breadcrumbs app for path retracing
Clew is a path retracing app designed for blind and visually impaired users to help them independently return to any desired locations. Clew is designed with finding your way back to a seat or a table in mind and works best indoors over relatively short distances.
Clew uses Apple's ARKit to record a path through space. As you record a path, it keeps track of the path by leaving virtual breadcrumbs. When you're ready to return back to your starting point, it converts those breadcrumbs into keypoints - points where you turned or climbed stairs. The app can then give you instructions to each keypoint and help you navigate back to your starting point. More information is available on the website.
Clew is an OCCaM Lab project currently under development.
Right now, we're focused on updating documentation and rearchitecturing some of the codebase.
Future work with Clew may include:
- bug fix: stop speaking over first instructions on a route
- new feature: save a route
- new feature: run in background
- new feature: integrate with other apps (e.g. Blindsquare)
Clew is written in Swift 4 with Xcode 9 and should work on any iPhone with an A9 or later processor.
Please read all of this! It's important.
Get the repository on your computer: clone the assistive_apps repository and cd into the Clew directory (cd assistive_apps/navigation/ios_apps/ClewApp).
Install the Pods: if you don't have CocoaPods on your Mac, run sudo gem install cocoapods. Then, to install the Pods for Clew, run pod install from inside the ClewApp directory.
Open the project: from the ClewApp directory, run open Clew.xcworkspace. Because this project uses CocoaPods, it's important to always open the workspace, instead of the Xcode project. (If you use the filesystem GUI instead of the Terminal, double click on Clew.xcworkspace to open it.)
Navigate to the ClewApp directory and type open Clew.xcworkspace in the Terminal.
This project uses a feature branching workflow. Make a new branch if you're going to implement a feature. Pull requests (and at least one review) are required before merging to master. Pull master into your branch before pull requesting so you don't create merge conflicts on master.
Before you pull request, make sure the README is up to date, everything you added or updated in the code is appropriately and accurately commented (both inline and header doc), and update the jazzy documentation. OCCaM Lab's documentation guidelines are available on the Google Drive or by request. To update the jazzy docs, run jazzy --min-acl internal. If jazzy is not installed on your Mac, run sudo gem install jazzy.
Check out the CocoaPods docs for information for adding a new Pod. Make sure to use CocoaPods, if possible, when adding a new library!
If something goes wrong, check what's written in the Podfile. Because this app has multiple targets, make sure to specify the Pod in the correct section (probably all_pods).
This project has multiple targets! You probably want to add any files to both Clew and Clew Dev, so make sure to choose that when the Xcode popup asks. For more information about using multiple targets, check out this tutorial.
If your build (to a real phone, instead of a simulator) fails because of a developer signing error, click on Clew in the project navigator (Clew should be the first entry and on the lowest level). Choose to revoke the certificate and follow instructions after that.
For more information on how to use or troubleshoot CocoaPods, check out their useful website.
For more information on how to use or troubleshoot jazzy, check out their project on GitHub.
Right now, you can choose to build to Clew or to Clew Dev. This means you can build it on an iPhone without overwriting the App Store version of Clew, if you have it.
If there are problems, most of the steps taken to make this happen are from this tutorial and therefore most of the places to check for errors are as well.