der hess

A couple of weeks ago I read the book Flex 4 - Training from the source. It is the officially introduction book for Flex 4 from Adobe.  I was very curious about the book, because I started learning Flex 3 with no good start. For Flex 4 I wanted to learn it how I like to learn new things.

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A couple of weeks ago I read the book Flex 4 - Training from the source. It is the officially introduction book for Flex 4 from Adobe.  I was very curious about the book, because I started learning Flex 3 with no good start. For Flex 4 I wanted to learn it how I like to learn new things. Content review: The books starts with the typical introduction about Rich Internet Applications. I skipped this chapter, because it is always the same bla bla... The chapters 2 talks about the new Flash Builder IDE. Even I was pretty familiar with the IDE I could find some nice features during reading this chapters. So I learnt already something new. Especially, the chapter 3 and 4 gave me a really good introduction and understanding about the new layout architecture and component infrastructure. The chapters Handling Events, Using Remote XML Data, Creating Classes are not so interesting for an already experienced Flex Developer. The difference between Flex 3 and Flex 4 is not big in these cases. The chapter about Data Binding was good to read again, because Binding is very helpful but sometimes not so easy to deal with. I highly recommend the chapter 10 about DataGroups and Lists and the chapter 12 about Item Renderes. On these topics the change from Flex 3 to Flex 3 is very big. Unfortunately, the chapter 15 about Formatters and Validators is pretty outdatet, because Flex 4.5 offers new Spark based Formatters and Validators. The last three chapters about Skinning and custom Actionscript components are very basic written. For beginners easy to understand and experienced Flex Developers get an idea about the differences between Flex 3 and Flex 4 component development. Structure: I have to admit I am keen on the book structure. The chapters are structured like school lessons. Every lessons has an approximate time, which works very well in my case. Additionally, it is very useful for organizing the learning with your daily schedule. However, every end of a chapter provides a good summary of the learnt content. So you automatically repeat the learnt stuff. The code examples are nice described and easy to work with, too. Result: Flex 4 - Training from the source is a really good book for Flex 4 beginners.  Already experienced Flex Developers can get bored about some content. It depends on your learning type. I like reading books, so for me it was perfect to get an overview. If you like more reading online resources or watching video tutorials, then go for it. There are enough documentations and tutorials available.

A small summary of my Twitter messages from August - November 2011:

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A small summary of my Twitter messages from August - November 2011: Allgemein (General) some nice talks http://vimeo.com/eyeofestival/videos #visual #media #art #design insideAR 2011 talks (Augmented Reality Conference) are online RT Our first title in the Maker Press series: DIY Bookbinding. Download the PDF book, bind it, and win a prize startnext.de ist die Crowdfunding Plattform für deutsche Projekte in Deutschland. Link via mein Bruder Lorenz Device Art: A New Form of Media Art from a Japanese Perspective Generative Art: Our lecture from the "Design the Future" series at Carnegie Mellon University is now online Info Design and Visualization Sense of Patterns, visualizing mobility data in public spaces (via @moritz_stefaner) RT Great talk by @mbostock on the smooth d3 force layout | interactive slides Linz published some local data about their area - Linz Open Data project via @mkalten RT http://pachube.com (platform for internet of things) is now free. No excuses now not to use it! RT If you are into big data streams, this service should get you excited: http://datasift.com/ (now if they had some nice visualizations... ;) Royal Society journal archive made permanently free to access. UX and Interaction Design: nice article about problems of gesture based interaction  reminds me on my old paper very nice: TapSense: Enhancing Finger Interaction on Touch Surfaces Touch Vision Interface has a really nice interaction approach for augmented reality apps Between the Tag and the Screen - A PHD Thesis by Kjetil Nordby sweet but not cheap: International Journal of Creative #Interfaces and Computer Graphics (IJCICG) Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments) "An Urban Sensation" overlay live CCTV footage to a 3D model of the urban environment nice project openpaths.cc by the New York Times Lab Neue Technologie (new Technologies) Another tool and software for 3d projection mapping http://www.madmapper.com their blog is also pretty informative nice resource and software for 3D projection #mapping #visual #design #interactive #installation #art Amazing! Render 3D objects into photos: Rendering Synthetic Objects into Legacy Photographs KinectFusion - a research project that lets users generate high-quality 3-D models in real time using Kinect. Some nice development is going on... Augmented realtiy #tracking for #mobile devices Publication: Future Textiles Programmierung und Software Design (Programming) Seems to be an interesting article: Ladder Of Abstraction by Bret Victor RT In case you want to work with maps in processing, here is your open source library: unfolding by @tillnm RT iGeo is free and open source 3D modeling software library for processing for architecture and product design RT Google Mapper for Processing is a library that enables you to download images of any size from Google Maps. RT howto use svg for rigged 2D-animations in processing RT a new HTTP Library for processing for GET,POST,oAuth and more RT Finally a good overview of all openFrameworks addons: Physical Computing Nice resources and inspiration for fixing and repairing (electronic) objects via @make Fab@home is working on a decentralized factory approach for your home Infrared 101 Game Developing: Very nice collection of old school Game title screens RT Photo-realistic game engine from Square Enix Citrus Game Engine Now Free and Open Source Create Flash and iOS Games via Editor Stencil  via @andremichelle and @jensfranke looks nice! Construct 2 - A visual HTML5 game development tool Very good blog about Game Design! http://www.lostgarden.com/ Flash and Flex RT AIR Developer Center | Using Flash Builder 4.5 to package applications for Apple iOS devices Fast and easy! The Flex 4 Spark Framework Architecture for (ui) component development by David Deraedt Great article on #Flex 4 skin programming by @mraad . Focusing on #performance and reducing boilerplate code Talking Trash – An overview of #Flash Player Garbage collection RT Introducing opensource evoSpicyParticleEngine RT Particle Editor for #Starling. Blog Post | Tool (cc @leebrimelow @thibault_imbert ) RT Check out this incredible Stage3D AGAL sandbox by @li_palebluedot - a fun way to learn AGAL shaders. some nice generator tool for enum and value objects That's sound cool vor enhancing your personal workflow: Creative Suite Extension Builder Not so new but still interesting whitepaper comparing AJAX and Flex in terms of productivity and etc via flexlabs Nice article for identifying the best web target platform. If it is Flash or HTML5

