Hidden Gem: The "Processing IDE" for PC and Linux to Engage Your Embedded Projects

RE: Hidden Gem: The "Processing IDE" for PC and Linux to Engage Your Embedded Projects

Andrew J — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 15:10:22 GMT

This is a great post Sean. I've not done very much PC/Mac development but something simple like this could get me up and running quickly. Earlier this year, I worked on a small project where I was sending SCPI commands over wireless to an ESP32 which used Serial to communicate to an Arduino. I had to use Javascript and HTML to do the PC side as it was just the easiest way to do it at the time.

RE: Hidden Gem: The "Processing IDE" for PC and Linux to Engage Your Embedded Projects

beacon_dave — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 17:18:52 GMT

"...The name "Processing IDE" doesn't exactly jump out as a language option when skimming search results...."

Indeed, I don't think 'Processing' was perhaps the best choice for a name, it's caused a lot of confusion in discussions.

The Firmata communications protocol may be of interest to some as well, as a quick an easy way to get access to microcontroller I/O from programs running on external hosts.

https://github.com/firmata/arduino

Daniel Shiffman has done a number of programming tutorials using Processing (and more recently p5.js) over at his 'The Coding Train' YouTube channel

( filtered by 'processing' )

The Coding Train - YouTube

which may be of interest to those newcomers interested more in the visual side of things.

RE: Hidden Gem: The "Processing IDE" for PC and Linux to Engage Your Embedded Projects

neilk — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 11:06:54 GMT

Sean,

Thanks very much for posting this. Like you, I've never come across it.

In the past, I've done quite a bit of work with Arduino Uno and Nano, HC06, communicating with MIT AppInventor on an Android phone and tablet. This included controlling a very simple wheeled robot from an Android phone.

I've often wanted to communicate directly between an Arduino or similar ( eg ESP8266) and a Windows PC, but never wanted to do it enough to research it very deeply!!! This Processing IDE changes the game completely - it's definitely a winner!!

Thanks again for the post

Neil

RE: Hidden Gem: The "Processing IDE" for PC and Linux to Engage Your Embedded Projects

dubbie — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 09:44:37 GMT

Sean,

This looks very interesting. I was just thinking this morning that for one of the robots I am building that I would like to have a Bluetooth link to a PC, but without all the hassle I currently have. Maybe this will do it. I will have to look into this. Definitely. Probably. Well, perhaps a cup of tea first.

Dubbie