thougths about the User Interface

[nanu-c]

Yesterday i had a few thoughts about the User Interface. :-)

• We can only use one input type, so we can always show only one. If you click on kinect the menu will expand and all the others will collapse.
• Add a Preview Window with the selected Input type streamed via osc from lpmt. (Also a question if you select a video and the remoteX and the lpmt aren't on the same machine, where have to go the videos? on the main machine or the remote pc?)
• Group quads to select the same input for a number of quads and/or multiselection
• Use symbols when its possible to save space
• resize the Ui depending on the screen size

What do you think?

[jamet]

hi,
i m' taking all your interresting thoughts and put some remarks nearby that we will have to discuss i think.

We can only use one input type, so we can always show only one. If you click on kinect the menu will expand and all the others will collapse.-> that's not totally true, because each quad will render all the inputs in kind of layers. for example, you could draw a solid bg with a transition, and also take an other input, let's say a cam (rendered in an other layer of the quad), if you send a cam_off osc message, then cam wil not be rendered anymore but solid bg will still be there. This could be usefull, if you want to make quads always visible with solid bg and put a cam over it for a short amount of time, then go back to solid bg. i must admit it makes senses in my mind, but i'm not sure it's really understable....

Add a Preview Window with the selected Input type streamed via osc from lpmt.-> a preview window is indeed very interesting, not sure osc is the best to stream video, but streaming the output window through a v4l2loopback through remoteX could be a solution. it might be much harder to stream every input of lpmt to remotex.

(Also a question if you select a video and the remoteX and the lpmt aren't on the same machine, where have to go the videos? on the main machine or the remote pc?)-> Correct me if I'm wrong, but i think the way remotex works for now when opening files is sending an osc message to lpmt, and then lpmt opens a window to select files. the video will then be choosen on lpmt's host filesystems. If it's the same host, then it might be possible tio open the same file and to dispay it on remotex display, if it's not the same host, then a solution might be to have all the "input files" on a shared filesystem between the two hosts (nfs, samba or else).

Group quads to select the same input for a number of quads and/or multiselection-> i want that too :) , i don't think it will be hard to implement, cause every (or at least many many) osc messages that adresse the active quad of lpmt can be translated to any quad by is id via the /surface//<end of the osc message without "/active">.
We could then use a matrix selector for the quads to select in remotex, and then send the osc commands for every selected quads.

Use symbols when its possible to save space
resize the Ui depending on the screen size
-> for those two, it always seems a good idea, but i must admit it's always hard for me to design a gui.

Anyway, i think that anyone who will try to use lpmt will try to use it for a different purpose, different type of live actions, so in my opinion, the gui has to be very modular. For one performance i might need to have fast acces to cam, sampler and solidbg, but not to 3Dmodels, for an other performance, it might be different...

let's keep the discussion open :)

[nanu-c]

Okey things get intresting, I need a processing v4l2 plugin to stream it to lpmt via network or I am going to use gstreamer :-)

• On the first of your points, thats cool with the input selections. Can we have a blending between the inputs (yeai)? My thought was that I only need one Input-configuration-Box at the same time.
• The preview window with an output-stream would be nice. But my idea for the future was that we can use one Input for multiple quads. That means one part of the UI-window shows the source-Input with the quads on it. Another the rendered output. Then you can modify the size and position of the input stream (what's going in to the quad) and the same with the output. But... global output would be nice too.
• shared nfs and so on. Okey i understood and i can adjust my practise or, remoteX can stream to the host via v4l2upd too :)
• UI-Symbols. I am good in that.

Anyway, i think that anyone who will try to use lpmt will try to use it for a different purpose, different > type of live actions, so in my opinion, the gui has to be very modular.

• Let's get modular ^^ (but I think this is hard with openframeworks)

(Also I am getting deeper in the code, maybe i can add also some features in the future...)

