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iapi:vacuumsystem

The KDC vacuum system simulates the chore activity of floor vacuuming and the progressive degradation of its cleanlyness status. It is composed of the following objects.

The vacuum charger

The vacuum charger is the home of your KDC vacuum cleaner, place it wherever you wish to store your vacuum cleaner when not in use. Clicking it will either create a fresh vacuum on the charger or will indicate you where the vacuum is located (SecondLife coordinates) and tell you who is currently using it if anyone.

If the vacuum cannot be found in the region, a new copy will automatically be rezzed on click and loaded with the last known data.

This is the object responsible for spawning the actual vacuum cleaner, you won't find the vacuum itself in the delivery box, simply rez the charger, place it and click it to get the vacuum cleaner spawned.

The vacuum cleaner

The vacuum cleaner can be picked up by clicking it and accepting the SecondLife permission to attach. It can also be dropped on the spot by simply detaching it. To put it back on its charger, simply detach it in close proximity to the charger.

When worn, a menu can be open by clicking the vacuum cleaner, it will allow you to toggle it on and off, as well as dropping it if your client doesn't allow you to simply detach it.

The vacuum will turn on as long as it has some battery charge and the dust reservoir isn't full.

You can check the battery capacity and dust reservoir on the bar indicators located on the handle.

If you wish to adjust its “in hand” position, you can do so like with any SecondLife attachment. In order to save it, you have to briefly turn on the vacuum cleaner.

The trashcan

This is where you can empty the KDC vacuum cleaner's dust reservoir. When wearing the vacuum cleaner, simply get into close proximity of the Trashcan and click it. After a brief animation, the dust reservoir should be empty. This specific trashcan model is marked as “infinite” because it doesn't have a capacity of its own. A future product may expand domestic waste treatment and offer a compatible trashcan which may include a limited capacity and the disposal of full trash bags.

The VacuTrack

The VacuTrack is the heart of the Vacuum System and allows you to define a vacuum-able area of the floor. It also allows changing various cleaning parameters.

The circular light can go through 3 distinct stages:

  • Fixed color: This means that the VacuTrack is currently idle.
  • Two LEDs spinning: Tracking mode, a vacuum is currently in use.
  • Four LEDs spinning slowly: Decay mode, when the room cleanliness is degrading.

Note: You can edit the VacuTrack and change the color of the casing and the ring to your liking, it will not affect its function.

Quick setup instructions

  1. Pick a nice spot on the wall of the room you wish to set up, And rez/install the VacuTrack there.
  2. Left-click the VacuTrack to bring up its owner menu and select the option “Edit room”.
  3. Once the VacuTrack is in room edit mode, click on the option “New Marker”. This will create a room marker where you are standing. (It looks like a red cylinder)
  4. Edit your room marker to cover as much as possible of the room, from the floor to about avatar eye level. You can change the size of the marker, it's position, and height as long as it remains a perfect circle. Do not rotate it or change its shape.
  5. Add more markers as needed to cover the entire room, no need to be extremely precise. (you can safely use shift drag to duplicate the markers)
  6. Once you are satisfied with the room coverage, click each marker, select the “Save” option and confirm. The markers will take a few seconds to disappear and the VacuTrack will confirm that a new area has been added.
  7. Open the VacuTrack menu and click the option “Stop editing”.
  8. The VacuTrack will output its unique ID in local chat, write it down somewhere as you will need it later.
  9. Congratulations, you just defined your first room! It now needs to be fully vacuumed to establish the base cleaning data.

The Configuration notecard

The VacuTrack has a few extra settings that will allow you to further tweak the system, they can be changed by editing the configuration notecard in the VacuTrack inventory.

//All lines starting with "//" are comments and will be ignored.