A small summary of my Twitter messages from June - August 2011:

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A small summary of my Twitter messages from June - August 2011: Allgemein (General) OFF TOPIC: Another great Tumblr blog. Awesome People Hanging Out Together great interview about a brazilian (art) #DIY movement #gambiologia http://www.gambiologia.net/blog/ #repair #hack #culture guter Artikel: Das Zusammenspiel von Wissensarbeit und Wissensarchitektur in Beziehungsnetzen und räumlichen Strukturen Interesting article: #Design #Research – A Failure of Imagination? by Andy Polaine Maybe I already mentioned this #funding platform... http://www.indiegogo.com/ RT A couple of great resources for free math & comp sci courses: http://www.khanacademy.org/ & http://www.openculture.com/ RT Designers: Google released hundreds of free, open-source fonts yesterday for the web. http://www.google.com/webfonts/v2 RT “@subblue: Students and teachers can now get all Autodesk software for free - wow!” < smart move. RT Version control for designers Generative Art: Just added this interesting sounding book The Visual Mind: #Art and #Mathematics Johannes Keplers book "The harmony of the world" looks like a treasure for #generative #art(ists) perfect inspiration for #visual #programming via @rdrb really nice and inspiring blog about sound programming and other stuff Info Design and Visualization Cinemetrics - Film #Visualization Project Breaks - is a really great #Info Vis project! check Land surface #climate station records from the last 150 years published great resource for an info design art project link via @JoshuaDavis UX and Interaction Design: Font focus: Making ideas harder to read may make them easier to retain #research another #mobile interaction #design pattern website RT Interesting presentation about web design patterns on chinese web sites nice article: Five Lessons from a Year of Tablet UX Research fake texture and tangible feedback for #multitouch devices http://www.teslatouch.com Fucking interesting exhibition at the MoMa(New York) Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects Great example of a #tangible #interface: Humanoid USB Posing Mannequin for Skeletal Animation Leaf++ is a nice example how humans can interact with nature Wacom inkling device Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments) it seems to be a nice resource - http://linkeddata.org/faq - organizing links and data... #semanticweb #rdf #information #architecture QR codes and cooking... QKies combines it perfectly via @mkalten QR Codes in Fashion Design - nice idea - Beaded QR Code Garment RT Flipping flip! Google Swiffy reckons it can turn Flash into HTML5! Try it out! RT The open source LightScythe is a device for writing text and images frozen in midair Cheap swarm robots Swarmanoid. modular swarming scary robots out to read your books and outsmart you Interesting project: Electronic Origami by Jie Qi | tutorial | website Pixel Knitting is a real nice effect for photography-transform you photo to a cartoon like landscap wow, very interesting projection mapping and view of Leonardo's Last Supper via @memotv see historical #art in new ways Nice visuals and mapping by Amon Tobin 'ISAM' Live via @david_bru Neue Technologie (new Technologies) RT Fancy chips for dinner? Edible RFID tags could tell you what's in your food some great tutorials on #projectionmapping from the kings of projections (and mapping), http://1024d.wordpress.com/ One day this #software might help  making life for media #facade designer easier #3d #mapping #tracking Impressing #3d reconstruction via #kinect Great round-up of wearable electronics from the past and present RT (almost) bulletproof human skin made from spider silk - amazing art+science project. Algorithm for extracting a resolution-independent vector representation from pixel art RT gutted I'm not at #SIGGRAPH2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwGK6lGnu90 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK9EEE3RsKM Programmierung und Software Design (Programming) Cool website and resource for #JavaScript RT FireQuery: a Firebug extension for jQuery development. /via @rem RT pdf.js - rendering PDF with HTML5 and JavaScript.. still beta but sounds good RT @PaperJS: After five months in the making, @juerglehni and @jonathanpuckey are very happy to release Paper.js RT Oh my, #vvvv is being ported to the web RT Olé! @toxiclibs for Javascript! (via @blprnt, @peterpaulrubens) RT @tillnm: Search Geometry, a Processing library for isometric contours and surfaces First look on the #Blobscanner library for #processing was great. Very easy going and well documente RT new version 0.1.4 of the GML Library @gml4u: releasedMinor additions + fix for the TUIORecorder example issue RT Drop Processing is an app for quickly batch processing image RT Processing Tutorial about how to save audio data to text files RT Non-Commercial Kinect for Windows SDK from Microsoft Research released TopBraid Composer is mabye the first real nice editor for #rdf #owl and other tasks #semanticweb OF v007 is now released - Thanks to the community and @creativeinquiry for helping make it happen! RT #yUML (yuml.me) is really cool for creating quick UML diagrams. I love the scruffy ones. Intel have released Embree an open-source photo-realistic ray tracer for Windows, OSX and Linux Qualcomm #Augmented Reality #SDK for #iPhone OS some really nice #Red5 tutorials #flash #streaming #multiplayer #java Physical Computing Amazing resource for hacking your #canon photo camera! http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK #hack #programming #firmware Nice online shop and resource for #wearable technology #physical #computing #mobile iPhone iPad iPod talks to #Arduino RT Tutorial: Maximising your Arduino’s I/O ports nice tutorial and interface for #wearable technology: Polar #Heart Rate Monitor #Interface + #Arduino Game Developing: RT The creator of TexturePacker also has a tool called PhysicsEditor that has a Flash export option. Looks interesting! Added Citrus Level #Editor link to my #flash #game libs blog pos RT Opinion: Analog Input Processing And Delivering Great Controls RT Gaming Developer Center | Resource page for gaming engines, 3D, and Stage 3D RT great article about #flash #flixel #game #engine in combination with other flash libraries Added http://playerio.com/ Games API to my #Flash #Game Framework post Very interesting article about game loops in physics and game engines #gamedev #programming #algorithm Flash and Flex RT uploaded short Alternativa3D AR tutorial including qtrack, FLARManager & #IN2AR examples (via @makc3d) RT some useful geom & algebra stuff added: Affine/Homography/Fundamental/LevMar #asfeat RT Very nice (and smooth) fire+smoke animation in Flash using blitting (source available) (via @elsassph) Big pdf about: Developing ACTIONSCRIPT Extensions for ADOBE AIR AS3MemoryWatcher - hacky toolkit for tracking ALL SWF allocs via Apparat RIATest looks like a very useful tool for automate your GUI testings #flex #ui #testings #quality RT Online UML modeling application for #AS3 & Flex programmers, Crocus Modeller is free (for now) and full of features If you are working with huge data amount in #flex, this might be helpful: Working with large #data sets in #flash player Really useful for developing mobile apps: Detecting the network connection type with #Flex 4.5 #wifi #mobile #network RT Multi-Touch Charts for iOS, Android, and PlayBook: Source Code Available on GitHub RT @mraad: ArcGIS API for #Flex Version 2.0 is released (Arabic locale & #iOS and #Android friendly:-) 10 tips from @FlashGen: developing for multiple devices #mobile #multiscreen How to create a #Flex mobile project with #Flash Builder, and publish it as a classic web app flexponential is a good resource for some flex framework issues and code snippets #flex #skinning #mobile #code #tips

