Hey folks,

we've done our first piece of code (with help from luckylarry and Ess): the distance send from a Parallax Ping))) send to processing. According to the distance the volume is set up and down. The code works very well so far. But on fast distance changes there are gaps in the sound. How can we get rid of this?

Thanks a bunch in advance!
Lisa and Tobi

Code:

// Based on the sketches of luckylarry.co.uk (THX!)
// and the example sketch from Ess (THX!)
// written @ bauhaus weimar by Lisa Naumann and Tobi Ziegler  
// sketch uses the distance from the serial port 
// and connects the distance to the  volume of a looped soundfile 
// here we defined something like a corridor  

import processing.serial.*;   
import krister.Ess.*;

Serial myPort;
AudioChannel myChannel;


void setup() {
  
  Ess.start(this);                              // start up Ess

  myChannel=new AudioChannel("F13.mp3");        // load "F13.mp3" into a new AudioChannel

  myChannel.play(Ess.FOREVER);                  // start the sound looping forever
  
  myChannel.volume(0);
 
  println(Serial.list());                      // List serial ports, saves us trying to figure out which COM we're using.
  myPort = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[0], 9600);    // Open the active port - providing you've only got one sending serial data (which you should)
  myPort.bufferUntil('\n');                    // don’t read the serial buffer until we see a new line - this is genius and simple compared with my last efforts
}


void draw() {
}


void serialEvent (Serial myPort) {
  String bufferString = myPort.readStringUntil('\n');    // get the string from the serial buffer - gets all chars until the next line break...
 
  if (bufferString != null) {                  
    bufferString = trim(bufferString);         // get rid of any whitespace - sometimes the serial buffer can have blanks etc.. in the string
    float inByte = float(bufferString);        // convert the value to an int - we're only sending numbers over the serial port so parsing it to an int shouldn't ever be an issue.
    float pulse = float(bufferString);         // declare a variable to hold our value.

      if (pulse >= 60 && pulse < 100){
      float newVolume=(pulse-60)/40;                            // set the pulse-value to a volume value
      if (!myChannel.fading) myChannel.fadeTo(newVolume,500, Ess.FAST);
      println ("Close: " + newVolume);
 
      }
      
      else if (pulse >= 100 && pulse <= 140) {
      float newVolume=(pulse-140)/(-40);                           // set the pulse-value to a volume value
      if (!myChannel.fading) myChannel.fadeTo(newVolume,500, Ess.FAST);
      println ("Back: " + newVolume);
      }
     
      else if (pulse < 60 || pulse > 140) {                   // Silence in the ranges not defined (prevents clipping or loud sounds)
      float newVolume=0;                                      // set the pulse-value to zero
      if (!myChannel.fading) myChannel.fadeTo(newVolume,2000, Ess.FAST);
      println ("Silence:" + newVolume);
      }
  }                                                           // end if there's a value in the serial bufferstring
}

public void stop() {                                          // clean up Ess before exiting
  Ess.stop();
  super.stop();
}