Before I start, this video requires some knowledge of MSSQL server. To do what this video shows, you will need an MSSQL server installed on a machine on your network and will have to setup some tables and possibly some User Defined Stored Proceedures (USP's) in MSSQL Server. It also requires that you have EZ-DBMulti installed and working.
With all of that out of the way, some people have asked me what you would use a database for with ARC in the past. This is a video of an example of why I use databases. All of this could be done in the script engine in ARC and could be done with text files instead of a database, but here is an example of what I am doing with the database. There are many more examples that could be provided and the possibilities become pretty endless.
I have over 20 years of experience with MSSQL and with programming in multiple languages for many companies. This video makes some assumptions that the person attempting this has the knowledge necessary to do this. If you are not at that point, there are many sources for help and I will do what I can, especially with EZ-DBMulti, but I wont be able to teach you how to query a database or how to setup a USP or MSSQL. I can check your USP to see if there is anything that I see is wrong with it, or your script in ARC to call EZ-DBMulti.
There are a few relationships that you need to know about when watching this video. David and Tatia are the parents of McKay and Tanner. Tanner is married to Kaitlynn and they have a daughter (a pretty awesome one if I do say so myself) named Rori. The video shows how the robot can change based on who is using the robot because of a username that is supplied.
Let me know if you have any questions and I will do what I can to help you out if you choose to go down this path. It is a pretty fun one and gives you a lot more capabilities of decision making through queries instead of through if statements in scripts. This is also the reason that I cant wait for the cloud option to be enabled in ARC. I dont know if extensive queries or USP's will be possible with the cloud feature, but if not, you can always use EZ-DBMulti.
Here is the video.
Other robots from Synthiam community
DJ's Myo Gesture Tutorial
Intellamicrorobotics's Meet @Arti_Robot
Great effort and I know it's a lot of work. Guess I will have to Google how to software define a MSSQL server on a dedicated platform and go from there.
Looks like this "Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Express" is free, will it be sufficient for a trial ?
It's more than sufficient. Also download the management tools.
Yes, all express versions are free. I would recommend these and you wouldn't need to upgrade ever unless you end up going far further than I have any plans of going. It doesn't need to be a dedicated machine. Odds are that you could run sql server on the same computer ARC is running on.
EZ-DBMulti (the compiled version) is available for download from my website but I wont be posting the source until I am finished with this project so that there wont be a lot of changes that you will need to download.
EZ-Robot Plug Ins
If you would like to have the source code, just ask me and I would be more than happy to send it your way. I will also send you the project in ARC and a backup of the database for you to restore and use.
@CochranRobotics
Hello dear eng, would you send me the video link plz ? the above link doesn't work
that was old and was rolled into EZ-AI which was rewritten. basically, long story, there wasn't enough interest. For what I wanted databases for, I now do in EZ-AI.
hello @CochranRobotics please can you tell me how I can connect the ARC mobile to a database? It is very urgent and important to the senior project I'm currently working on to graduate.
Dave has not been participating in the forum lately. He ended the EZ-AI project and has been working on other projects outside EZ-B. I would not hold my breath waiting for him to respond.
Alan
@IPIA_KU I don't think CochranRobotics is active on the forum anymore.
Cochran used .Net and SQL database running on Windows desktop with the desktop version of ARC. If you visit the Plug-In Getting Started Guide you can learn how to make your own plug in and you'll see how this might work and where in .Net you could link to a database, assuming you are proficient with .Net https://synthiam.com/Community/Tutorials/146/1
There are many ways you "can" work with a data because ARC provides many options, but for purely the mobile version I am not sure.
Do you have any specifics like a type of database or what mobile platform?
Oh thanks you guys for informing me that he is not active anymore
@JustinRatliff no i don’t have any specification for the database as long as i can access it through xcode and through ez scripts to make ARC mobile app. So i have two applications that should be able to acces this database; one in xcode and the other is ARC mobile app. tired
Is this the same project that @IPIA_KU is working on in this thread https://synthiam.com/Community/Questions/11748
PTP and I have given some advise there about setting up a web front-end to the database and using httpget and some string parsing on the returned data to access a database from the mobile app. I don't think it is the best solution. I think the best is to use a PC running ARC and a write a plugin to your database, and then use one of ARC's two web servers to build a mobile interface for your project, but there are other solutions.
Alan
It sounds like you guys are trying to develop something for the iPhone or iPad probably, right?
I don't know much about xcode mobile development, but I did a quick youtube search and found a bunch of videos and tutorials there along with how to make database apps in xcode so you guys can probably figure that part out.
To get your xcode app/database to work with ARC mobile I think you need to look at ways ARC mobile could write data to a file (like a .txt file) and then your xcode app could pick up and read/write to it to get data in or out of your database. I don't know if the mobile version (Apple) actually allows ARC to write to files on the device and I don't know how you specify a local location/path on the device you'd need to figure that out as well probably.
Another method to think about is how you might use REST and API calls from your xcode app/database because ARC script can call http sites, so you may be able to make use of that.
Ahh, I thought this sounded failure Alan.
I would point you guys back to what Alan and PTP already said. Good luck with your project.
@thetechguru yup me and @rwn0110 are members of the same senior project group.
we are four members actually blush
@thetechguru & @JustinRatliff thank you guys, I guess I will try the plugin solution i'm giving up on ARC mobile; it seems complicated and I don't have much time left till the due date of the project eyeroll