SLR cameras have a physical shutter that wears out.  Shutter actuation count is a good measure of the age of the camera.  If you want to estimate how much life is still remaining in your shutter, or to estimate what to pay for a used camera, the actuation count can give you a good idea. Consumer cameras last about 100k actuations, and professional cameras often last much longer.

Exiv2 is a versatile tool for manipulating image metadata, and is often installed by default on modern Linux distributions.

To find shutter count from a photograph, a simple exiv2 command will do:

exiv2 -pa _DSC0901.NEF | grep Nikon3\.ShutterCount

The same command works for JPG files as well
exiv2 -pa _DSC0901.JPG | grep Nikon3\.ShutterCount


You can remove the grep filter to learn other parameters for the picture:
  • Exif.Nikon3.LensType: The lens used (D: DX, VR: Vibration Reduction)
  • Exif.Nikon3.Lens: Focal length and aperture specs of the lens used.
  • Exif.Nikon3.SerialNumber: Unique serial number of the camera body printed in the bottom of the camera.
  • Exif.Nikon3.ISOSpeed: ISO sensitivity of the sensor


Saturday, September 17, 2016

Kids jukebox using Python, Gst and Gtk


I had blogged earlier about an alphabet program for little children. That program allowed my children to recognize alphabets. Recently, a friend gifted us a children's CD that has an animal song for each letter of the alphabet. So I modified that program to play a song for each letter of the alphabet in addition to showing the alphabet.  Since it has been a while since I wrote the original program, I had to learn GObject, and gst-1.0.

The songs are hardcoded in the directory /home/dev/music/X.ogg.  You can change that location below.  The program is great for giving children control of a computer where they can play music.    You could either record your own voice for each alphabet, or a song that corresponds to the letter.  This program will also play songs for each number key 0.ogg, 1.ogg.  I have only tested this on X Windows on recent Ubuntu versions.  You can use this as a starting point for Mac or Windows assuming you can get gstreamer, GObject, Gtk and all dependencies installed.  It is easy to change this to handle MP3 files by changing the Vorbis decoder 'vorbisdec' to 'mpg123'.  To find out which decoders are installed, you can run the command 'gst-inspect-1.0 |grep dec |grep mp3'

This code is also up on github for collaboration.


#!/usr/bin/python

import datetime, string, os

# Audio handling in Gstreamer 1.0 and GObject
import gi
gi.require_version('Gst', '1.0')
from gi.repository import Gst, Gtk, Pango,Gdk, GObject

class AudioPlayer():
    """ A class that plays OGG Vorbis files. """
    def __init__(self):
        self.started = False
        # Change this location to indicate where the songs are stored.
        self.music_path = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__)) + "/music/"
        print self.music_path

    def start(self, alphabet):
        """Starts playing music for the alphabet indicated."""
        if (self.started):
            self.pipeline.set_state(Gst.State.NULL)
        self.pipeline = Gst.Pipeline.new("pipe")

        source = Gst.ElementFactory.make('filesrc')
        demux = Gst.ElementFactory.make('oggdemux')
        # The demux does not expose any pads till it has a file. Attach
        # a callback when pads are added
        demux.connect("pad-added", self.demuxer_callback)
        self.decoder = Gst.ElementFactory.make('vorbisdec')
        converter = Gst.ElementFactory.make('audioconvert')
        sink = Gst.ElementFactory.make('autoaudiosink')

        # Attach all the elements to the pipeline
        self.pipeline.add(source)
        self.pipeline.add(demux)
        self.pipeline.add(self.decoder)
        self.pipeline.add(converter)
        self.pipeline.add(sink)

        # Attach source -> demux & decoder  -> converter -> sink
        # demux -> decoder is done in the demuxer_callback
        source.link(demux)
        self.decoder.link(converter)
        converter.link(sink)

        # Attach a signal handler for being turned on
        bus = self.pipeline.get_bus()
        bus.add_signal_watch()
        bus.connect("message", self.on_message)

        # Specify <current_dir>/music/S.ogg as the file to play when
        # the letter 's' or 'S' is pressed.
        filename = self.music_path + ("%s.ogg" % alphabet)

        # Set this as the source filename
        source.set_property("location", filename)

        # Start playing the pipeline
        self.pipeline.set_state(Gst.State.PLAYING)
        self.started = True

    def on_message(self, bus, message):
        """ Graciously handle End Of Stream and Error cases."""
        t = message.type
        if t == Gst.MessageType.EOS:
            self.pipeline.set_state(Gst.State.NULL)
            self.started = False
        elif t == Gst.MessageType.ERROR:
            err, debug = message.parse_error()
            print "Error: %s" % err, debug
            self.pipeline.set_state(Gst.State.NULL)
            self.started = False

    def demuxer_callback(self, demuxer, pad):
        "Connects the demux to the vorbis decoder"
        # Get the decoder pad that will accept the demultiplexed output
        decoder_pad = self.decoder.get_static_pad("sink")
        # And connect the newly formed pad to it, thereby joining the
        # demultiplexer to the decoder.
        pad.link(decoder_pad)

    def stop(self):
        if (self.started):
            self.pipeline.set_state(Gst.State.NULL)
        self.started = False



class BigChar():
    """ Create a Gtk window for a single giant textview that accepts
        all keyboard input. """
    def on_key_press(self, widget, data=None):
        """ Intercept all keypress events and show ascii
            characters. This requires the CAPS_LOCK to be off.  We
            don't intercept CAPS NUM or SCROLL lock, probably
            should."""
        # Set the time, even if the keypress is irrelevant
        self.set_time()

        ascii_value = data.keyval
        # Print the keycode received
        # print ascii_value

        self.audio_player.stop()