[Giladx]

hey man how are you

this is all amazing !!! I am sorry that I don't have time for the last days
I am into some short but intensive project I WILL get back to you with some
proper answers on the weekend
Thanks for your ideas and for your time!
Keep on going and I will join this brain storm on Friday

have fun

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 7:52 PM, moxor notifications@github.com wrote:

Okey things get intresting, I need a processing v4l2 plugin to stream it
to lpmt via network or I am going to use gstreamer :-)

• On the first of your points, thats cool with the input selections.
  Can we have a blending between the inputs (yeai)? My thought was that I
  only need one Input-configuration-Box at the same time.
• The preview window with an output-stream would be nice. But my idea
  for the future was that we can use one Input for multiple quads. That means
  one part of the UI-window shows the source-Input with the quads on it.
  Another the rendered output. Then you can modify the size and position of
  the input stream (what's going in to the quad) and the same with the
  output. But... global output would be nice too.
• shared nfs and so on. Okey i understood and i can adjust my practise
  or, remoteX can stream to the host via v4l2upd too :)
• UI-Symbols. I am good in that.

Anyway, i think that anyone who will try to use lpmt will try to use it
for a different purpose, different > type of live actions, so in my
opinion, the gui has to be very modular.

• Let's get modular ^^ (but I think this is hard with openframeworks)

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#3 (comment).

[jamet]

nice!!!
@MOxor @Giladx , what do you think of openning a thread on OF forums to see if we can even get more people involved, and it might be easier to communicate.
i must admit that i won't have a lot of time to help coding a gui, and i still have to make a few tests with lpmt and twisty to see if it can fits my needs at first, but i really want to see this going further : ).

i am also starting to look at ofxDMX addon to see if we can incorporate DMX control into lpmt., but i don't have the hardware to test it anyway.

[nanu-c]

another thing to think on is ofxUi is deprecated and will no longer been maintained. What do you think about ofx gui or https://github.com/frauzufall/ofxGuiExtended ?
i tried a quick port there https://github.com/moxor/remoteX-1/
it's also moveable so anyone can arrange like he/she thinks...

[Giladx]

Yes! :) @MOxor @jamet I do want to change ofxUI to something else.@jamet
opening a thread on OF forums is a good idea. @MOxor ofxGui was in my mind
too.
What do you think on ofxControlPanel -->>
https://github.com/ofTheo/ofxControlPanel I just didn't check if it is
using OSC

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 3:16 AM, moxor notifications@github.com wrote:

another thing to think on is ofxUi is deprecated and will no longer been
maintained. What do you think about ofx gui or
https://github.com/frauzufall/ofxGuiExtended ?
i tried a quick port there https://github.com/moxor/remoteX-1/
it's also moveable so anyone can arrange like he/she thinks...

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#3 (comment).

[jamet]

ofxControlPanel seems a bit outdated, last commit was in 4 years ago

Yes! :) @MOxor @jamet I do want to change ofxUI to something else.@jamet

opening a thread on OF forums is a good idea. @MOxor ofxGui was in my mind

too.

What do you think on ofxControlPanel -->>

https://github.com/ofTheo/ofxControlPanel I just didn't check if it is

using OSC

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 3:16 AM, moxor notifications@github.com wrote:

another thing to think on is ofxUi is deprecated and will no longer been

maintained. What do you think about ofx gui or

https://github.com/frauzufall/ofxGuiExtended ?

i tried a quick port there https://github.com/moxor/remoteX-1/

it's also moveable so anyone can arrange like he/she thinks...

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#3 (comment).

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[nanu-c]

ofxControlPanel seems a bit outdated, last commit was in 4 years ago -> thats right. ofxGui is under active development also with the help of arturoc

Let's have a look at https://github.com/moxor/remoteX-1/ it is half ported to ofxGuiExtended and ofParameter but I broke the osc. Nevertheless, the eventhandler is working as you can see in the terminal...

[jamet]

hey moxor,
just compiled this and i must say it looks really nice, well done! :)
as you said the osc is not working, but it seems in a very good way.

[nanu-c]

okey I am done with the porting, but still the osc is missing. Yeai...

