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This may seem like a bit of an odd question, but I was wondering if it is possible to associate two drivers with a peripheral device?

The reason I ask is that I am building an input device for Maya using an Arduino microcontroller. The Arduino already has its own device driver, but I was thinking of developing a UMDF driver to take the data that comes in from Arduino over the serial port and pre-process it ready to go into Maya.

Right now, I have two Python programs running - a 32-bit Python program running outside of Maya which listens to the serial port and converts the data to a form which a second 64-bit program inside the 64-bit version of Maya can understand and use in the Maya scene. This works fine, but it is a bit annoying having to start that external server program every time I want to use this device in Maya. If I can have a UMDF driver ready to jump into action when the appropriate type of data comes in off the Arduino then this would help immensely. Will this approach work?

SomeWittyUsername
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Terry Rozmus
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2 Answers2

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It's more a comment/suggestion than an answer, but maybe it would be worth to invest some time and check if the filter driver would do the job for you. In WDM you can put it above the kernel device driver on the driver stack for that device, and use it to pre-process your device data. I think it is also possible in UMDF.

See Creating a New Filter Driver (MSDN).

Peter Mortensen
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Zilog
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  • broken link? https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/develop/creating-a-new-filter-driver –  Aug 09 '20 at 07:48
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You may always try to use Teensy/Teensyduino instead of Arduino to implement a virtual keyboard, mouse, joystick or other HID device. This does not require Windows drivers, and accessing the keyboard or joystick from Maya may be easier that the serial port.

Peter Mortensen
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theamk
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