HTML5

Part 1 described the general idea behind Sonar project, hardware components used and Arduino sketch… This second post in “Out of Boredom” series is about C# and JavaScript programs that make it possible to display ultrasonic range sensor data in web browsers. The role of .NET application is to receive messages from Arduino over serial port and broadcast it to clients using SignalR library. JS/HTML5 clients use jquery.signalR lib to obtain information about servo position with distance to obstacles and use this data to render sonar image on canvas:

This post marks the beginning of “Out of Boredom” series. It will be about creating stuff with my recently purchased Arduino Uno. Let’s have a break from chores of professional programming and create something just for fun :)

Coordinate system in HTML5 Canvas is set up in such a way that its origin (0,0) is in the upper-left corner. This solution is nothing new in the world of screen graphics (e.g. the same goes for Windows Forms and SVG). CRT monitors, which were standard in the past, displayed picture lines from top to bottom and image within a line was created from left to right. So locating origin (0,0) in the upper-left corner was intuitive and it made creating hardware and software for handling graphics easier.