As I already mentioned  in an earlier blog post, for reimplementing my "Sound drawing" project to Flash I had to create a communication layer between Max/Msp and Flash. In this blog post I will report about my results and some technical information. If you want to jump directly to the technical part, please skip the part "Why am I doing this". Read more...

As I already mentioned  in an earlier blog post, for reimplementing my "Sound drawing" project to Flash I had to create a communication layer between Max/Msp and Flash. In this blog post I will report about my results and some technical information. If you want to jump directly to the technical part, please skip the part "Why am I doing this". Why am I doing this? I want to have access to more performance in general, I want to have access to more technical advanced stuff, I want an easy way for using external hardware devices, and last point, I want to collaborate with other media artists (without changin the working environment). Flash is a very nice for working with graphics, videos and other media based stuff. That is the total strength of Flash, but it fails in some performance issues (compared to C++) and some algorithmic libraries (compared to libraries like IanniX, Math, OpenCV, and Sphinx4). One motivation for me in this project lies to combine the advantages of these worlds. But I don't want to change the usage of these libraries. Some libraries have to be executes as an exe Application and they just perform great in C++, and not in a Flash environment (in some cases Alchemy could be a solution). Next point of performance is creating a scalable approach for media installation. Some media installation can't  be run by only one machine.  You need more computers, which talks to each other. For this reason, I put my focus on the Open Sound Control network protocol. As the OSC team drescribed, this protocol is made for communication between computers and media devices. It is often used in very robust environments and the documentation is very well, too. Almost every creative coding software supports the OSC communication, which is very good for collaborating with other media artists (everyone can still work in the preferred software environment). Some hardware can already talk OSC or it uses an communication software like TUIO, iOSC, AndroidOSC. For Midi controllers you can use graphical environments like Max/Msp or PureData. These softwares have directly access to the midi hardware and can configure the most things. Afterwards you send the midi data from Max/Msp (or PureData) to Flash via OSC. In this way Flash gets access to a new level of external devices... Flash talks OSC First I was a little bit scared, because I thought I have to dive into the nerdie byte array socket programming part in Flash. Luckily, I found information about the FlOSC project. FlOSC is Java based application, which receives the OSC messages and routing them to the Flash XML socket. There are some great tutorials available by Eric Socolofsky and Tim Poulin (part 1, part 2, part 3). After watching all of these tutorials, I was a little bit scared of the reliable performance of this approach. The Flash XML socket is nice for chat applications or some round-based multiplayer games, but for realtime data transmission I heard bad things... Luckily again, some time passed since FlOSC were created and Adobe provided a new binary socket API for the Flash Player. Things became even better. Since Version 2 of Adobe Air, Air supports the network UDP layer for really fast data transmission. I have not to mention that the Flash open-source is great ;-), so I could find easily a nice library.  The tuio flash library solved almost everything I needed. I had to write my own OSCListener, which is great explained in the tuio guide and in its comments. During development I had sometimes problems with the binding of the DatagramSocket. It was obvious that the (binded) port was never closed. I had to wait until Windows shutted it down or just do it manually. Unfortunately, the UDPConnector class does not provide a close function. Therefore I added a close function by myself at the end of the class. Extending or creating a custom UDP Connector was not possible, because all members of the class are private. public function close():void {     if(this.connection) {            this.connection.close();     } } Max/MSP talks OSC After this minor coding everything worked fine. So I could jump to Max/MSP. Using OSC in Max/Msp is not very difficult. The documentation is pretty good and the provided example file helps a lot. I just extended the example with one function. If the max patch receives successfully a message from the Flash Client (Adobe Air app), then send a message back to the Flash client.  For the second example you have to install the fiddle plugIn (for Windows) for Max/Msp.   Max/Msp and Flash in love I created two mini examples. Example one just demonstrates sending messages between Flash and Max/Msp. The second example is little bit more complicated and shoud give you an idea of a real life project. The max patch analyzes an audio file and sends the pitch tracking + volume tracking data to the Flash client. The flash client reads the data and draw it on the canvas. As you can see on my screen capture video above. The performance of this test application is pretty solid and robust. Now imagine instead of the tracking data we send midi data or just some image processing data. Or we do some heavy image processing on one machine and send the data to another machine, which only renders the Flash output... I guess there are many new things possible :-) Download Code The source code is available on my google project SVN or download the zip file. For the examples you must have installed Max/Msp 5, fiddle plugIn (for Windows), Flex SDK 4.5, Flash CS5 or Flash Builder 4. The code examples also requires the additional ActionScript libraries MinimalComps, MonsterDebugger, and TUIO Flash.

For two or three years I wanted to work seriously with Arduino. During this time I have done the same basic LED exercises again and again. Just for keeping alive my basic knowledge. Finally and luckily, I had to visit the Advanced Microcontroller lecture by Laurent Mignonneau. Laurent is the definition of a Geek himself. Not much talking, just doing, and a fucking huge amount of knowledge in electronics and programming. The assignment for his lecture was to create SOMETHING with a low resolution screen. Really advanced examples of a low resolution screen are the androp project (Making of | strobo animation) or Laurent's solar display (concept).

