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My most important Twitter Messages #12

admin — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 20:45:57 +0000

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

My most important Twitter Messages #11

admin — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:00:29 +0000

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

My most important Twitter Messages #10

admin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:27:54 +0000

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

My most important Twitter Messages #9

admin — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:03:53 +0000

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

Harmony in Max / MSP with multiple brushes

admin — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:47:33 +0000

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

Interactive Media Installation: Sound Drawings

admin — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 11:03:42 +0000

In the end of november I was a part of the Sound & Vision 4 concert for Music and Media Technology at the Anton Bruckner University.The Sound & Vision concert serie allows young musician and audio-visual artists to present their new experimental artworks and installations.

Poster

Programme #1

Programme #2

In my installation "Sound Drawings" the musicians can use their instruments for drawing an abstract painting. The pitch and the volume of their instruments paint the canvas with an harmonious-sensitive-line-based brush (a digital ribbon brush). The installation tries to put the aesthetic experience of music and visual on an equipollent level. Usually , the music defines the visual experience (see the battle between DJs and VJs) or vice versa. The realtime visual feedback gives the musicians an additional channel for improving and influencing their improvised perfomance. The musicians are oriented towards the visual aesthetics of their drawing and their bandmates. New sounds and musical aesthetics can emerge.

Emily Stewart (violin) and Mira Lu Kovacs (singer) performed three different parts. These parts were influnced by transforming the coordinate systems of the canvas.

Part: Against each other : Volume axis are reflected | Painting | MP3
Satz: Rotation : Volume and Pitch axis are rotated through 90° | Painting | MP3
Satz: Together : Both using the same coordinate system | Painting | MP3

Drawing Part No. 1

Drawing Part No. 2

Drawing Part No. 3

Technical implementation:

The whole software is written in Max/MSP/Jitter. The ribbon brush is strongly based on Mr. Doob's Harmony Drawing application. For this installation I ported the original Web JavaScript version to a Max MSP working version. After the porting process I extended the application with a multiple brush ability. In the end it was possible to use several brushes at the same time. The sound and pitch tracking is done by the external Max MSP object Fiddler. This object works nice for voices and string instruments. Also the color management uses the data of the Fiddler object in combination with a pre-defined color set.

Equipment:
- Dell Latitude E6400 2,66GHZ Notebook
- M-Audio Fast Track Ultra Soundkarte (2 channels)
- HD Beamer
- Max/MSP 5 (Software)
- Harmony Open Source Project (JavaScript)
- Fiddler Project

Acknowledgement:

Big thanks to Andreas Weixler for the technical support, his great advice to use the Fiddler object for sound analyzing, and of course for getting the invitation for his Sound & Vision concert serie. Furthermore, big thanks to Mira and Emily for their great performance, feedback and their patience during calibrate the software. The whole work was a real pleasure. Thx!

Interaktive Installation: Sound Drawings

admin — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 12:45:14 +0000

Ende November nahm ich an dem Sound & Vision 4 Konzert für Musik und Medientechnologie an der Anton Bruckner Universität mit meiner Installation "Sound Drawings" teil. Die Sound & Vision Konzertreihe gibt Musikern und Audio-visuellen Programmieren die Möglichkeit ihre neuen experiementellen Klangwelten und Visualisierungen der Öffentlichkeit zu präsentieren.

Plakat

Programm Flyer Seite 1

Programm Flyer Seite 2

Bei meiner Installation "Sound Drawings" zeichnen Musiker mit Hilfe ihrer Instrumente ein abstraktes Farbenbild von harmonisch schwingenden Linien. Die Tonhöhe und die Lautstärke lässt den digitalen Pinsel an verschiedenen Positionen an der Leinwand gleiten. Die Installation versucht die ästhetischen Erfahrungen zwischen musikalischer und visueller Wahrnehmung auf ein gleichberechtigtes Level zuheben. Normalerweise gibt die Musik den Ton für die Visualisierung, oder und umgehkehrt. Durch das visuelle in Echtzeit generierte Feedback entsteht für die Musiker eine neue Improvisationserfahrungen. Diese neue Erfahrung beeinflusst die Interaktion zwischen den Musikern zusätzlich, und verändert somit die musikalische Ästhetik.

Emily Stewart an der Violine und Mira Lu Kovacs mit ihrer Stimmen improvisierten drei verschiedene Sätze. Diese drei Improvisationen wurden zusätzlich durch die Manipulation des Koordinatensystems beeinflusst.