//How much dirt is picked up PER node by a cleaning implement.
//minimum value: 0.1
DIRT_PICKUP_RATE=2.0

//This is how often a node becomes dirty.
//minimum value: 60
DIRT_REGENERATION_RATE=120.0

//This is the size of each node, smaller nodes mean a more thorough vacuuming is required.
//minimum value: 1.0
DIRT_NODE_SIZE=1.0

(optional)The Monitoring panel

The monitoring panel allows you to track multiple chores in a single location. It can display up to 3 progress bars with their own label and can add multiple chores into a single bar to provide a “global” status.

The progress bar will go from green to red as the values get lower.

It is configured through the “monitoring.config” notecard located in its inventory:

//Every line starting with "//" is a comment and
//will be ignored

//Uncomment this line to get the monitoring panel's UUID in local chat.
//SHOW_UUID

//Declares that we are creating a new entry.
//You can have up to 3 on this monitoring panel.
PANEL_START

//This is the label that will be used for the current entry, used by other devices for filtering
LABEL=MY PANEL
//This is the name of the texture to display for this entry on the panel.
It has to be in the object's inventory.
DISPLAY=vacuuming.texture

//This allows us to filter which labels we will be gathering, ignored if it is unset or set to "*"
//Any label on the tracked objects that doesn't pass the filter will be ignored.
//Multiple entries, comma separated
FILTER=*

//One or more of these lines are the IAPI compatible objects that are tracked for this entry.
//You can have as many of these lines as you want.
TRACK_KEY=put_the_key_to_track_here


//Example for a second entry:

//PANEL_START
//DISPLAY=sometexture.texture
//LABEL=MY OTHER PANEL
//FILTER=*
//TRACK_KEY=put_the_key_to_track_here

(optional)The floor surfaces

A floor surface script, configuration file, and a set of textures are provided. This will allow you to make a set of prims to overlay over your vacuum-able room and to make it automatically fade in and out based on the room's dustiness.

Its configuration is very similar to the monitoring panel:

//IMPORTANT//
//If you need more than this prim to represent a complex room surface, you don't have to 
//duplicate this script/config in each and every one of them, simply link all the extra surfaces.
//to this one, the script will set the alpha of all the child prims at once.

//Uncomment this line to get the monitoring panel's UUID in local chat.
//SHOW_UUID

//The minimum and maximum alpha values for the dust cover where 0 is fully transparent and 100 is fully visible.
MIN_ALPHA=0
MAX_ALPHA=100

//This is the label that will be used for the current entry, used by other devices for filtering
LABEL=DUST

//This allows us to filter which labels we will be gathering, ignored if it is unset or set to "*"
//Any label on the tracked objects that doesn't pass the filter will be ignored.
//Multiple entries, comma-separated
FILTER=*

//One or more of these lines are the IAPI compatible objects that are tracked by the floor surface.
//You can have as many of these lines as you want.
TRACK_KEY=put_the_key_to_track_here

You can use any prims and link them with the floor surface, as long as the floor surface remains the root prim, it will set the alpha value for all child prims. Several dust textures are provided for your convenience.

NOTE: floor surfaces and monitoring panels also output IAPI compatible tracking data, so you can actually chain them in a bigger system, ex: multiple floor surfaces are tracked by a monitoring panel, which is tracked by a global monitoring panel that adds up the results for every room.

How to use the vacuum cleaner

  • Rez the vacuum charger where you want it to be when unused.
  • Click the vacuum charger to make it create a fresh vacuum cleaner.
  • In order to function, its batteries need to contain some charge, to charge the vacuum cleaner, leave it on its charger for a few minutes.
  • Once the vacuum cleaner is turned on, simply walk around the room while making pauses every few steps.
  • To fully vacuum the room you will have to pass the vacuum head on the surface of the entire room. Making stripes help.
  • The vacuum cleaner's “pickup area” is actually 1 meter in front of you, where the head sits.
  • You can cover more ground by vacuuming under furnitures, simply walk up to them to get the vacuum head under it.
  • If the vacuum cleaner dust bucket is full, it will turn itself off, simply walk up to a compatible trashcan and click it to empty the dust bucket.
iapi/vacuumsystem.txt · Last modified: 2022/03/23 17:48 by kyrahabattoir