Device Front

Device shot

Device opened

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For two or three years I wanted to work seriously with Arduino. During this time I have done the same basic LED exercises again and again. Just for keeping alive my basic knowledge. Finally and luckily, I had to visit the Advanced Microcontroller lecture by Laurent Mignonneau. Laurent is the definition of a Geek himself. Not much talking, just doing, and a fucking huge amount of knowledge in electronics and programming. The assignment for his lecture was to create SOMETHING with a low resolution screen. Really advanced examples of a low resolution screen are the androp project (Making of | strobo animation) or Laurent's solar display (concept). [caption id="attachment_1621" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Device Front"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1629" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Device shot"][/caption] Device opened             [caption id="attachment_1623" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Device opened back"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1624" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Under the hood"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1625" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Internal parts"][/caption]               Hot glue fixing display resistors                 However, one day in May I woke up and had this game device idea, which looks like a plate or a steering wheel. After some consideration the idea felt good. The very simple form allows me to integrate a low resoultion screen very easily. Furthermore the usage range of this kind of device would be broad. I was very happy. For the size of the device I got inspiration of a real plate. It has the perfect size for not entering the private area of other players, but still feel connected to them. The metaphor came to me when I observed the interaction between a waiter and his guests in a restaurant. When the waiter hands the plate to one guest, there exist for a short time a connection between them. The connection is mediated and supported by the plate. The physical distance provided by the plate is small enough for feeling welcome, but also big enough for respecting the private zone. For this reason the form of the device is not only usable for a remote control, it is even usable for a multiplayer gaming device. In this context I got a childhood memory... uh yeah... fighting all the time with my sister for the power of the TV remote control. That memory brought me to a new version of the game "tug of war". The plate has four handholds. For each player one. In the middle of the device the screen is placed. The screen shows two lines, like a cross.  The aim of the game is to pull the device hard enough, that one line (the opposite line of the player) comes closer. If the line jumps out of the screen the player has won. An arrow shows it. Afterwards the game starts again. I uploaded a short video for getting an idea and see the device in action. The technical implementation of my device is very simple, I have to admit... The wood and some other fixing stuff I found in the trash of the university and the Linzer DIY stores. I had almost the feeling of Gambiologia ;-) However, I cut the wood our university wood workshop. Further parts were: Board: Arduino Nano (ATmega168) Display: Kingbright LED DotMatrix TC20-11YWA Interaction: Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout - ADXL335 some cables and resistors During development I ran into some pitfalls. My soldering skills are not very great and for this reason at least four or five times a cable lost the connection... In the end I stabilized the cable connection with hot glue (look at the pictures). That worked very well and I had no such problems anymore. Laurent gave me the advice to avoid cables everywhere I can. The possibility that the cable lost the connection is very high. Using plugs and connectors are good alternatives... So for the next projects I try my best to consider it.  Second pitfall was related to programming. I got a Arduino Nano Board from Laurent. I tried to replace the Nano board with my Uno board. But unfortunatley the provided Arduino Code for the LED Dot Matrix messed up. In the end the Arduino Code for Nano board was not compatible with my new Arduino Uno board. I don't know the exact reason. May one of my readers have an idea?! I would appreciate it. :-) Next issue, not a very big one, was dealing with the accelerometer data. Every motion caused a motion in the opposite direction. You can see the values at my Excel File. I implemented a simple time checking code for the sensor. It works good for the first tests, but maybe one of you can recommend me a good library or code snippet for dealing with accelerometer values...?! The source code of this project is available as usual on my Google SVN. I am pretty happy with the result of my first Arduino project. Even the feedback I got from the other students were great. So I would like to continue the development. For a much better wood cut I hope I can use the laser cutter at the AEC or the Fab lab in Berlin. The device should get some extensions, like pressure sensors on each handhold. Adding four InraRed LEDs on the back of the device. The IR LEDs are interesting for some (3D) tracking projects a la Johnny Chung Lee. I hope I can implement all these ideas... Happy coding and soldering!

For the Programming II Workshop at our Interface Culture department I decided to do an small experiment with Box 2D. For a long time I wanted to play around with Box 2D. Especially merging real world objects with virtual object fascinates me very much. I don't like so much the common Augmented Reality stuff. However, some stuff is really cool and inspires me. Here are some projects I got my inspiration from: EdgeBomber, Laser Sound test, Phun, Crayon Physics, 2d Sketches becomes 3d Reality, ILoveSketch, MotionBeam, Tangible Fire Controlls.

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For the Programming II Workshop at our Interface Culture department I decided to do an small experiment with Box 2D. For a long time I wanted to play around with Box 2D. Especially merging real world objects with virtual object fascinates me very much. I don't like so much the common Augmented Reality stuff. However, some stuff is really cool and inspires me. Here are some projects I got my inspiration from: EdgeBomber, Laser Sound test, Phun, Crayon Physics, 2d Sketches becomes 3d Reality, ILoveSketch, MotionBeam, Tangible Fire Controlls. Now talking about the technical stuff. In my experiment I am using the Blobscanner library and the Box2D code of Daniel Shiffman. It is really a small experiment, I just wanted to check out how difficult it is to combine camera data and virtual data. For the first test I am using a easy .jpg file with 3 rectangles. This examples works pretty well. The next map has some diagonal rectangles. The first problems appears. The upper right rectangles are drawn in the wrong direction. This is the reason why the physics simulation fails. At the moment I am using the Surface object of Box2D for drawing more complex objects. For the surface object is the direction of drawing very important. You have to draw counter clockwise. So  that the normal vectors does not point inside the object (check chapter 4.4 Polygon Shapes). Even using a polygon object would make more sense instead of using the surface object... Another issue I have, is the correct recognition of the shapes. This problem is caused by two challenges. First challenge is to order the edge points array correctly. I get only edge points and I don't know is it the right or the left side of the object. My sorting algoritm is not implemented very well. For this reason some of my recognitions fails. But for doing a fast check on simple objects to get an idea, it was enough. However, this paper about edge detection can solve my problem, or I just have to implement a "find the shortest distance algorithm". If you have some better advices, please leave a comment. Thx! The second challenge is minimizing the size of the edge points array. For this I found a nice article: Line Generalization (Smoothing, Simplifying). I ported the ActionScript code to processing and it seemed to work. Tough a better approach could be to vectorize the camera data. Nicolas Barradeau wrote two nice blog posts about vectorization v0 and vectorization v1. His code I defintely have to check out. I guess there are some  hidden solutions for my problems. So far about my experiment. My code is online on my google project site or download it. Please consider that my code is far far away from perfect. Big thanks to the great tutorial writers. I shit love the ActionScript community and the processing community ;-) Knowledge sharing, ahoi!!