Satz: Gegeneinander: Lautstärken Achsen sind gespiegelt | Bild | MP3
Satz: Rotation: Lautstärke und Tonhöhe ist um 90° Grad verdreht | Bild | MP3
Satz: Miteinander: Beide benutzen das gleiche Koordinatensystem | Bild | MP3

Bild Satz Nr. 1

Bild Satz Nr. 2

Bild Satz Nr. 3

Technische Umsetzung:
Die Umsetzung dieser Installation erfolgte mit Hilfe von Max/MSP und Jitter. Für die technische Umsetzung des Malens und des Ribbon Pinsels wurde sich stark an die Harmony Malen Applikation von Mr. Doob orientiert. Diese Applikation wurde eigens für dieses Projekt von der ursprünglichen Web JavaScript Version zu einer Max/MSP tauglichen Version portiert. Für die Soundanalyse wurde das externe Fiddler Max/MSP Objekt verwendet. Dieses Objekt kann die Tonhöhe des jeweiligen Instruments und/oder Stimme herausfiltern, und gibt die entsprechende Note zurück.

Ausrüstung:
- Dell Latitude E6400 2,66GHZ Notebook
- M-Audio Fast Track Ultra Soundkarte (2 Kanäle)
- HD Beamer
- Max/MSP 5 (Software)
- Harmony Open Source Project (JavaScript)
- Fiddler Project

Danksagung:
Ich danke Andreas Weixler sehr für den technischen Support, den Tipp mit dem Fiddler Objekt, und der Möglichkeit auf seiner Sound & Vision Konzertreihe auftreten zu dürfen. Weiterer großer Dank geht an Mira und Emily für ihr Feedback und natürlich für ihre super Perfomance! Selten so ein freies und ungezwungenes Experementieren gehabt. Danke!

My most important Twitter Messages #8

admin — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:36:09 +0000

A small summary of my Twitter messages from October - December 2010:

Allgemein (General)

dotBrighton Talks are online at vimeo #flash #arduino #android #gamedev #programming #talks #video
RT FFK10 talk of Chris Pelsor (@cspelsor) online: "DIY Methodology …" #ffk10 #video #session
Great unique style in photography http://www.jonathanleder.com/ unfortunately the flash site is really shitty...
free #icons until you die via SmashingMagazine
Beryll Art software looks nice for #manage and #document your artwork. But it is not cheap... :-/ #art #business

Generative Art:

Basics in pattern generation for visual programming by @nicoptere
Generating animals -> Cindermedusae is a great project inspired by Ernst Haeckel
Nicolas Barradeau - @nicoptere - wrote some really nice blog posts and slides about #generative #art & #design

Info Design and Visualization

Paper list of the Visualization Lab | University of California, Berkeley #research #inspiration #visual

UX and Interaction Design:

RT A visual study of computer GUI in cinema movies
Nice overview of user interfaces in current audio software products via @jensfranke
RT The Media Computing Group at RWTH Aachen University (via @stefanwoelwer)
Technical Paper: Designing gestures for (multi-touch) screens
Looks good: Chapter about Marking (menu) Interfaces #pen #stylus #interface #gesture #pdf

Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

Beautiful Modeler is a really nice inspiration for gestural and device based interaction via @creativeapps #ipad
Nice multi-touch application "Finger tools" by @mattgemmell especially for multi-touch screens #gesture #app #ui
Nice project: Wearable generative design - #fashion #design
Arte versucht sich wieder mal an einem interaktiven Videofilm. Was meint ihr über Addicts?
RT Waterdrop shot in 10000 frames a second

Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

RT GigaPan shoots a 1,539 megapixel panorama of the World Series (via @pauloroid)
Interesting article: A New Generation of Robotic Weapons #war #future #robotics

Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

RT @REAS: SceneBuilder is patch-based programming built on top of Processing
@ben_fry announces the new Processing Plug-in for Eclipse: built by Chris @Lonnen. More on the wiki:
The Processing.js team is proud to announce release 1.0! Checkout the updated website and download. http://processingjs.org
my #processing #kinect library is pretty usable now, give it a try! cc @seb_ly @zenbullets
Just uploaded a preliminary TuioKinect demo video to Vimeo #TUIO #Kinect #OpenKinect #OF
Video: Kinect + Computer Vision + Javascript. DepthJS is a web browser extension that allows any any web page...
RT JS-Signals: custom event/messaging system for JavaScript - new open source project!
Nice read: How to be a #Programmer via betriebsraum
OpenNI for writing applications utilizing natural interaction in C++ is very interesting. I would like to try

