Argos

Argos v0.21 has been released into the wild on the SVN!  Windows users can grab a binary of this release over at http://code.google.com/p/ofxargos/ This is mostly a tech demo — not ready for primetime yet.

Some annoying things you might notice:

1. Bounds checking isn’t complete.  It’s still possible to create controls offscreen (bad) and negatively re-size controls (very bad).
2. Can’t click + drag to move controls  (but you can use your keyboard arrows). Latest on the SVN enables this.
3. Re-sizing a toggle looks terrible….
4. Can’t re-size a knob.
5. Can’t set min&max values for knobs/sliders/xypads (this will happen with the inclusion of a more complete properties system).

In addition to fixing the above problems, XML saving/loading is next on the to-do list, so it will be possible to create layouts in version 0.25 (yay!)

With the impending release of the iPad in late March / early April, it would make sense to have Argos in a stable and useful condition for users by then. The tentative plan is to complete some of the major unfinished features and perhaps use ofx-iPhone. The potential of Asus and EEE tablets are also a strong incentive (although their multi-touch capabilities haven’t been confirmed quite yet).

Another option is to re-write the rendering portion of Argos in obj-c + openGL ES natively, and let the interface/editor talk through XML layouts (Lemur style).

Some of the bigger tasks on the list include:

• Global undo/redo engine
• Implementation of a (simple) physics engine
• Improvements to the editing engine
• RGB color selector widget (for themeing).

The last item on the list is optimization. Argos is pretty heavy on the CPU currently, but it’s getting better…

About 80% of the existing Argos code is currently being refactored, with special attention to new and expanded documentation.

So, if you are interested, I’d love to hear from you at ddiakopoulos@gmail.com if you could think you could lend a hand. Edit: I’ve also posted a new video over at Vimeo. Check it out on the media page or http://vimeo.com/9175177

December is the month of Argos! Well, not really, but some major updates are in the works.  Development has been markedly slower the past few months (fall academic semester), but some major code-re-factoring is going on in preparation of a version 0.20+ binary release.

Argos as a Google Summer of Code / NUIGroup-sponsered application has now successfully come to a close. Approximately 10 weeks after initial design and development began, Argos could now be considered in an Alpha state — still in-progress and constantly changing. Many thanks to my GSoC mentor Seth Sandler for his many helpful comments & ideas.

Here’s a quick screenshot taken during development today. It shows the recent progress on the knob control, although using an older default color scheme (now updated to be a more lively lime-green).

The GSoC midterm milestone passed and Argos has made some significant strides.Though it won’t be a full feature-complete application by the time GSoC is finished, a the most important featrues (drag & drop, OSC) will have been written.  Hopefully this framework will  open the door to other developers interested in helping out in a larger capacity.  Towards the end of September or October I’d like to see a compiled binary up for actual users/testers, but in the meantime, it’ll remain a ‘compile-at-your-own-risk’ endeavor.

Here is a short schedule (PDF Warning) of activity remaining this summer.

GSoC Continues! New this week is the beginning of the ofxArgosUI toolkit. It’s using some of the base classes developed by Todd Vanderlin for his ofxSimpleGui API. One of the core elements of his API is the fact UI elements lay themselves out on a grid (thus the ‘simple’ in its name). ofxArgosUI ritually sacrifices all of this simplicity by specifying that core parameters need to be defined by the user, e.g. width, height, location, and so on – things that are more common to most GUI toolkits.

As some of the base GUI widgets are developed, the InteractiveObject is being iteratively refined. For example, a developer will be able to specify behavior under different multi-touch conditions (one finger, two fingers, etc). More to come on this front later.

A large source of inspiration for this part of the project is from an open source UI framework called Clutter.

Clutter aims to be non specific — it implements no particular style, but rather provides a rich generic foundation that facilitates rapid and easy creation of higher level tool kits tailored to specific needs.

While a lot of their base framework mirrors the task of openFrameworks (that is, to abstract a lot of the low-level openGL code), some of their higher level functions are quite useful. For example, their code to draw rounded corners is great.

The SVN has been set up as a project at GoogleCode entitled ofxArgos. While the majority of work has been completed on the InteractiveObject, integration into a little sub-framework called ofxTouchAPI is still underway. InteractiveObject will be a major component of ofxTouchAPI, and will form the basis of the GUI toolkit Argos will use. Check out the SVN early next week — most of the progress to date will be available in an initial commit.

In other news, Peter Kirn from Create Digital Music has posted a recent writeup describing some of the other recent multi-touch inspired musical applications. Also of note is an article posted a few weeks ago detailing a musical interface builder on the iPhone, TouchOSC. The Argos project aims to expand on this idea by introducting a similar form of control, but in an operating-system and touch/input independent fashion. The idea is that since we use the open source TUIO protocol (and an implementation for C++/oF called ofxTUIO), that any multi-touch capable hardware and operating system that supports the common UDP network protocol can be customised for musical input using Argos.  Hooray for standards.

The first steps of Argos are being made. The notion of an interactive object that can tell whether or not it’s being used (touched, clicked, etc) is at the heart of the GUI system that’s being developed. Heavily influenced from ActionScript3, Memo has already done much of the legwork to create a class for oF, the ofxMSAInteractiveObject. Mirroring parts of the Lux multi-touch framework for ActionScript, the InteractiveObject will  be re-designed to listen to TUIO events and keep track of active touches on an object.

Soon (once I work out some naming issues) I’m going to set up the GoogleCode project where we’ll be hosting the SVN.  In the meantime, check out the NUICode project where I’ll (try to) document much of the progress during development.

More to come later…!