A small summary of my Twitter messages from March - June 2011:

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A small summary of my Twitter messages from March - June 2011: Allgemein (General) Very interesting documentation about media (#design): Everything is a remix Added the talk: IDEO's Tim Brown in Conversation with Bruce Nussbaum | Parsons The New School for #Design videos and talks of see conference are online #design and #infovis RT gardens. amazing liquid sculptures. This open source search engine or network does not look bad Interesting book: Manuel DeLanda: #Philosophy and #Simulation: The Emergence of Synthetic Reason Also a very nice plaform for #funding your projects http://www.indiegogo.com/ an alternative to http://www.kickstarter.com/ RT Kickstarter projects success vs fail analysis, stats and links/via @neilhimself Really astonished example of stage based #animation! via @JoshuaDavis Generative Art: RT NODE10 - Forum for Digital Arts, Documentary Really really enjoyed the talk of Jared Tarbell about #generative #art and how #code goes beyond the desktop very cool website for generative and genetic algorithms... Would like to read the book Computer #Art and #Typography, check Travis Kirtons work | paper | and his master thesis Info Design and Visualization RT I am quite impressed with think quarterly magazine design and branding. Content looks good, too (via @shervinafshar) Yay, my talk from last year's decoded conference is online: "Lasst die Daten sprechen" (German) great project about visualizing choreographic structure from dance to data objects UX and Interaction Design: RT Q&A: How to Make TV Apps Work (via @pickone) Es wäre interessant die Disziplin Psychotechnik wieder fürs #Interaction #Design aufzuarbeiten Found a nice paper Psychophysiology as a Tool for HCI Research: Promises and Pitfalls This #paper sounds also very interesting: Evaluation of User Interfaces for #mobile app #development environments RT Ultimate Collection of Mobile User Interface Patterns: (via @pickone) RT Must Read: @preciousforever: precious presents: Patterns for Multiscreen Strategies Great article by @grigs: Where are the Mobile First Responsive Web Designs? Golden Rules for Bad User Interfaces via @timperrett It's a pretty old article but still interesting to read: A History of the GUI RT Great collection: The Buxton Collection (via @BogieZero, @stefanwoelwer) Nice conference and resource for Sonic #Interaction #Design and their proceedings Nice to read: The Theory Behind Social Interaction Design Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments) RT  Great project: Kater - Tangible robots for multitouch tables (via @tillnm) Extending the Touchscreen - #device control development | blog Nice project for information #visualization on #architecture and #urban #spaces Neue Technologie (new Technologies) Researchers have discovered a universal property of musical scales. a state-of-the art report: Augmented Reality for Smartphones Nice mind map about augmented reality development TLD is a real-time algorithm for #tracking of unknown objects | source MotionBeam project - Non-Flat #Displays for #mobile devices| paper Programmierung und Software Design (Programming) RT Initial impressions of Amazon Cloud Drive / Player good start, TONs of promise, needs some polish OpenPlug Studio now Free-for-All #developers #mobile | article RT IgnoCodeLib a new library to export Adobe Illustrator Files AI7 directly from processing PSmile - Smile Detection library for #Processing by Bryan Chung via @CedricKiefer but it seems only for Mac OSX... #OpenGL library for #processing ->GLGraphics Tutorial: Using JavaDB from #Processing RT Great starting point for toxiclibs: #processing Working with #Toxiclibs - #Processing tutorial by Amnon Owed | CreativeApplications.Net Another great tutorial about using eclipse for processing Building Interactive Installations with OpenCV - #processing RT Processing Tools "InitSketch" got updates to work with processing 1.5 RT in addition to the InitSketch processing tool, there was just released a SaveTemplate Tool RT source for serial comms over audio used on @imogenheap twitter dress Ruby meets creative coding http://www.zajal.cc/ (via @rdrb) Physical Computing Interesting system for programming your spatial home RT Meet the IOIO for Android - USB access to your Android-based phone Interesting #DIY 3d Printer project An easy to use alternative to arduino very interesting article about #arduino and #android | google video presentation nice article: Using #Android ADK with a standard #Arduino Uno and USB Host Shield Make: Projects is a living library for makers, nice place for getting inspiration Game Developing: RT Excellent active tuts article on Euclidean Vectors in AS3 by @DanielSidhion RT Learn about #Flash virtual game controllers for touch-based devices w/ this #article from @FlashGen quickb2 simplifies the usage of box2d physic library | tutorial RT Gaming Developer Center | Rendering animated models in mobile games Introduction for Pushbutton Engine Electrotank Universe Platform (EUP) is an interesting #game #server environment for Social MMO games Game Closure launches HTML5-based cross-platform game technology RT gSkinner: This is awesome! A very robust RPG game engine built on top of EaselJS The Art of Video Game Title Screens New version of Level Editor DAME 2 available | a review Flash and Flex RT gSkinner: Finally got around to adding a few more items to my AS3Libs Github repo. Nearly done RT “@github_as3: as3-utils - reusable package-level functions that solve common problems” quite handy stuff! cocoon-p2p: a library for #ActionScript focussed on local IP multicast (create #iOS remote controls) RT That might come useful sometime - Sending Bluetooth commands via AIR using native process BabelFX is a #localizing framework for #Flash & #Flex apps | article RT Looks interesting for #Flex#Java#Enterprise apps, the Athena framework. Session/EntityManager for Client Side #ORM RT Interactive Lab is proud to release open-source an essential part of our multi-touch framework - #as3#tuio#osc parser RT Flex Developer Center | Introducing Adobe Flex 4.5 SDK Good preso on #Flex #performance with the new 4.5 SDK #skinning RT Flex Developer Center | Flex mobile skins – Part 1: Optimized skinning basics RT Incorporate #GPS in your #mobile #app with this #Adobe #Flex 4.5 #SDK walkthrough tutorial: RT Article about persistant data when developing #mobile apps with #Flex 4.5 A very nice #tutorial series about item renderers for #Flex 4.5 mobile devices RT Flash Builder Developer Center | ActionScript Code Coverage Plug-in for Flash Builder RT Kudos to ZaaLabs for ZaaIL the super-useful alchemy port of DevIL RT @flashforum: FlashFirebug: A Firefox extension that allows developers to debug AS3 flash files ActionScript 3.0 Communication in Parallel Programming RT Moonshine (AS3 IDE in AIR)  (via @elsassph) using the #Photoshop #Touch SDK with #AS3 RT Media Measurement in Flash Player 10.3

