ForceHost: an open-source toolchain for generating firmware embedding the authoring and rendering of audio and force-feedback haptics

Christian Frisson, Mathias Kirkegaard, Thomas Pietrzak, and Marcelo M. Wanderley

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

• Year: 2022
• Location: The University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Article Number: 23
• DOI: 10.21428/92fbeb44.76cfc96e (Link to paper)
• PDF link
• Presentation Video

Abstract:

ForceHost is an opensource toolchain for generating firmware that hosts authoring and rendering of forcefeedback and audio signals and that communicates through I2C with guest motor and sensor boards. With ForceHost, the stability of audio and haptic loops is no longer delegated to and dependent on operating systems and drivers, and devices remain discoverable beyond planned obsolescence. We modified Faust, a highlevel language and compiler for real-time audio digital signal processing, to support haptics. Our toolchain compiles audio-haptic firmware applications with Faust and embeds web-based UIs exposing their parameters. We validate our toolchain by example applications and modifications of integrated development environments: script-based programming examples of haptic firmware applications with our haptic1D Faust library, visual programming by mapping input and output signals between audio and haptic devices in Webmapper, visual programming with physically-inspired mass-interaction models in Synth-a-Modeler Designer. We distribute the documentation and source code of ForceHost and all of its components and forks.

Citation:

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{NIME22_23,
 abstract = {ForceHost is an opensource toolchain for generating firmware that hosts authoring and rendering of forcefeedback and audio signals and that communicates through I2C with guest motor and sensor boards. With ForceHost, the stability of audio and haptic loops is no longer delegated to and dependent on operating systems and drivers, and devices remain discoverable beyond planned obsolescence. We modified Faust, a highlevel language and compiler for real-time audio digital signal processing, to support haptics. Our toolchain compiles audio-haptic firmware applications with Faust and embeds web-based UIs exposing their parameters. We validate our toolchain by example applications and modifications of integrated development environments: script-based programming examples of haptic firmware applications with our haptic1D Faust library, visual programming by mapping input and output signals between audio and haptic devices in Webmapper, visual programming with physically-inspired mass-interaction models in Synth-a-Modeler Designer. We distribute the documentation and source code of ForceHost and all of its components and forks.},
 address = {The University of Auckland, New Zealand},
 articleno = {23},
 author = {Frisson, Christian and Kirkegaard, Mathias and Pietrzak, Thomas and Wanderley, Marcelo M.},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.21428/92fbeb44.76cfc96e},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {jun},
 pdf = {172.pdf},
 presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/smFpkdw-J2w},
 title = {{ForceHost}: an open-source toolchain for generating firmware embedding the authoring and rendering of audio and force-feedback haptics},
 url = {https://doi.org/10.21428%2F92fbeb44.76cfc96e},
 year = {2022}
}