Yes, the project runs on the PC. This allows more programming flexibility and faster processing without adding complex or expensive hardware requirements on the robot platform.
At this time, FlowBotics Apps in executable format cannot be run on a Lego EV3 or on a Java platform.
Many people have already experimented with XML handling using FlowBotics Studio. We have attached two samples XML projects as an example. Please note that we did not create nor offer support for those example projects.
You can program FlowBotics Studio to generate any output as you see fit, including Java classes, if you wish so. While you cannot directly call Java from FlowBotics Studio, there is a DLL component to access functionality from any DLL you have. This would allow you to make a DLL wrapper for your Java code, if wanted. Check here for an example of calling Java from C++.
Yes, it can! Of course, this will require some code on the robot to be running to feed data to the FlowBotics Studio interface or respond to commands from it.
The FlowBotics Studio components includes many drawing and graphics tool to allow you to create graphical interfaces to suit your need.
No, there is no evaluation or trial version of the software. You can check the product itself here. You can also find more information on this blog post about the Developer Zone.
The usual definition of an autonomous robot is one that does not require a human operator to complete its task(s). We assume that you mean you do not want any connection (wired or wireless) to your PC while the robot is running?
Yes, the attachments are FlowBotics Studio project file and require FlowBotics Studio to use. We attached those file for reference (for both you and other forum users) as they provide a good example / starting point on using XML files with FlowBotics Studio.
Look below for an attachment of a screenshot of some of the code of one of the examples.
FlowBotics Studio does not currently offer support for Java integration, directly or indirectly. Like mention previously, it can however use functionality from external DLLs. Using this feature, you can access anything by making a DLL wrapper for the functionality you wish to use. This is actually a very common technique to quickly “port” software libraries without having to modify the source code for a new platform. You can check here for a short description.
While the link provided is an example using a much older JDK it still provides a good starting point on how this can be achieved. Of course, some work would be required on your part to adapt this to a modern JDK version.
Do you mean the components in the XML export examples? All the modules in the XML examples are modifiable in FlowBotics Studio to produce a different output.
No, I mean the standard FlowBotics components. For example, with the addition (+) operator, I want it to create a small piece of XML which would configure a function on my remote robot, to add two signals together, rather than adding two signals together on the PC. In other words, can the out-of-the-box functionality of standard components be modified, or enhanced?
While you cannot directly modify the base components themselves, you can perform the exact same thing by creating the new features / functionality around the default component and then make it into a module. Then, this module can be added to your component list and be re-used as needed. It can also be further modified / enhanced at a later time and automatically update all other instances of it in the project.
