Michael Ang

(My apologies as I finally clear out a bunch of older stuff I’d like to share…)

Back in NYC I had the pleasure of attending a three-day workshop on OpenFrameworks, a C/C++ library developed at Parsons for interactive video pieces. It integrates several existing open source libraries and provides some wrapper/utility code of its own. I’ve definitely seen that it’s hard for beginners to get started with C/C++, so this will be a big help. It’s in the early stages and a lot of work is required before it will be really easy, but it’s good to see something in the spirit of Processing in C++. Thanks to Eyebeam for hosting, and Zach/Evan/Theo for teaching!

Theo’s page about the workshop
The code!

Blurb about the workshop:

Open-frameworks is an open source, cross platform, c++ library, which was designed to make programming in c++ for students accessible and easy.

In it, the developers wrap several different libraries, opengl for graphics, quicktime for movie playing and capturing, free type for font rendering, into a convenient package (essentially mirroring parts of the processing api) in order to create a simple, intuitive framework for creating projects using c++. It is designed to work in freely available compilers, such as dev-c++, eclipse and xcode.

This workshop presents an introduction to the library, and some experience for participants to explore using it for art making and computational meandering. The workshop will take place over three evenings, building on concepts previously covered.

Hydrobot Mark I is a robot that makes music using water. Mark I sprays water pressurized by a pump onto metal resonator plates that are attached to a contact microphone. Laser-cut acrylic disks mounted to waterproofed motors spin and interrupt the flow of water to create rhythm. The sound of the contact microphone is amplified and broadcast to the audience.

Hydrobot Mark I made his debut performance at the ITP TOOL show at Tonic Saturday night. Everything worked great though in the final sound check I turned the water pressure down just a tad too much so the effect was a little more subtle than I had wanted. Mark II will have greater (and dynamically controllable) dynamics!

Video exists, but hasn’t been captured yet, so here are the pictures from final construction at ITP and setup at Tonic. The show was great, with many fantastic performances and installations.

Pictures from Hydrobot Mark I debut peformance at Tonic NYC

I’m looking for a 3D sound API in C/C++. Cross-platform is of course nice. I found OpenAL which purportedly works on Windows, OSX and Linux. The tutorials don’t seem that scary, but I’m not really looking forward to doing threads in C++ again. Basically I want something where I can output to quad sound.

If anyone knows of an decent API, please let me know!