So just like last year’s effort, I’d very much wish for and would like to produce another showreel of all the recent interesting projects & experiments done by YOURSELVES with the various library packages. The aim of this undertaking is simply to create a record, a snapshot, some overview and inspiration for other (possibly new) users of these libs. To make this happen I really do need your help & generous contributions in the form of footage, both video and still image assets. Finished projects are desirable, but often the work-in-progress stages are highly interesting too, so if possible, please do include these too. All work will be clearly credited and the reel will be premiered during my talk at Flash On The Beach on September 27, 2010. Afterwards the video will be hosted on Vimeo.

Like last year, the guidelines are remaining as follows:

• only submit projects you’ve worked on/own rights to/have permission to include
• project name, client (if any), year, author(s), project URL
• list of toxiclibs package(s) used
• video resolution 1280×720 (if possible, lower res might be fine too)
• screenshots/photos (if you have stills only, more than one would be extremely helpful)
• (optional) your vimeo username for crediting using their system

Please get in touch via email: toxiclibs at postspectacular dot com

I can provide FTP upload space if you don’t have any yourself. Alternatively, you might want to sign up with Amazon S3, Dropbox, Box.net or similar services…

Entry deadline is: Monday 20 September 2010, 12:00pm GMT

Your help is v.appreciated & I shall thank you dearly!!!!

Once more for the record, here’s the previous reel from 2009…

Mark these dates in your calendar: July 12-18th 2010 – It’s going to be a whole 7 long days of code crafting in the north of Portugal and I’m looking very forward to it! The workshop is limited to 14 participants. Bookings are handled by the University and should be done via their special website. Thank you dearly!

The planned outline is below the poster I made for this unique occasion, so please do read on:

The general idea is to split our time into 4 days of intense tutorials and hands-on examination of core principles & techniques of the computational design approach in the context of creating “generative identities”, without prescribing too much what shape & form these should take. Part of our workshop’s remit is also to enquire the current possibilities. The final 3 days will then be used to build your own project(s) to be use for the Olhares de Outono festival later in November.

The topics listed below are not set in stone and we’ll decide as group on what to focus (much depends on the skills & interests of the participants). Similarly, if you’d like to experiment/include external devices into your project (Wiimote, Arduino), please bring them along. The workshop space is equipped with iMacs, but there’re also a couple of spaces to use your own machine as well… At the end of the workshop, we all should have at least one completed (if not polished) project for the festival, and should strive to document it (the project) too.

Day 1: Getting ready

Processing

• recap of basics
  • types
  • structures
  • working with libraries
  • exporting

• scope
  • learning curve
  • use as environment (PDE)
  • use online vs. offline
  • use as library in larger frameworks
  • P5 within the bigger picture
    • JavaScript
    • Java (Android)
    • OpenFrameworks
    • Cinder

Toxiclibs

• Overview
• Recent updates
• Philosophy
• Resources
• Use cases
• Exercises
  • Key techniques/classes
  • Layering processes/Combining modules
  • Easier handling in Processing

OOP

• Concepts
  • Interfaces
  • Inheritance
  • Polymorphism
  • Encapsulation

• Best practices
  • Events
  • Architecture
  • Design patterns
  • Anti patterns
  • Reusability
  • Open source

Eclipse

• overview
• project setup
• using Processing as lib only
• editor features
  • code completion
  • navigation
  • refactoring

Day 2: Working with data

Data modelling/processing

• Collections
  • Hashmaps
    • Histograms:
      • Images, FFT
      • Tag clouds
  • Lists
    • Iterators
  • Queues
    • Priority based processing
    • Pipes
    • Stacks
  • Trees
    • recursion
    • sorted sets using comparators
      • sort by custom criteria
      • spatial subdivision (quadtree, octree etc.)

• XML
  • standard formats
    • Atom
    • RSS
  • code generation from data model
    • XML Schema
    • JAXB
  • Defining your own formats
    • Loading/saving app state
    • Presets
    • Configuration

• • Aggregation
    • merging of sources and/or time samples
    • set theory
      • union
      • intersection
      • difference
      • relationships (1:1, 1:N, N:M)

Visualisation

• basic graph theory
• finding & creating metaphors
• techniques
  • geometry basics
  • coordinate systems
    • spherical (Geomapping example)
    • polar (color transforms)
    • cartesian
  • vector maths
  • mapping/geometric transformations
    • M->N dimensions
    • time -> space
  • mesh generation
• animation
  • interpolation curves
  • state transitions
  • viewport changes
    • transformation matrix
    • camera control (e.g. 3rd person camera)
• exporting data
  • high res bitmap
  • PDF
  • image sequence + automatic FFMPEG assembly
  • 3D data for digital fabrication

Day 3: Interactions

Building on previous day exercises

HCI

• Wiimote
• Mobile
• Computer vision
• TUIO / OSC
  • • multitouch
    • reacTIVision
    • external devices
• QRCodes
• Location triggers
  • GPS/compass based AR
• Serial input
  • Firmata

Machine-machine interactions

• asynchronous event handling
  • twitter updates
  • reacting to Pachube sensor data
• multi-threading
• network communications/protocols
  • UDP
  • OSC

Day 4: Generative techniques

Building on previous day exercises

Processes as design tools

• inputs
  • observation
  • abstraction
  • mental model building
• behaviour
  • parametrization
  • rules
  • feedback
• simulation
  • agents
  • automata
  • erosion
  • fluids
  • particles
  • physics
• randomness
  • balance of control
  • bias
  • chaos vs. determinism
  • role of authorship?
  • techniques & differences

Day 5-7: Work on own projects

Process

• If possible form pairs/groups
• 2 reviews/status reports/discussion per day with all
  participants
• Karsten giving help & support to all groups
• Final review and presentation on Sunday PM
• Project documentations

And once again, please head over to this site for further organisational things & the signup form…

On April 23 & 24, 2010 I’ll be teaching an advanced Processing, Eclipse & toxiclibs workshop as part of the Processing Paris activities organized by the talented Mr. Webster & David Abouna-Tomé from OFFF.