Mobile Development

Good to read: Optimize #Flash Content and Improving #Usability on #Mobile Devices - Part #1
great article from @newmovieclip about mobile graphical optimisation.
An Introduction to #Android by Richard Leggett #mobile #dev #programming #java

Game Developing:

RT Blogged: AdvancED Game Design with Flash - book review
How To Protect Your Game From Being Rebranded by flashGameLicense #flash #gamedev #security
Get paid for your Alternativa3D tutorial! Maybe interesting for some Flash Developer...
Maybe interesting: 4 videos on the theory of game/social mechanics #game #design #social #media #future #talks
Nice blog post: #Game #design Designing the solution space #gamedev

Flash and Flex

Aka Shiva / Kolor RT @UnitZeroOne: "Flash Player 3D Future" session, by Sebastian Marketsmueller (aka Mr. Mole).
Nice read: Tips for Flash Developers Looking at Hardware 3D
Nice Resource: Security Domains, Application Domains, and More in ActionScript 3.0 #flash
That really looks good and kinda stable! #Flash #QR #Code #reader by Kasper Kamperman link via @quasimondo thx!
Interesting book I would like to read in the future: Developing Flex 4 Components Book #flex4 #book #components
RT Tonfall has now AIFF, WAV, RAW decoding & encoding support. (via @andremichelle)
For working with #Flash and http://www.tuio.org/ this might be a very interesting library
nice blog about #Kinect and #Flash http://www.as3kinect.org/ Especially the #skeleton #tracking looks good!
Remotair - concept of transmitting device inputs (gestures, mouse etc) into receiving #flash or AIR apps - Looks nice

Book review: Designing Interactions

admin — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:25:08 +0000

The book Designing Interaction from Bill Moggridge was already published in 2006. Even it is quite old for a technology book the content is still valid. The first six chapters give a perfect history background of human-computer interaction. The evolution of input devices and the computer itself is very good explained. Also the original comments from the designers and engineers are very interesting to read. In the end the reader gets a very good introduction how and why the computer evolved as it is today. Even the described history is a strongly based on the authors view. The chapters Adopting Technology and Multisensory and Multimedia gives a nice introduction into tangible interaction. It also helps beginners to understand how to leave the desktop metaphor. The whole book describes very easily how product designer, industrial designer, psychologist and engineers working together for developing the new devices. The texts about their development and thinking processes gives a very good insight. The last chapters about The Internet, Futures and Alternatives Nows, and People and Prototypes are nice to read, but with some comments I can't agree. For this reason, the aspects of Emotional Design and Prototyping are little bit weak in my opinion. However, reading the first six chapters is very useful for human-computer interaction beginners. It makes their knowledge around the history of Interaction Design more stable. The last chapters are nice to read, but not very obligatory. Unfortunately, the multimedia CD of the book I never really checked. So I can't say if it is good or not. For professional interaction designer is almost nothing new in this book, so I can't recommend it for them.

Creative Coding Tools, which is the best?

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:15:00 +0000

Now I am almost studying Interactive Art for one year. Me, as a Flash and Flex Developer, like coding with audio-visual and interaction-based content. But if I am honest, in the last time I did not use Flash in my projects at all. I had to deal with some other powerful creative coding tools. Some of these tools provide me, as an artist, much more freedom than the Flash plattform can ever provide. For example, creating a visual output for multi-displays applications, programming on hardware (arduino), some real-time video tracking (face detection) experiments, using special Open-GL Renderer for 3D graphics and so on. But I also ran into problems, which I would never have with using Flash. Especially, when I worked together with unexperienced programmer. For this reason, I will describe some of these creative coding tools with their inherent advantages and disadvantages. After this article you should have a good overview about the available tools in creative coding.

Creative Coding Tools Overview

Adobe Flash (text-based coding)

Adobe delivers a very good IDE for creative coding. Many people complain about the IDE, but it is the best tool to start coding for media designer, artist etc. You have the whole familiar layer infrastructure from Photoshop, and you can easily import your Photoshop, Illustrator graphics. After importing the graphics and the artist can start coding directly on the graphics. To see the graphics visually and arrange them on the stage, and then coding seamlessly with them (connected via symbolname = variable name) minimizes the obstactles for newbies so much. The same is valid for working with interactive video and audio. I know the Flash IDE is not cheap, but it is definitely the money worth for getting a perfect start. After reaching the intermediate level, you can switch to Flash Builder Coding Editor. This editor is quite advanced and it is free for students and teacher.

