Software over the rainbow

As I said last week, I’m also using robert penner’s easing equations in openFrameworks, so I’ve ported them to c++.

This has been relatively straightforward, but, as with the actionscript to java conversion, I’ve run into some nuances between languages and I’ve definitely learned the hard way (read “wasting some hours of my life”) why pre and post increment operators can be evil.

Grab them here

For usage, you can have a look at the openFrameworks app provided. If you want to have a quick glance at the types of movement, see the easing applet (p5 version).

Being this a programming exercise, it will have improvable things for sure. I’m thinking of some, but if you know anything, please let me know.

Being an actionscript head, I’ve frequently used rober penner’s easing equations in processing*. To avoid copy/paste each time I’ve packed them as a processing library.

While I was at it, I discovered a couple of implementations (1, 2), but I was almost done, and wanted to learn how to make processing libraries anyway.

So in the hope that it is useful to somebody, here it is:
http://jesusgollonet.com/processing/pennerEasing/

*I’m also using them in openFrameworks, so I’ve begun porting them to c++ too. They’ll be here when I’m done.

Still happily living on jEdit for most of my scripting. I haven’t found an actionscript 3 edit mode, so I’ve made one. It is based on the original actionscript.xml and the Flash CS3 AsColorSyntax_3.xml file so it should have everything you can see colored on the IDE.

This edit mode doesn’t have any as2 specific keywords, so if you have to work on as2 don’t delete the original. Otherwise, you can just replace your original actionscript.xml file (you’ll find it problably in “c:\program files\jEdit\modes” if you’re on win xp) with this one. Make a backup of the original, just in case.

Grab the actionscript 3 edit mode for jEdit

This is an attempt at emulating a simple but beautiful piece that toshio iwai showed at the last ars electronica. Basically a video is divided into different portions and each of them is delayed by a certain amount of frames.

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

More explanations, some code and a video coming soon.

Antecedent:

A couple of months ago, having a look at some old stats in my last.fm profile, I realised how much I could remember a given time by just seeing the music I used to listen to (that old (unfinished?) project by marcos weskamp and didier hilhorst came to mind inmediately).

The source:

Last.fm keeps weekly data about what we listen to. We also can (could) construct a radio link based on various artists. For example:

lastfm://artist/bibio/similarartists

The application

A web page that, given some artists that I used to listen to in a given time (e.g: december 2005), constructs the url of a last.fm radio with those bands, so I can somehow “transport” myself to that time by listening to similar music…

And I’ve done it, but…

Last friday, the multiple artists station feature stopped working. In fact, I had some suspicion, but I thought that… nothing. I didn’t think of it and kept working.

So it is basically useless in its actual form, but it was finished (as a proof of concept, at least), so here it is:

Last.fm time machine (if it had worked i’d have looked for a better name).

I’m not sure if the idea can take another direction to become useful. I’ve thought of having a look at xspf to see if I can generate playlists instead of radios, but by now I don’t really know. If you have any ideas…

At the very least, it’s been useful to clean the dust over my php, use the last.fm webservices, a little bit of ajax (thanks mr.sofa naranja) and above all, to finish something.

By the way, avidos let me stay in their hosting to do some tests while mine hadn’t php5, and ignasi tudela tried to help me with the design, but apart from using Georgia and taking his colors for the different seasons, I didn’t pay him much (deserved) attention, and you can see the results. Thanks to both.

ChucK has gone through some api changes and tasty additions (low, band, high and stop pass filters…) in its last revision. I’ve just updated the edit mode which I did for JEdit. You can get it from here:

Chuck jedit mode updated for 1.2.0.7

For instructions on how to install, have a look at the previous post: JEdit for ChucK

Update: Thomas Friese has sent me a corrected version (mainly with removed duplicates) and has added some missing properties and methods. Now it is the “official” download. Thanks Tasmo!

So I have begun trying to learn chuck again.

To do it, I took alex maclean’s advice to the letter:

…my best advice when looking for inspiration is to listen to your favorite pieces of music. Listen to the structure behind a piece and think about how you might write an algorithm to create that structure…

(From Hacking perl in nightclubs)

And that’s what I came up with:

Clapping music is a piece by steve reich in which two performers repeat a simple pattern clapping their hands, with a little shifting every eight repetitions (for a better explanation see the wikipedia entry or watch a video).

The structure is so simple that I thought It would be a good starting point for a chuck exercise… And that’s what I did. Each “clapper” is on a stereo channel. The shifting occurs every 4th repetition.

See the code

Hear the result

Credits:

Score image taken from crownpoint

Claps sound taken from freesound (thanks noisecollector).