Todd Thille Blog

Getting back in(to) TouchDesigner

30 Jan 2009

[ Greg Hermanovic demonstrates TouchDesigner 077 with Markus Heckmann ]

Greg Hermanovic of Prisms and Houdini fame was in Berlin for performances with Raster-Noton artists at Club Transmediale. Friend fALk Gärtner had been tipped off that Greg would be around and invited him to talk at the weekly Visual Berlin meeting.

One of Greg’s passions is for live visuals, which he founded Derivative Inc. to make software for. The result was the TouchDesigner platform. Based on Houdini, TouchDesigner has been around since 2000. I used it from 2003-2006 before I got rid of my dedicated Windows hardware.

[ The Mixxa interface. Everything is 2 clicks away ]

Greg and Markus Heckmann showed off the newest iteration, TouchDesigner 077. The software has come a long way in the last two years. Greg’s interim project, Mixxa, a “video mixer for drunk VJs” was built with the new generation of TouchDesigner. All of the controls are designed to be only two clicks away.

[ Down the rabbit hole. The recursive TouchDesigner interface. ]

Markus demonstrated the power of the engine running behind the scenes. All of the interface objects are built within TouchDesigner, allowing the controls to be zoomed in recursively to the lowest level. Signal flow paths along with visualization of audio waveforms and visual previews are available at a level unheard of in other live software packages. Of course the system requirements of an NVIDIA graphics card with 512MB of video RAM go a long way toward allowing this magic.

A free for non-commercial use version of TouchDesigner, the “Free Thinking Environment” is available for Windows XP and Vista. Greg announced that a Mac port of TouchDesigner had begun, based on the success of the Houdini port last year. Components built with TouchDesigner can be exchanged with other users in the native .tox format.

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Club Transmediale - Netlabel Night

29 Jan 2009

Took some time out from working on v[3] of the avit.info website with fRED & flux and Toby Harris to check out some of the Club Transmediale activities. The excitement on this particular Tuesday evening was Visual Berlin member Servando Barreiro repping for netaudio.

Before the netaudio [de][uk] show, we caught a little bit of the minimalist set of Mika Vainio. Spent several long moments mesmerized by Joanie Lemercier’s sculptural video installation in the main area. I had been in Berlin back in 2006 when Joanie had first shown off his video mapping skills outside the BCC and in M12 as part of AVIT>C23.

Headed into the back room at the appointed hour and caught the tail end of Norman Fairbanks’ set. He was busy coaxing sound from a Tenori-On and a Thingamagoop.

Servando was up next alongside Dr. Nojoke and J-Lab under the Netlabel banner. J-Lab played bass and electronics. Dr. Nojoke had a wide variety of sound making devices that he played into a mic and processed heavily. Servando made visuals and further electronic sounds which he manipulated with a homemade sensor box. His “post-music instrument” consisted of a 20 count CD spindle stuffed with a minia board, accelerometers, tap sensors, IR sensors and several potentiometers and switches. The trio worked well together and their performance had a good mix of tight and freeform elements.

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CODA and Hex Color Picking

17 Jan 2009

I have been enjoying CODA, the everything-in-one-window web development toolbox from Panic, more and more over the past year. In amongst all the goodness, I have been continually baffled by the lack of a web safe color palette in the supplied color picker or any hint of hex colors in the WYSIWYG CSS editor.

Today I came across the RCWebColorPicker from Rubicode. After downloading and installing the free plugin, the standard OS X color picker gains an “RCWeb” tab. This new tab features a box for a full RGB hex value, RGB sliders with corresponding hex values and a check box to limit the palette to the 216 web safe colors.

Hex goodness achieved!

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“Follow The Light” on G4TV’s Attack of The Show

16 Jan 2009

My protege Vince Calanoc was featured on G4TV for his clever hack of the Laser Tag system developed by Graffiti Research Lab and Theodore Watson.
Check out Vince’s “digital spraypaint” below.

(Via hearsee)

All in your Mind

10 Jan 2009

Two newly announced products based around technology from NeuroSky round out a number of recent BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) consumer devices.

The Mattel Mind Flex and The Force Trainer from Uncle Milton both leverage NeuroSky’s bio-signal technology to interpret brainwaves, eye movements, facial muscles and heart-rate. NeuroSky’s developer kit may be the gateway to many other interesting products.

Of more interest as a dedicated BCI is the OCZ NIA (Neural Impulse Actuator). Geared toward PC gamers, the NIA uses bio-signals to trigger keyboard commands. Software such as MIDI-OX can further parse these commands into MIDI data streams useful for audio and video programs.

Another game oriented device is the long-awaited Emotiv Epoc. The Epoc has been demonstrated at the GDC for the past two years, but has not yet made it to market. In February 2008 Emotiv opened up their API and provided an SDKLite version for free.

The godfather of these recent products is the IBVA (Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyzer). Developed by Masahiro Kahata, the IBVA has been over 15 years in the making. The accompanying analysis software is the most sophisticated and up to date. Masahiro continues to leverage the latest Apple technologies. In addition to a full featured MIDI mapping implementation, there is a QuartzComposer plugin and a soon to be released iPhone app.

The IBVA is in heavy use at the studio of Duncan Laurie to provide input for Ableton Live and MAX/MSP patches.