[PD-dev] [GEM] names

bbogart at ryerson.ca bbogart at ryerson.ca
Tue Apr 29 23:53:08 CEST 2003


All the new names sound good to me, but I wanted to clarify pix_background a bit:

Does it just subtract a reference frame (background) from the current frame and then apply that as an alpha channel to the outgoing frame? (or does it fill the background with a color?)

perhaps something like pix_key makes the most sense, may be used for a background, but maybe not, but as some other keying type. pix_key could do the above mentioned operation on a the current frame coming into the left inlet using the "key" (background etc.) coming into the right inlet? 

Some ideas anyhow,

Will get cracking on some tutorials once my move is over! 

Oh and one other suggestion, on my last project it was quite anoying to have the video render stop when a new set of still jpegs were loaded into pix_images. Would it be possible to thread the image-loader so that it does not interupt video rendering? (same goes for video files, but I think those loaders are already threaded?)

Ben

----- Original Message -----
From: chris clepper <cclepper at artic.edu>
Date: Monday, April 28, 2003 7:00 pm
Subject: [PD-dev] [GEM] names

> Hi
> 
> I mentioned in the last post about a new GEM release that some of 
> the 
> names of various objects don't really match what they do very 
> well. 
> i think i've said on a few occasions that the name of the object 
> needs to tell the user what they do rather than be some 
> excessively 
> cute, clever name from a book no one has read, Hindu deities  or 
> someone's cat (btw, all of these are used as names in other video 
> systems).  so here's a list of objects and suggested changes:
> 
> - pix_blur - this should be renamed pix_motionblur and pix_blur 
> will 
> be an abstraction for a convolution based blur.
> 
> - pix_buf - would it be better to rename this pix_separator to 
> mirror 
> the separator object?  pix_buf can remain for compatibility.
> 
> - pix_depot - why not call it pix_buffer?  or pix_table or 
> pix_array? 
> something that is a common term for a chunk of memory filled with 
> data (frames of video in this case).  yes, a depot is a place to 
> store things but it's mainly used as a military term or in the 
> name 
> of a large chain of hardware and office supply stores in the US 
> (Home 
> Depot and Office Depot respectively).
> 
> - pix_put/get - could be pix_buffer_write and pix_buffer_read.  
> these 
> seem a little more specific to me and the name-space extension 
> allows 
> for direct association of functions with the pix_buffer object.
> 
> also i was thinking of making objects that performed various 
> actions 
> on the buffer or used it in some way for processing.  also, this 
> could facilitate non-realtime renders. examples:
> 
> pix_buffer_average - averages the frames in the buffer and stores 
> the 
> result as a single frame.  useful for motion detection and 
> compositing and pix_background type effects
> 
> pix_buffer_record - dumps the contents of the buffer into a 
> Quicktime 
> .mov and compresses them.  could be useful in situations where the 
> frames can be stored in the buffer but compression takes too much 
> time to be done in real-time (like MPEG-2 or 4).
> 
> pix_buffer_motionblur - really high quality motion blurring 
> requires 
> lots of frames to be used and is generally not a real-time 
> operation. 
> if you've ever seen the shake motion blur you know about this.
> 
> there are some other ones that are new to CVS that might need 
> better names:
> 
> - pix_background - this removes the background from based on a 
> static 
> image snapshot.  is there a more meaningful name that better 
> describes this?  pix_background_remove is a bit excessive i think.
> 
> - pix_scanline - this does image decimation based on either 
> repeating 
> or removing rows of pixels, so it does do scanline processing but 
> is 
> that really clear?
> 
> i don't think any of the objects are really in wide-spread use 
> except 
> for pix_buf which can remain for compatibility purposes.  maybe 
> this 
> is just a personal pet-peeve, and no one really cares what the 
> objects are called as long as they work, but i thought i would 
> make 
> some suggestions and see what people think.
> 
> cgc
> 
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