Sydney – UNSW Connected 2010

gabor

Filed under: Software

ContactListener works

Hiya,

have managed to get the contact listener working, which i have gotten through ascrobin’s forum post at the openframeworks.cc forum.

Will just have to fix a memory leak that I have created (fps upper left corner) and can then start fine tuning animations.

Cheers

Gabor

Filed under: Software

ContourFinder update

Hiya,

after having a break for a week I desperately needed to figure out what caused my little OpenFrameworks project to run slowly. I knew that it had to be the way I was generating those words falling into the screen. I was (greenhorn) loading ofTrueTypeFont repetitively inside my draw() method, which of course strained the performance heavily as soon as there were more than three words on the stage. Since I’m very new to C++ and I am still not used to the whole pointer reference thing it took me some time to figure out how to load a font once and then refer to that instance rather than loading that font in repetitively at 60fps. But now things look way different. The video shows the improvement, which runs between 20fps-40fps while having my screen recorder software running. As soon as i close that program the performance goes back up to 40-60fps. Thanks go out to Josttie at Openframeworks.cc

Filed under: Software

ofxOpenCV ContourFinder & ofxBox2D

Hi there. Very little I know about C++ and OpenFrameworks. But I have decided to still go for it. At least now I got started. The learning curve is pretty flat for me and it will probably take a bit of time to become confident in writing C++ code. It’s a different game to AS3.0. Flash developers are spoiled. So anyways…I have tried to pull that thing off all on my own using a few forum hints C++ OF, ofxOpenCV and Box2D physics engine but ran into some issues with defining the contour that is being drawn as a physics body. Thankfully, I tripped over this forum thread in which 2 approaches have been shown by “Smallfly” & “Johnavila2”. Finally “Vanderlin” came up with a solution using the wrapper lib ofxBox2D and posted his code to download. It utilizes another class that simplifies the contour found by ofxOpenCV and turns it into a Box2D edge. So thanks go out to you guys. Obviously it needs quite some tweaking.

But it works. 😉

Cheers

Gabor

Filed under: Software

Live Feed Collision Detection

Hi,

so according to my previous two posts I have now uploaded a proto of the live video feed collision detection, which i intend to use for this particular art project i was talking about beforehand. The collision detection is based on GSkinner’s collision detection. Needless to say that this needs a lot of work.

NOTE: Best results are in front of a white wall in a room well lit.

I’ll call it a day 😉

Cheers

g

Filed under: Software

AS3.0 Garbage Collection

Incremental Mark and Sweep is the name of ActionScripts unreachable- object removal strategy. All that means is that ActionScript will mark created objects as either reachable or unreachable. If a certain memory threshold has been reached during code execution, objects that are marked unreachable will be swept from memory, thus creating free space for the running application. This procedure is known as garbage collection (GC) and is pretty unpredictable, as in it gets triggered automatically in cycles and developers do not have active influence on triggering or effecting those cycles. Hence, understanding AS3.0’s garbage collection procedure is essential when attempting to write a stable and efficiently running application. Not coding in a clean way can cause potential memory leaks. These leaks, even if of small size, can eventually slow down a program or even make it become unresponsive. Among other measures, starting to clean up objects that are not longer needed and maybe even more importantly, deciding before creating objects and properties of how they will be implemented are important practices that should start with writing the smallest application. There has been written a lot about AS3.0’s garbage collection and I won’t write my own essay, but rather provide a few links that made my life easier understanding the principles of how gc works.

Essential ActionScript 3.0
By Colin Moock
Grant Skinner – Understanding garbage collection in Flash Player 9
Emmy Huang – Performance Improvements in Flash Player 8
Grant Skinner – Interactive GC Simulation
Grant Skinner – Slides
A Power Point file about GC and Memory Leaks

Cheers

Gabor

Filed under: Software

Memory Indicator Class

Hi. I am currently working on my new website which will be available soon through gaborzins.com.
In the course of building it, I came across Gabriel’s blog PixelBreaker.com. Here I found out about the System.totalMemory class and thought it would be useful to have a little panel that could be easily called, displaying the total memory used by the application running. I still have to make it become a singleton class, but decided to put it online. Singleton follows soon. 😉

IndicateMemory.as Download (4kb)

Cheers

Gabor

Filed under: Software

Explanatory Video – DSI SetUp

Hi. Here as promised, my explanatory video. Please excuse my terrible german accent. I gave my best to keep it low.

Cheers

Gabor

Filed under: Hardware, Portfolio, Software

Billy Blue’s 2009 Great Value – Exhibition Night

Hi there, after a two days and nights excessive post graduation rehabilitation programm, I am now back to continue blogging. In fact, my graduation and the first public presentation of my multiple touch table at the Great Value Exhibition Night 2009 have been a huge motivation to intensify my studies around writing applications for multiple touch devices. My table as an human centered piece of design. I was facing success in some and failure in other aspects of my application. I can now put these experiences into use by feeding my upcoming design projects with the things I have learned. Here is just a very short clip of that night. I will add a more comprehensible flick this weekend, that will attempt to explain my application in detail.

Cheers

Gabor

Filed under: Software

First Test Run

Hi. Here is my application’s first test run. There’s heaps to improve scriptwise. There’s also still a latency which can only be caused by either my processing speed or the video delay of the projector. Hmmm…and i only have one week left. :s

Filed under: Hardware, Software