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REPORT VIDEO TRACKING

25 november 2006 10:00am

Hello to everybody, welcome to the Video Tracking System Report. The workshop this time is hold by Anurag.

Anurag gives us a panoramic on Eyesweb features. In 4 words it' a good programme because it's free, it has a nice graphical interface and it's an object oriented programming language (that allows also not geek people, that do get crazy with thousend of line of code, to learn it easily). A bad point is that the community around it, it's not yet that brilliant, it's improving but still this causes the programme to have many bugs. Ok, in the first 10 minutes we understand Anurag tells exactly how things are, simply and clear he explains without any "conventional decorations" to make the things more charming then what they really are.

Another good point of Eyesweb it's the great velocity with which it can compute data. It's also very good in interfacing with lots of other different softwares. And the good thing is that working with other software on the data collected by Eyesweb, you wont have any time delays. The programme uses the OSC (Open Sound Control) protocol to communicate with other softwares.

We then start to get into the practice. Everybody downloaded and installed the last version and after solving the little problem of Eyesweb not getting in love with some motherboard at first sight, we put the first objects.

Eyesweb it's a patching software. We need to do a little programme (a patch) that runs in loops costantly. It refresh hundreds of time each second. A lot compared to other software and that because it's a very light programme.

The morning from patch to patch is getting to and end. Anurag make us do many examples to track movements, apply filters, tools, get variables of the movement to export to other softwares,..

14:00 lunch break! mind break!

We come back and we go on with the explanation of different tools of the library. Then, as you are not sure about what you learnt till you do it alone, Anurag gives us an exercise to do. The problems comes and Anurag goes around solving them and giving explanation. The nice thing is that Anurag uses the programme to do installation himself and so, beside giving the solution to get a special effect, he explain other problematics that play a main role when you really have to create a interactive installation with Video tracking. He tells the story behind "Interactive Shadows", the things they didn't calculated the first time, how they solved it when they showed the installation the second time at Mixedmedia, the compromises they (Anurag and Giovanni Cannata) had to accept,... Time meanwhile runs fast.

Now the sun is tired and goes sleeping. Six pm came and pass, somebody goes to take the train, somebody exchange e-mail and phone numbers, somebody says "Bye, see you next weekend.." (for the Stop motion wks), as usually somebody stays till the very end just before the door closes..

And "This is the end, ..."