The Memory Tree

During the 2 days of the advanced Processing Paris workshop we will create an interactive installation called The Memory Tree. The installation will consist of a large projection of a generative, slowly growing 3D tree whose leaves are all made up from messages/thoughts left by visitors and workshop participants.

These messages can either be submitted as voice via mobile phones, Skype or IM, but will also be harvested automatically via tagged content from Flickr and Twitter. The tree will grow and become more complex with every new message collected and so slowly form a browsable history of its creation during the workshop, but also document the reactions of exhibition visitors. Visitors can interact with the installation via a mouse (or Wiimote, if we’re quick…) to change the view of the tree, zoom in, and focus particular messages/images or play recorded voice messages. There could also be a mode where the user directs a “cursor” freely between the various tree branches and listens to all voice messages associated with leaves in the cursor’s proximity. This playback would use 3D audio so that when the focal point is moved, the recorded voices move around in space accordingly and are creating an immersive audio collage. Voices closer to the cursor will play louder than ones further away.

The installation concept will nicely combine a number of different concepts, technologies and programming techniques. It’ll also educate participants about the distributed nature of technologies available and the importance of open standards acting as technological glue between them.

Scope

Amongst other things, we will cover:

• core 3D geometry techniques: vectors, matrices, quaternions, cameras, curves, texture mapping
• complex mesh creation with volumetric modelling
• working with OpenGL
• dealing with parallel processes using multi-threading
• working with 3rd party libraries (mainly from toxiclibs.org)
• multi-channel audio playback
• working with XML efficiently (using JAXB)
• parsing RSS/Atom feeds (Flickr, Twitter integration)
• working with (and creating) REST based web services
• designing an application data model
• object oriented architecture as key enabler for flexible designs

The installation will be obviously using Processing as core platform, however we will use Eclipse as development environment to make development faster, easier and more efficient. Participants should have a medium/firm grasp of Processing and feel comfortable with experimenting with new concepts & techniques with a looming deadline.

If you want to sign up for this, please head over to: processingparis.ning.com

The images are above and below are some very early explorations of a deterministic random 3D tree generator. I’m currently working on a proof-of-concept of some of the above ideas, mainly in order to help us be as efficient as possible on these two workshop days…

The images below are showing the combination of the generated tree structures above with volumeutils to create 3D meshes of the trees…

First up is Ricardo Sanchez, one of those guys who had been hindered by the lack of demos & documentation last year and has been in touch a few times about the physics engine. His questioning also directly triggered me to do a few more demos, which are now bundled with the last couple releases. A few days ago he excitedly told me that he’s finished his project and I wanted to share it with you here too:

You can download the Processing source code for this sketch from the project website and read some more about his process on his blog.

The other experiment I found is a nice showcase of the SphereConstraint in action to create a, well spherical, boundary for the physical simulation space. FYI the constraint can also be inverted and be configured to work as obstacle instead, not allowing any particles within the volume of the sphere. This can be achieved via a flag to its constructor.

The effect is quite interesting and somewhat reminds me of Mikkel Koser’s & shiftControl’s recent COP15 identity, although the behaviour of particles there is far more complex.

More detailed info about the most recent release and the behaviour changes it caused will be posted asap.

By Joe Turner

By DieTapete

By Stefan Mylleager

By Lia

I especially like the amount & colours of the contour layers used to visualize different densities. A similar (only in principle) thought also lead to the concept for the V&A Decode Identity completed recently. Just create a VolumetricSpace instance, use one of the preset VolumetricBrushes (or create your own one through sub-classing), use it to manipulate the “density” in the space and then pass the space instance to a IsoSurface to turn it into a TriangleMesh. Et voila! Example code for this basic approach comes with the volumeutils library download.

UPDATE: There’s also an older, alternative version which is using sensor inputs to control its growth (so maybe the above process is related or even the same)…

“this rhizome grows only if PIR sensor doesn’t detect movement [either nobody is in the room, or you stay still] amount of light measured by photocell influences branches girth. in this way, resulting form is a diagram of changing environmental conditions.”

To make the project as widely accessible as possible to people, it was built in Processing, but obviously with a major helping of various toxiclibs too(core, color & volumeutils).

You can download, remix & recode the original piece and turn it into your own original artwork by downloading the app and/or source code from:

decode.googlecode.com

Some of these recoded versions might then even become the new Decode identity. Media partner, CBS Outdoor will be promoting the exhibition using the original piece across its large HD projection screens in platforms on the London Underground from Monday, November 30, 2009. All recoded works submitted via the V&A website before January 11, 2010 will then be put forward into a competition to appear in an advert on CBS Outdoor’s XTP screens, further promoting the exhibition.

UPDATE: I’ve posted some of my favourite “recodes” over here.

Some more images of the whole design journey are on flickr…

Edited in a non-stop 24h session, I’m really happy with the result & seeing these projects together in one piece gave me an immense buzz, but see for yourself!

We will be attempting to do another one of these later this year, so if you have built anything cool with any of the library packages you’d want to contribute, please do get in touch here, via email, flickr, vimeo or twitter.