Re: HID Sensor support for True/Magnetic North usage attributes

[Jonathan Cameron <jic23@kernel.org>]

On 16/05/14 18:46, Srinivas Pandruvada wrote:
> On 05/13/2014 07:14 PM, Reyad Attiyat wrote:
>> Dear IIO/HID maintainers,
>>
>> I have a device, Surface Pro, that has the hid-sensor-hub and many
>> sensors attached. With the help of Srinivas I was able to get them all
>> working except for the magnometer. It uses the hid-magn-3d driver as
>> it should but it does not contain an axis (X, Y, Z) usage attributes.
>> Instead it only has a True North usage attribute. I see two solutions
>> to this problem and was inquiring which one would work best?
>>
>> 1) Modify the hid-magn-3d driver to handle True North attribute. I
>> realize there might not be many devices that have this so not sure if
>> appropriate. I think this could be done; by passing a variable amount
>> of IIO Channels when setting up the hid-magn-3d driver, depending on
>> how many axis and/or if it find True/Magnetic North usage attribute.
> I prefer this approach. The spec doesn't say whether magnetic flux for x,y or z are mandatory.
> Ultimately they are used to calculate the true north. So if the hub is trying to expose true north,
> we should add this attribute.
>
> "Heading True North SV – Indicates compass true north heading is not compensated.
>                      Default unit of measure is degrees; can be overridden using
>                     explicit Unit and/or Unit Exponent."
>
Agreed. Don't worry too much about the driver naming.  Plenty of convention
says that it has no real meaning other than labelling one part supported by
the driver.

> Thanks,
> Srinivas
>> 2) Create a whole new driver that handles True/Magnetic North. This
>> would not work on my device as it is set to Compass 3D Usage
>> Attribute. This could be resolved by adding another quirk for the
>> Surface to ensure it used the new driver.
No to this one as we'll end up with lots of similar cases and far too many
similar drivers.
>>
>> For both options I think we'd need a new IIO_MOD_NORTH for the
>> iio_chan_spec, as the current ones don't really apply. I like the
>> first solution as it could allow for handling of devices with only one
>> or two axis present. I do realize if the hid-mangn-3d driver was
>> changed it's name would not make sense anymore and the pattern I'm
>> notcing is a driver for each HID Usage.
If you are introducing a north attribute, allow for both true and magnetic
norths (only introduce the one you are using).

IIO_MOD_NORTH_TRUE
IIO_MOD_NORTH_MAGNETIC perhaps?
I see the spec also mentions compensated variants of these...   If you do
include these I think
IIO_MOD_NORTH_TRUE_TILT_COMPENSATED or similar would be needed to make it
clear what was going on.
>>
>> Here's a link to the hid report description with some labels for my device:
>> Bug 73321 Comment 7
>> https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=73321#c7
>>
>> I'd be willing to work on this. Just wanted to know what would work best
>>
Cool. I'd suggest perhaps doing the documentation first for the new ABI elements
then we can hammer that out in parallel with work on the driver.
(it's usually the harder part!)
>> Thank You,
>> Reyad Attiyat
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>