During the lectures Fashionable Technology I and II from Sabine Seymour, Andrea Suter and me improved the common usage of an umbrella. In the end we developed a concept of a self em-powered device for people’s well being. Our umbrella using the approaches of light therapy and autonomous power resources.

moodumbrella

moodumbrella detail

moodumbrella in use

We created a prototype for interviews and user testings and we made a survey in Linz during a rainy day. The Austrain people were very sceptical and did not want to be asked about their happiness on rainy days. However, we were able to get some very useful feedback. The video below will show you examples of the feedback mentioned.

In the end we wrote paper about the details of light therapy and discussing mobile energy resources for smart devices.

Download the moodumbrella paper

During the lectures Fashionable Technology I and II from Sabine Seymour, Andrea Suter and me improved the common usage of an umbrella. In the end we developed a concept of a self em-powered device for people’s well being. Our umbrella using the approaches of light therapy and autonomous power resources. [caption id="attachment_1561" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="moodumbrella"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1562" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="moodumbrella detail"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1563" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="moodumbrella in use"][/caption]               We created a prototype for interviews and user testings and we made a survey in Linz during a rainy day. The Austrain people were very sceptical and did not want to be asked about their happiness on rainy days. However, we were able to get some very useful feedback. The video below will show you examples of the feedback mentioned. In the end we wrote paper about the details of light therapy and discussing mobile energy resources for smart devices. Download the moodumbrella paper

A small summary of my Twitter messages from January - March 2011:

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A small summary of my Twitter messages from January - March 2011: Allgemein (General) RT When buildings start to tweet: Good overview of recent media architecture examples (Via @strg_n, @Heuserkampf) Kurzes schönes Videoportrait über Julis von Bismarck Starting to upload FOTB2010 videos: Brendan Dawes - more going up regularly. (via @FOTB) Great Master thesis by Tim Devine about Device Shifting and #Design #mobile Sabine is talking about Functional Aesthetics book in TEDx Vienna Maybe an interesting book: Web Aesthetics - How Digital Media Affect Culture and Society #Arte präsentiert ein Netzwerk für Künstler, Kulturproduzenten und alle anderen Moving talk by Jonathan Harris on his work and the absurdities of digital livestyle Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network via Henning Schulze Die Qual der Wiki-Wahl - #Wikis für #Wissensmanagement in Organisationen  #dokumentation #vergleich Nice articles about #urban based #computing & #design No. 1 | No. 2 | No. 3 The Museum of Lost Interactions - very interesting and nice videos, too #media #archeology #art #design RT open culture http://bit.ly/9qQrQD 340 free movies. Sounds interesting: Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects Generative Art: More new great #generative #art tutorials from Nicolas Barradeau #flash #design RT Fantastic geometry blog. http://moniker.name/worldmaking/ Neuer Monat, neuer Live-Mitschnitt. Mario Klingemann aka Quasimondo über "Schönes aus Code" Info Design and Visualization Nice resource for #information visualization projects: #Crime Maps of England (London) #infovis #data #webservice Free-for-any-use ArcGIS Online map services: basemaps, demographic, reference, and specialty maps.  RT Vis JavaScript-toolkit by @mbostock: Data-Driven Documents / D3 (via @moritz_stefaner, @peterpaulrubens). UX and Interaction Design: RT Nice collection about small screen solutions: (via @minstyle) RT The Psychology of Web Performance:  (via @uxzentrisch) RT loads.in - test how fast a webpage loads in a real browser from over 50 locations worldwide: (via @janchriste) Nice read: The ABC of behaviour #interaction #design #ux #article #read Android UX Patterns via @richardleggett #interaction #interface #design KinectTouch: turns any surface into a #TUIO touchpad using #kinect rule based language for describing #multitouch #gestures by Lode Hoste Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments) Very cool body mapping #kinecthacks via @chrisoshea Interesting effect: Kinect Cloth Simulations #processing Newstweek: a device to manipulate news read by other people on wireless hotspots (cafes, libraries, airports) Really nice project: Esper Domino #senseware Nice Space Motion Design by Sebastian Neitsch Amazing work of Ryota Kuwakubo's - the installation The Tenth Sentiment Wow Legoplatformer looks so nice for some experimental prototypings... #interaction #tangible #ar Neue Technologie (new Technologies) some nice thoughts on Face Tracking & Face Recognition in AR #ar #tracking Biometric systems are developed for the detection of faces and gestures Programmierung und Software Design (Programming) RT EaselJS v0.2 is released! Focus for this release: making vector shapes & text on HTML5 canvas easier RT @blogblog: #ParticleSDK, a #crossplaform SDK to develop native #mobile apps from one codebase RT Let's take a look: Eloquent JavaScript is a guide to JavaScript that focuses on good programming techniques … Less Framework 4 is now out RT Oh lovely: CSS Easing Animation Tool by @matthewlein (via @@mrdoob) RT Hand detection with Blobscanner in Processing Nice tutorial how to work with #java + eclipse in #MaxMSP PixelWave - Native 2D iPhone framework based on the Flash API Physical Computing RT Arduino The Documentary (2010) by gnd Great! @make published a site only about #arduino projects. Nice resource of tutorials and articles http://makezine.com/arduino/ Nice tips and advices for perfect soldering. Especially for #physical #computing beginners like me