In a summary Flash is perfect for starting creative coding. For heavy graphic and media (video + audio files) projects it is perfect and delivers a unique workflow. Flash is also a very good solution for web-based project and the community is very big and active. So you can be sure to find a whole set of additional libraries and help. Because of the simplicity the Flash Plattform has got two disadvantages. The lack of perfomance compared to other technologies (C++, Java, Python) can be a problem for complex visual renderings and algorithms. The second disadvantage is the less freedom for physical computing based projects. An Alternative for Flash is Microsoft Silverlight

Processing (text-based coding)

Processing is a specific Java based framework for creative coding. Ben Fry and Casey Reas simplified the programming language Java, so it is easier for media artist diving into creative coding. In my opinion, it is not a good solution for starting creative coding with this tool, even it is for free! In my class and at my old university I often saw the same misunderstanding in the beginners eyes when they started with processing... This whole text-based coding without any reference to the graphics is still too abstract for beginners. That lead for unhappy artist. Then maybe they started hating programming... That is not cool... Maybe the new IDE project Kaleido can solve this.

The syntax of Processing is quite similar to ActionScript. So it is not so difficult for Flash Coder to switch to Processing and vice versa. Processing is able to use Open-GL. In this case it makes much more sense to use this tool for 3D Project than Flash. Even you can connect Java Libraries with your Processing projects. That enables completely new application possibilities. Speech recognition, video tracking, working with Bluetooth Networks are only a few examples. Also collaborative coding via SVN is quite easy in Processing and the active community is the best evidence for this.

Max/MSP/Jitter (node-based coding)

This tool is a node-based programming tool for media artist. Every node has an input and a output. The artist can connect this nodes with cables, like it was used to do in the earlier times with the audio synthesizer. The node-based approach may be a good starting point for beginners. For experienced programmer (also for me) it can be very weird to programm in this environment. But if I am honest, Max/MSP/Jitter delivers a big repertoire of audio effect nodes, video effect nodes and User Interface elements. Also working with hardware is quite well supported in this environment. Connecting MIDI devices, special sound-cards and several displays (or projectors) to Max/MSP/Jitter is not a big problem. For this reason Max/MSP/Jitter is perfect for live audio-visual performances and media installations. A further advantage is the extensibility of Max/MSP/Jitter. Advanced programmers can use the included JAVA API or JavaScript API for creating and extending new nodes (e.g. OpenCV in Max) and user interface elements. Only for web-based projects this tool is almost useless, and even working together with other artist seems not so easy. Alternatives for the commercial based product MAX/MSP/Jitter can be PureData (mainly for audio processing), VVVV (video and visuals) and EyesWeb Framework (video and stage-based installations).

openFrameworks (text-based coding)

With openFrameworks we enter the big world of C and C++. C and C++ is quite old and for this reason the language has got some ugly inherent characteristics. For advanced programmer the concept of pointers is quite easy to understand. In contrast intermediate programmers will get surely fucked up with the header file concept. Beginners are going to get lost in this big world... That sounds terrible, but it is not so worse. C and C++ provides the biggest freedom an artist can ever get. For getting this freedom the artist has to put some effort into it.

Afterwards the artist can code directly on hardware (e.g. Arduino). Also high-end performance optimizing of your application is possible here. Especially for heavy 3D -based projects you are supposed to use this platform. The team around openFrameworks created successfully an easy to use C++ Library for audio-visual coding. Their tutorial page gives an easy start and their classes makes it quite easy working with audio,video and drawing operations in C++. The openFramework approach is very similar to the Processing project in Java World. It exist an active community, who extend the openFramework toolkit successively. A disadvantage of openFrameworks could be the slow development process. If no suitable add-on is available for your project (for instance: network-based multi-user interaction) it can get very fast complex and time-consuming to solve this technical issue. An alternative for openFramework could be Cinder.

The End

The table above reveals that there is no real winner available. All the tools do a great job in their special domain. So Flash and Processing are very good tools for web-based projects, openFrameworks and Max/MSP/Jitter are better for media installations and complex animations. Beginners should check which tool is really easy to learn. An easy start and enjoying coding is very important in the beginning! Advanced Programmer and artist should distinguish between perfomance-based/hardware-based or graphic-based/media-file-based/web-based projects. For perfomance-based/hardware-based projects openFrameworks, Max/MSP/Jitter and maybe Processing is the best solution. For web-based and media-file/graphic-based projects Flash delivers a very good solution. In some cases (e.g. big Information Design projects) Processing is more suitable... So Happy Coding and visit CreativeApplications.Net to see what is possible!