        # Uppercase and lowercase letters
        if (ascii_value >= 97 and ascii_value <= 122):
            self.display_alphabet(ascii_value - 97)
        if (ascii_value >= 65 and ascii_value <= 90):
            self.display_alphabet(ascii_value - 65)
        # Numbers
        if (ascii_value >= 48 and ascii_value <= 57):
            self.display_number(ascii_value - 48)
        # Number pad
        if (ascii_value >= 65456 and ascii_value <= 65466):
            self.display_number(ascii_value - 65456)
        # Special characters on the number pad.
        if (ascii_value == 65450):
            self.display("*")
        if (ascii_value == 65451):
            self.display("+")
        if (ascii_value == 65454):
            self.display(".")
        if (ascii_value == 65453):
            self.display("-")
        # Backspace should produce a left-pointing arrow.
        if (ascii_value == 65288):
            self.display(u"\u2190")
        if (ascii_value == 65515):
            self.display(u"\u25a1")

    def display(self, text):
        """ Show the text in the textbox."""
        self.textBuffer.set_text(text)
        start = self.textBuffer.get_start_iter()
        end = self.textBuffer.get_end_iter()
        self.textBuffer.apply_tag_by_name("real_big", start, end)

    def display_alphabet(self, index):
        """ Show the English alphabet (CAPS and lower) at 0 indexed
            position 'A a' = 0, 'B b' = 1, ...
            Also plays the song corresponding to the alphabet. """
        big = string.ascii_uppercase[index]
        small = string.ascii_lowercase[index]
        self.audio_player.start(big)
        self.display(big + " " + small)

    def display_number(self, number):
        """ Show the Number and play the song corresponding to it"""
        self.audio_player.start(number)
        self.display("%d" % number)

    def realize_handler(self, widget):
        pixmap = GdkPixbuf.Pixbuf(None, 1, 1, 1)
        color = Gdk.Color(0, 0, 0)
        cursor = Gdk.Cursor(pixmap, color, 0, 0)
        widget.window.set_cursor(cursor)

    def set_time(self):
        """Set the progress indicator to the current time.  Shows time
           in a horizontal access with the morning being near the left
           edge and night being near the right edge."""
        current_time = datetime.datetime.now()
        # Total hours past since (assume children wake up at 6am)
        minutes_past = ((current_time.hour - 6)
                        * 60.0 + current_time.minute)
        if (minutes_past < self.day_end):
            fraction = minutes_past / self.day_end
        else:
            fraction = 1.0
        self.progress.set_fraction(fraction)

    def __init__(self):
        """ Create a window with a single giant text view. Disables
            all chrome. """
        # Foreground and background color are read from here.
        #background_color = "black"
        #foreground_color = "#1111ff"
        background_color = "green"
        foreground_color = "black"

        self.audio_player = AudioPlayer()

        self.w = Gtk.Window(Gtk.WindowType.TOPLEVEL)
        # No border
        self.w.set_border_width(0)
        # Take over the entire screen
        self.w.fullscreen()

        # Connect the callback on_key_press to the signal key_press.
        self.w.connect("key_press_event", self.on_key_press)
        # self.w.connect("realize", self.realize_handler)
        # Make the widget aware of the signal to catch.
        self.w.set_events(Gdk.EventMask.KEY_PRESS_MASK)

        # Add a text view to show the key pressed
        textView = Gtk.TextView()
        # Disable a cursor in the text view.
        textView.set_editable(False)
        textView.set_can_focus(False)
        # Show the single character in the middle
        textView.set_justification(Gtk.Justification.CENTER)
        # This is the place we will write the character to
        self.textBuffer = textView.get_buffer()
        # Make the text view huge and bold
        fontdesc = Pango.FontDescription("monospace bold 400")
        textView.modify_font(fontdesc)

        # Creates a tag that is applied to the text every time
        tag = self.textBuffer.create_tag(
            "real_big"
            , background=background_color
            , foreground=foreground_color)
        # The progress bar shows the current proportion of awake-time
        # for a child.
        # Minutes are capped at 8am, which is when kids go to
        # bed. Expressed as minutes after 6am.
        self.day_end = ((20 - 6) * 60.0)
        self.progress = Gtk.ProgressBar()
        self.set_time()

        # Make the text view take the entire window
        vbox = Gtk.VBox(homogeneous=False, spacing=0)
        color = Gdk.Color.parse(background_color)[1]

        self.w.modify_bg(Gtk.StateType.NORMAL, color)
        self.progress.modify_bg(Gtk.StateType.NORMAL, color)
        textView.modify_bg(Gtk.StateType.NORMAL, color)

        vbox.pack_start(textView, fill=True, expand=False, padding=0)
        vbox.pack_start(self.progress, fill=True, expand=True, padding=0)

        self.w.add(vbox)

    def show(self):
        """ Show the window"""
        self.w.show_all()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    # Create a bigchar window, and show it.
    bigchar = BigChar()
    bigchar.show()
    GObject.threads_init()
    Gst.init(None)
    Gtk.main()