Audio/Analog Interfaces

If you want to record or monitor audio or high data rate analogue signals in real time then an Audio/Analog Interface is what you need. These can be internal, plugged straight into your motherboard, or external USB or Firewire devices.

Data is accessed via the ASIO In and ASIO Out components in FlowStone. With data rates up to 96KHz signals are processed using a specialised set of Stream components. These give you complete control over any DSP you want to apply be it Filtering, EQ, compression or just analysis and display.

Here are just a few of the many compatible devices:

Phidgets

Phidgets are a set of "plug and play" building blocks for low cost USB sensing and control. FlowStone supports the complete range of Phidgets I/O boards, motor controllers and sensors.

There's a whole set of components that map directly onto Phidgets products making controlling them an absolute breeze. No need to dig out your C++ manual or wrestle with custom API's, FlowStone handles that all for you.

The full range of Phidgets boards is supported including:

Cameras

FlowStone can capture video from any USB or built in web cam. There are thousands of these on the market and FlowStone is equiped to talk to any of them.

Once captured, you can apply a variety of image processing teschniques including colour detection, motion detection and object tracking.

IP cameras are becoming increasingly popular and the networking capabilities of FlowStone allow you to stream Video directly from these devices in real time. Once again, there are many of these cameras to choose from and as they all deliver images from an IP address FlowStone will be able to access them.

Serial Controlled Robots

With serial port communications built into FlowStone you can connect to a wide variety of robot kits, servo and motor controllers which plug straight into your PC COM port. Even without a COM port there are cheap USB to Serial adapters that open up a whole world of hardware that communicates via the Serial port.

Lynxmotion produce a 32 servo controller board that is used widely for robotics. The SSC-32 controller board uses simple text string commands sent through the COM port all of which can be done from FlowStone.

Some of the kits that FlowStone will talk to:

RS232 Devices

Of course serial port communications is not just reserved for robots, there's a whole world of hardware out there that runs off a serial port. There are motor controllers, card readers, GPS, accelerometers, bar code scanners, LCD text displays and many more.

A huge number of industrial and legacy hardware systems also use serial communications. All of these can be accessed through the FlowStone COM Port component.

Here's just a small selection of serial port hardware:

Input Controllers

For controlling your hardware FlowStone can receive input from popular input devices. The XBox 360 and versions of the PlayStation 2 controller are both supported.

The Nintendo Wiimote and Nunchuck can also be used. All functions of the controller are useable - 3-axis accellerometer, 4 spot infrared, all buttons, thumb stick, even the rumble feature!

Home Automation

The Netvox Smart Home system allows you to use a range of sensors and switches all wirelessly via a USB dongle that can communicate directly with FlowStone. The software has five dedicated components for interfacing directly to a Netvox Zigbee home network.

FlowStone also supports the X10 Active Home system. This comprehensive home automation solution allows you to control lighting, appliances and switches all from a single computer.

The X10 system uses a USB interface and FlowStone can send commands to this directly through its X10 component.