Monthly Archives: April 2013

GNU Octave OS X

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Why GNU Octave

Learning image processing using C++ is not practical for a newbie like myself as it is not conducive to trial and error. Besides, I would like create a model and explore it in an iterative fashion before I code it in C/C++/ObjectiveC.

I opted to install GNU Octave on the Mac Mini since all my dev is on that platform.  I did install it on Windows 7 a while back for an earlier project so I know what it can do. I also wanted a tool that was almost 100% compatible with MatLab code.

Installing GNU Octave

My dev box consists of a Mac Mini with 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM running OS X version 10.8.3 (Mountain Lion). There seems to be a lot of issues with installing Octave in OS X based on what I see on the web. I went down the MacPorts path since I used it for some other installation.
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Spring Cleaning-Flow Meter

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I read yet another book on iOS development and got the creative juices flowing with lots of ideas for some image processing.  That said, I’m starting to feel like a hoarder of electronic parts and opted to put a couple SeedStudio Water Flow Sensors to some use.  Besides someone asked me to describe how to use them in simple terms. So this side trip’s goal is put something together to measure the flow from kitchen faucets. The functional requirements include the following:

  • Hot water line measurement
  • Cold water line measurement
  • Current flow rate in L/sec
  • Running volume for the day in L
  • Max flow Duration for the day in seconds
  • Min flow Duration for the day in seconds
  • Average Duration for the day in seconds
  • Total flow duration for the day in seconds 
  • Integration with my existing M2M Mango instation over Modbus

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