This project was developed to run Controller Area Network (CAN) bus introduction workshops at The Ohio State University. When run, it displays an Instrument Panel Cluster (IPC) which is backed by a virtual CAN interface (vcan). Users can interact with the IPC by using the keyboard to accelerate, brake, turn, and enable blinkers. The program's internal state both produces and is updated by messages on the vcan. Inspired by OpenGarage's ICSim.
TODO: image
TODO: powerpoint? links? or in readme?
The python dependencies for this program are cantools, pygame, Pillow, matplotlib, and numpy, which will be taken care of during the Setup stage. For system-level dependencies, pygame is built on top of SDL (NOT SDL2!) so make sure to install the appropriate packages for your operating system according to pygame's guidelines. Additionally, this program requires socketcan to provide support for virtual CAN interfaces to your operating system.
To set up the vcan and install the appropriate python packages, run setup.sh located in the main directory. If no arguments are specified, one vcan will be created (vcan0) for your own use. If a numerical argument is specified, the appropriate number of vcans will be created (e.g. entering 19 produces vcan0, vcan1, ... vcan17, vcan18). This is useful for setting up a workshop in the case that many students will be working on the same VM. An administrator with sudo access can create enough vcans to have 1 per student so that students can experiment with CAN messages without interfering with other students' IPCs and so students do not require sudo access.
TODO: fill out
If you see the following output when trying to run this script, you need to install packages for your operating system for pygame's dependencies, NOT python packages.
Hunting dependencies...
SDL : found 1.2.15
FONT : not found
IMAGE : found
MIXER : not found
PNG : found
JPEG : found
SCRAP : found
PORTMIDI: found
PORTTIME: found
FREETYPE: found 23.1.17
Missing dependencies
If you see the following output, you are missing python dependencies. See Setup.
python writeCan.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "writeCan.py", line 4, in <module>
import pygame
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pygame'