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openframeworks, an introduction

Last week I went to a two-day openframeworks workshop run by Zach Lieberman at hangar.

As said here before (and elsewhere), openframeworks is an open-source library to help other artists and students produce works through coding, written in C++. Yes, this might sound familiar. Its philosophy and intentions are very similar to processing’s.

However, openframeworks is not an IDE, but a set of coherent wrappers around useful libraries. As zach puts it, it is more of a glue that puts together different pieces:

Some of the key concepts behind openframeworks:

  • Its focus is to simplify things. The main intention is that “you don’t have to look at much code when you’re beginning” (which is far from easy in c++).
  • It’s conformed of reusable pieces, not stitched together. You can use any of its parts independently.
  • It pretends to give you direct access to data e.g: pixels of the image, low level audio

I’ve been using it for the last couple of months. I had never done anything with c++ nor I had any idea of where to start and openframeworks has definitely made the learning curve way smoother. Having been around for ages, c++ has lots of picky details to worry about (pointers vs variables, preprocessor, different compilers, uncompatible IDEs….) so having some sort of blueprint which shares some of the programming concepts with processing makes you feel a little more like at home.

Although it’s been used extensively to give workshops and classes, it’s in super-alpha state (even the installation process was being tested on our workshop). Zach is working with Theo Watson on a really-soon-to-publish release. Most of the stuff will work on win, mac and linux.

So stay tuned.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 9.44 am and is filed under Programming, Processing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

13 Responses to “openframeworks, an introduction”

  1. enrike Says:
    2007-01-23 at 1.06 pm

    is there any link where to download the libraries from ? the http://www.openframeworks.cc is just a semi empty page yet …

  2. jesus gollonet Says:
    2007-01-23 at 4.31 pm

    if you want to have a look at the libraries you can download openframeworks.zip from this page
    [edit:have a look at zach’s comment for latest code]
    (which was ultra-quickly put together before the workshop). the installation instructions are for dev-c++ but I guess they’re somewhat confusing… (I can help with it though)
    you can also check
    http://muonics.net/blog/?postid=4
    with an older version and some examples…

    However, things are changing quickly, so I’d wait for a proper release. It’s coming really (no, really) soon.

  3. abstractmachine » openframeworks Says:
    2007-01-23 at 4.51 pm

    […] If you’re coming to this from somewhere else than Processingblogs, and you’re interested in code, then you might want to check out Jesús Gollonet’s recent post about openframeworks. […]

  4. zach Says:
    2007-01-27 at 6.37 pm

    hi -

    you can check out the links jesus posted (with the dev-c++) version, but the most current code is on the SVN here

    http://www.openframeworks.cc/admin/index.fcgi/browser

    and I promise (as jesus does too) that the release is coming as soon as humanly possible. There are 1 or 2 outstanding issues including finalizing the API (so that it doesn’t change too much) and some helpful features (like adding textures to the ofImage and ofQuicktime classes), and then some instructions and documentation to make, but the release is almost out the door now, and we the quality will be high.

    thanks for the patience, really, and I promise that openframeworks.cc will come alive soon, and invite you to participate when it does.

    - zach

  5. Software over the rainbow » Blog Archive » emulating toshio iwai Says:
    2007-02-11 at 10.08 pm

    […] Thanks to the magic of openframeworks, it is realtime video. […]

  6. luke Says:
    2007-02-21 at 11.36 pm

    any new updates on the openframeworks code, i am on osx with xcode.
    it just sounds so cool, i cant wait to try it out.
    thanks
    luke

  7. jesus gollonet Says:
    2007-02-23 at 1.51 pm

    I know it keeps coming, but as zach said “as soon as humanly possible”

  8. janebeta7 Says:
    2007-03-28 at 11.29 pm

    interesante Jesús, es como aprender C++ pero compactado? no se bien , y para que lo estas aplicando ahora? para el hijo?
    mua

  9. jesus gollonet Says:
    2007-03-31 at 8.47 pm

    openframeworks es a c++ lo que processing a java, en el sentido de que lo que ofrece son atajos para el lenguaje, así que como en processing, no dejas de estar escribiendo c++.

    desde luego te aconsejaría q lo probaras.

    y si, el hijo lo estamos fabricando con esto :)

  10. what’s openframeworks? « Lectio’s Weblog Says:
    2008-01-30 at 5.00 pm

    […] I’m not an expert so posible not the best person to talk about openframeworks. You can get all the information at the openframework’s homepage and also here. […]

  11. Gabriel Says:
    2008-04-27 at 9.52 pm

    Hi,

    I work at Medialab-Prado and I would like to see and learn a bit of C++ through openFrameworks. I have seen the svn with the ssh, but it ask me for the passwork. Can anyone tell me how can I download it.

    Million thanks

  12. jesus gollonet Says:
    2008-04-28 at 11.21 pm

    hey gabriel, sorry I didn’t see your comment until today.

    you can download openframeworks at

    http://openframeworks.cc/download

    and ask any question you have at the forum

    http://openframeworks.cc/forum

    best!

  13. Gabriel Says:
    2008-04-29 at 9.18 am

    Hola Jesús,

    Thanks a lot for the link, as soon I have a bit of time I would take a look on openFramewoks….

    Hasta entonces
    Saludos.

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