原创 [视频]创客装13指南-VIPER项目

VIPER is an easy to use development suite for the high level design of interactive objectsready for the cloud and the IoT.

With VIPER creatives, designers and professionals can develop in Python for Arduino DUE, UDOO and all Spark products (Core, Photon and Electron),  and similar boards using paradigms and features typical of PC and mobile programming.

Unlike other solutions on the market, VIPER is cross-platform and compatible with all sensors and kits.

VIPER = Viper Is Python Embedded in Realtime.

Are you a developer? VIPER provides a browser-based, zero-install development environment where you can write Python code with extensive library support and have it executed on any Arduino-like board.

Are you a designer? No need to go insane with low-level code, funky wiring and sensors datasheets. With VIPER, you can focus on features and functionality… and the mobile app to control your creation comes for free!

VIPER is a full suite addressing all your needs! You can be a geek or a beginner, it doesn’t matter, VIPER fits in your necessities.

With VIPER you can build almost everything! Amazing installations and projects can be built with few clicks. You need just a pinch of creativity!

With VIPER you can design and prototype the objects of the future!

This is the VIPER Daily Life Assistant we built in collaboration with the designer Zhiyao Chen from MBVision

Using VIPER is very easy! 

You just need to download a single package from our website, and unpack it on your computer or on a USB stick. VIPER is ZERO-install!

VIPER is a complete solution: It also includes an embedded, portable Python 3.0 engine in order to make your life easier!

Launch the VIPER IDE and develop your project, or test one of the examples we made for you. Just connect to the VIPER App to control everything on your board!

Time to play with your board: you need only 5 simple steps.

VIPER is a set of open source software and hardware tools developed and professionally maintained by our team with a specific mission: make your design activity productive and enjoyable!

We want to share with you what exactly we have developed so far, and what we want to offer as a final product.  Your help will allow us to refine our current tools into a polished product.

Let’s go in detail with the VIPER components:

THE VIPER APP

Whether you are creating an interactive object or an art installation, you will need some form of interface for it. LCDs and buttons are so passé… you need a mobile App!

This is why we developed a ready to use App that acts as an interface for your VIPER powered projects. Just install it on your smartphone or tablet, and you are ready to go!

When launched the VIPER App will discover all the VIPER devices available on your network. Once one of them will be selected the App will become its interface.

VIPER App interfaces are based on HTML templates that you can select and edit through the VIPER IDE integrating them in your VIPER Python scripts.

You don’t have to write any iOS or Android code!

Data can be easily exchanged between VIPER objects and mobile devices, possibly triggering mobile features like notifications and SMS.

THE TOI SHIELD

We don’t want to see you getting insane with funky electronic circuits setup! Therefore, the VIPER suite works out of the box with a multi-sensor board that allows you to start developing your interactive projects in minutes. Just plug your Arduino DUE or Spark Photon into the TOI Shield and start playing with the VIPER examples!

TOI shield is the first shield compatible with both Arduino and Spark Core or Photon footprints!

The shield contains a number of sensors and actuators so you can unleash your creativity:

Aux ports are also included allowing the use of other sensors like Grove, ThinkerKit, Phidgets and similar kits and of the Adafruit Neopixel LED strips.

THE VIPER IDE

The VIPER IDE is a browser-based development environment that runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. Through the VIPER IDE you can manage your boards and develop the corresponding logic in Python 3.

The IDE is based on Code Mirror, one of the most used open source browser-based text editor. We extended it with several VIPER-specific tools.

The VIPER IDE already supports various amazing features such as multi-tab, boards smart detector, and an embedded serial console. We need your help to finalize and improve it!

THE VIPER VIRTUAL MACHINE

The core of VIPER is the VIPER Virtual Machine.

Through our IDE you can viperize your boards by installing on them the VIPER VM. Once viperized, a board is no longer a simple Arduino DUE or Spark Photon or UDOO — now it has a multithreaded real-time operating system running on it, as well as a virtual machine ready to execute your compiled Python 3 scripts.

VIPER supports all the most used high-level features of Python like modules, classes, multithreading, callbacks, timers and exceptions, plus our custom hardware-related features like interrupts, PWM, digital I/O, etc.

The VIPER VM provides real hardware independence — you can reuse or integrate your code on different boards and do simulation and debugging on a PC .

VIPER runs on top of CHIBIOS, an embedded device operating system with real-time capabilities. Hence, VIPER supports all ARM architectures. If you need it, you can also link native C functions to your VIPER scripts.

A rich library of modules comes with VIPER, including CC3000 WiFi for Spark Core and Adafruit Shield; Adafruit/Sparkfun Thermal Printer; Adafruit Neopixel LED; RTTTL smart melody player; Streams library; TCP, UDP network protocols. We are currently working on more, including SPI communication; Infra Red emitter, receiver and decoder library; TOI Shield Library with easy sensors reading.

The VIPER VM also supports TCP and UDP connections, allowing the use of HTTP and HTTPS protocols. Carriots and Paraimpu cloud services will be included in the library. We are also working with the Spark team for the integration of the Spark Cloud! Do you like other cloud services and providers? No problem, you can easily add them yourself using Python!

Let’s write your first VIPER script!

We could show you a simple LED blinking example known as the “Hello World of embedded devices”….. but with VIPER we can make it funnier. This is the code required to blink 2 LEDs at different frequencies using two separated threads:

Just Click “Run”. The VIPER IDE will upload it on your viperized board.

The board embedded LED 1 (we have already defined this labels for you in the VIPER Library) will blink every 500 milliseconds while the LED 2 every 800 milliseconds. Under the hood, the IDE compiles the script into optimized bytecode and instructs the VM on the viperized board to load and run it.

Once the script is run, two additional threads are created (the main thread is always available), each running a specific instance of the blink function, with different parameters.

Of course you can do it also with Arduino….. but please, try doing it