openframeworks

I've managed to get tbeta to work with openframeworks the C++ framework for touch interfacing. But interactivity is an issue. I learnt openGL 2.0 a few years ago before I went to University, but my understand is a little to basic.

I have to find a way of allowing the user to switch modes (To do different things), though I could have this interactivity placed onto a key on the keyboard. But even if I did I wouldn't be sure how to change modes, as this involves looping and use of boolean (true false) arguments...which I used to get wrong.

Hopefully I'll find some working code for an image loader, or something similar soon. I will post more when that time comes.

Surface...more important than I thought

Program tests were good today, albeit it limited. I now see why the surface (Material) is so important. The surface material has to allow a finger to slide over it with ease (Acrylic provides too much friction) and currently I am interfacing directly onto the acrylic. I even tried gloves to get that down, but they didn't displace the IR field.

So I need to come up with a few project flows and then try working on an application to bring together a few features. As always the community is fantastic. I'm now using openframeworks with tuio which is part of TBeta's blob tracking element. This is what allowed me to interface with the software running on the PC.

Testing all this will be difficult in the time I have available, but I hope to get a program up and running soon for show.

It works!...again

Right, so I've fixed the first programming problem. First of all I should say that the screen is working properly now and I can configure it properly as well. I am still missing a projector, which isn't great and I am also missing a laptop for portability, but that can wait. One less thing to worry about though.

The hardware interfaces with the infra camera, which is interpreted by the software on the computer. I had already been notified of an API framework (Call it what you will) called openFrameworks by developers at Autodesk and so I went to check it out. To cut a long story short I chose this as my end solution. I used tbeta and mtmini software to configure the hardware and test the principles of infra red hardware, before progressing.

Yesterday I found out that I couldn't just interface directly with openFrameworks (Which is built in C++) without having something else handle the multi touch interaction, which was being picked up by the infra red camera. Thankfully the community is fantastic and someone had already had this problem.

Tbeta software handles multi touch movements on screen and configures them and it has a facility to send these movements out through a localhost service (This basically picks up the movement information sent out by tbeta and waits for another application to ask for it) using a specific port. So this was the fix to my problem, because it would do all the hard work for me...famous last words! haha

Well it wasn't so bad in the end. After a full day of tweaking and trying to figure out why the libraries weren't linking properly in Code:Blocks (The C++ shell I am using), I finally got it to work. But I had to update the framework, the addons that I needed to get it to work and my project links.

So now I have a lovely blank window, but hope to have paint or something much more interesting to show for it, very soon!

Waiting on the hardware...

After buying slightly the wrong kit, not the wrong parts but the wrong specification, I'm now waiting on an Infra red 8 megapixel web camera, to see the infra red distortions and interface with the software. A piece of acrylic 450mm by 500mm and the infra red 850nm LED's which are being shipped from america.

Fingers crossed there are no new problems until I try and get the software working again! That's not to say I havn't compiled Openframeworks in Code::Blocks, but I need to see if the software interfaces with the web cam properly. So that is the next test.

I'll keep you updated on the parts and I should have some picture progress to follow quite soon.

The Intuitive Interface

So what is this all about then?  Well this blog charts the progress of my efforts to find a solution to the problem of interface design in computer game studio development pipelines.  What are those?  Well computer games or video games, are made up of a series of creational steps, or building blocks.  These make up the pipeline.  To broadly summarize them, you could say they're, pre-alpha or concept design, alpha development, beta development and release.  But this summary doesn't really point out all the key areas.

What I am trying to do is build a device modeled on Multi Touch Screens like this one (Multi Touch), and then attempt to prove the hypothesis that an organic (Off the cuff, no rigid structure or thought process) intuitive interface such as this one, would allow developers enhanced modes of function, when designing games.  Like doodling in real time and playing back quick animated scenes, adding video, pictures and sound from a hard drive or external storage location to prototype ideas.  There are in short, many many things you can do with the software.  I have to thank the people at Openframeworks because they're the people who developed the software under the LGPL 3.0 license, which means it's free to use, but there are catches further down the line, though I think these only apply to rigid commercial bodies.  Everything runs on a very simple C++ shell called Code::Blocks, though it will run on others as well and so the solution is cost effective (Even if the hardware might not be!!)

So I will be updating this blog hopefully every day with updates about what's going on, until then, happy reading!

Dominic Took