• Also i thought again about the preview window. There is streaming already implemented in lpmt with the most pixels ever server. But I didn't understand it how to tweak mpe to use also the ofxv4l2sink, without saving/rendering/etc the frame twice. Another possibility would be to start a gst-launch to record the lpmt-window.
  And also the question is, how to get the v4l2loopback compilation and configuration into the program. That it uses always the same v4l2 pipe and that it's opened. This needs a sudo ...
  As said the version included in the Ubuntu repros is not working. For Mac there is Syphon and spout for windows.
• The Matrix is there,too, but the logic needs to be included in the osc.
• Also there is missing in the gui the shared video component. Should that be part too?
• Is there a convention in Naming the osc-messages because with ofxgui, the message would be the same as the word written on the buttonlabel. And if not, it needs a huge class to do rename it.
• I want to have symbols but it's not supported by ofxGui

[nanu-c]

Okey I got the osc thing working but it's still not pushed because I have questions.
For example, the load video popup to select a videoFile in lpmtX2 keeps popping up and I cant cancel the dialog. And also strange is the fact, that i sent the osc message only once.

OSC message '/active/video/load args 1  0 numargs 1
[warning] ofxOscMessage: getArgAsFloat(): converting int32 to float for argument 0
loading video 
video loaded 
[ error ] ofxOscMessage: getArgType(): index 1 out of bounds
[ error ] ofxOscMessage: getArgType(): index 1 out of bounds
[ error ] ofxOscMessage: getArgAsFloat(): argument 1 is not a number
[warning] ofxOscMessage: getArgAsFloat(): converting int32 to float for argument 0

OSC message '/active/video/load args 1  0 numargs 1
[warning] ofxOscMessage: getArgAsFloat(): converting int32 to float for argument 0
loading video 
video loaded 
[ error ] ofxOscMessage: getArgType(): index 1 out of bounds
[ error ] ofxOscMessage: getArgType(): index 1 out of bounds
[ error ] ofxOscMessage: getArgAsFloat(): argument 1 is not a number
[warning] ofxOscMessage: getArgAsFloat(): converting int32 to float for argument 0

OSC message '/active/video/load args 1  0 numargs 1
[warning] ofxOscMessage: getArgAsFloat(): converting int32 to float for argument 0
loading video

[nanu-c]

Another thing is, instead of sending two osc messages with /active/set
we can use a /quad/5/edgeblend/gamma. What do you think?

[jamet]

hey moxor,

didn't understand the problem with the load video, you send one osc message and the popup is still openning ?

for the other thing, yes it might be a gret solution to adress quads not only when they are active,, i translated (almost all, but it might be some missing) the osc messages from the /active namespace to /surface//. so you can use that namespace if you want to send osc commands to multiple quads. Let's say you want to open cam on both quads 3 and 4, you could send two osc messages /surface/3/cam/show 1 and /surface/4/cam/show 1

to make that "multiple quads matrix command", you could simply get all the selected quads index from your gui matrix into an array or a vector, and when catching a gui event, send the corresponding osc messages to every quads index contained in the vector. ->not sure if its understable there...

i don't know if it answers your questions, let me know if i can help...

[nanu-c]

hey jamet,
thanks for the tip with the surfaces, it's working with my matrix.
Okey, the Load Dialogue.

• I send a OSC-message
• the dialogue pops up
• I select a video and click ok
• Then the dialogue pops up again
• I click cancel, the dialogue doesn't disappear.

Also I think it would be nice for me to call something like /surface/4/3d/scale/xyz to set all 3 parameters at the same time, because I use the ofVec3f for creating 3 Sliders with 1 command or the ofColor for rgb and alpha.
this would be:
/3d/scale/xyz
/3d/rotate/xyz
/3d/move/xyz
/cam/mult/xy
/cam/color/1234
/kinect/mult/xy
/kinect/color/1234
/img/mult/xy
/img/color/1234
/video/mult/xy
/video/color/1234
Other things:

• Are the solid colors and the transition effects only for the slideshow or for the surfaces in general?
• Can we also buffer videos for the sampler?
• Should we save the record times for the samples in the buffer slots to show them visualy?
• can we implement a v4l2sink/syphon/spout to lpmtX2 showing the output window or should we use the most pixels ever which is now included for that?
• /3d/texture/mode can there more than one mode active at the same time? If not, why there are 2 Arguments :)

[nanu-c]

Hey Jamet and GiladX,
I wasn't able to understand the logic behind SharedSamplerIndex. For what is that used?
I solved the error with the dialogue.

Maybe I missed something but I am done, so I claim it alpha.
Have a look
And sleep well...