via @make http://www.inventables.com is a great resource for new #hardware and materials in physical (computing) projects. Game Developing: RT New video tutorial on creating isometric 3D with @as3isolib Nice read for #gamedev: #Flash #Game #Monetization: Total revenue from last 3 years Interesting article: Indie #Flash #Game Development: 2010 by Josh Tynjala #gamedev #monetize Nice #paper about #modding and the impacts: Precarious Playbour: Modders and the Digital Games Industry A great #paper: Moving #Learning #games Forward by http://www.educationarcade.org #serious #gaming #design RT DAME is an awesome free tilemap editor for Flixel. Also extendable with Lua. Flash and Flex RT gskinner: Open source profiler for AS3. Definitely worth checking out. RT nice list of #Flash #Compression Libraries RT Blogged: Using BlackBerry PaymentService with Adobe AIR for the #PlayBook RT Huge open-source gesture library released by @GestureWorks Nice tutorial: #Flash + #Alchemy Series Part 2: Environment Setup Nice implementation of SimpleStageVideo RT What can you do with bytes ? - Updated! #Flash media server 4 #whitepaper now available Nice tool for using #flash content: Resolume #VJ #Software Creating QR Codes in ActionScript via @riarockstars RT Check out the latest diagramming and #visualization libraries for #Flex and #Air apps by @KapLab RT AS3 API: AS3Square

For my interactive installation "Sound Drawings" I decided to use the Harmony Drawing application. Meanwhile, the single brush version worked pretty stable with the sound analyzing. There was still one thing missing. It would be much cooler if more than one person can draw on the canvas. From the technical view it was very easy to implement. In the beginning I was a little bit scared if the realtime feedback is still good with more brushes at the same time. It was! For this reason here is the source code and my versions of testing for you.

I prepared a screencast for getting an idea and overview how it works. The principles are exactly the same as in the first version. The only exception is the "brushID" as a new parameter. Every API call uses this syntax:

apiFunctionName brushID parameter1 parameter2 ...

For creating a new brush use the command "setBrush brushID brushType". Afterwards you can use the API command "setCoordinate brushID xPos yPos" for drawing programmatically. If you want to use the mouse for drawing you must use the API command "selectBrush brushID" before drawing directly on the canvas!

All JavaScript codes and Max / MSP patches are included in the example file. For the sound drawing patch you must install the Max MSP Fiddler object, before you can try experimenting.

Download Harmony with multible brushes

For my interactive installation "Sound Drawings" I decided to use the Harmony Drawing application. Meanwhile, the single brush version worked pretty stable with the sound analyzing. There was still one thing missing. It would be much cooler if more than one person can draw on the canvas. From the technical view it was very easy to implement. In the beginning I was a little bit scared if the realtime feedback is still good with more brushes at the same time. It was! For this reason here is the source code and my versions of testing for you. I prepared a screencast for getting an idea and overview how it works. The principles are exactly the same as in the first version. The only exception is the "brushID" as a new parameter. Every API call uses this syntax: apiFunctionName brushID parameter1 parameter2 ... For creating a new brush use the command "setBrush brushID brushType". Afterwards you can use the API command "setCoordinate brushID xPos yPos" for drawing programmatically. If you want to use the mouse for drawing you must use the API command "selectBrush brushID" before drawing directly on the canvas! All JavaScript codes and Max / MSP patches are included in the example file. For the sound drawing patch you must install the Max MSP Fiddler object, before you can try experimenting. Download Harmony with multible brushes