FabDoc - Version Control Tool for Makers

Description

We are all facing a lot of work of documentation beyond making, especially when we would like to share and collaboratively develop "hardware" projects.

There are too many version control system (VCS) tools for "software" projects so that we could fortunately join any large-scale software projects, such as Linux, if they are open source. But what happen to "hardware" projects? Can we enlarge the scale of these projects with VCS tools?

There are too many physical details (materials, machines, parameters...) which should be well-documented before cooperating, but unfortunately cannot be easily digitized into documentation or VCS.

We are trying to hack the way of documenting for all of makers' projects, simply with Raspberry Pi, camera module, and hacked Google.

Details

We want to build a hand-free and easy-to-use documentation tool and platform.

Though currently the way we make our documentation is step-by-step, the real building and design process will suffer many dead ends. On the other hand, it seems more like a tree with branches if we want to record every detail while making. However, the trade-off is that making means our hands are busy. We would be distracted if the work has to be suspended to take pictures.

What if the system can remain the branches and each dead end you've tried? This is not only for sharing (documented) projects, but also helping you document for your team or yourself.

So, here is how we hack it, the main concept is: "To capture time-lapse pictures as pre-commits".

Before Making

• Create a new project with project name and description

• Generate QR code token

• Login by scanning QR code token with Raspberry Pi Zero

• Start to stream time-lapse pictures to your computer through WebSocket

While Making

• Leave your computer alone

• Happy making

After Making

• Select key frames of time-lapse pictures as "commit" in the browser

• Tag physical materials in the frames and add more details

• Upload to the platform

Ongoing

There are two main features we are working on:

• Device - python-client https://github.com/FablabTaipei/FabDoc-python-client

• Server - console https://github.com/FablabTaipei/FabDoc-console

Future Features

• Add IMU as input on Raspberry Pi, in order to capture more than time-lapse pictures, such as customized time video, by head motion. FabDoc-python-client FabDoc-console