Category Archives: Open Source

openFrameworks, ofxCV, and ofxFaceTracker

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ofxFaceTracker

Really bad ofxFaceTracker expressions example :D

I wish I could say I am a cool kid for figuring this out but this code has been around for some months now, but finally I got to see what all the fuss is about the past couple weekends. I feel like my first steps are pretty insignificant when you look at all the creative stuff that’s already been achieved with this, but still it’s so much fun to build these projects from source and play around with just my macbookpro and iSight.

It’s no excuse but I’ve been too busy with other side projects to get around to it ’till now.  At long last I cloned the openFrameworks github repo along with ofxFaceTracker.  After a couple years almost of knowing about these projects, the veil has finally been completely lifted!

After learning a bit about openFrameworks and cloning it I realized how clean and organized it is, making it easy to learn and extend.

I think this is my new playground for a while.  There are so many add-ons already to play with even ones for arduino and iphone.  Plopping in ofxFaceTracker was really much easier than it could have been, although I did do some clean-up of some libs and subsequently tweaking and reconfiguring the projects and solutions

Plowing through all the opencv and openFrameworks examples became a breeze and after soaking in all that information I decided to see if the face tracker software would work. It’s stunning to think that this is freely available out there and, above all, works! I have in my hands technology once only available through proprietary channels and I can dig in and see how it all works. I’m a kid in a candy store!

I hope to apply my expertise in facial animation to write an ofxFaceRetargeter to collect and remap data from the tracker onto a creature/character although it seems this has already been achieved through proprietary software like faceshift available in Autodesk App Exchange.  Things are changing so rapidly…  I need to dip my toes into Unity3d and C++ more in the coming weeks.

 

Headless RPi Gets it on with Dashing Arduino

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These are my first explorations with the RaspberryPi in conjunction with Arduino.  I try to keep things as simple as possible and only use Cygwin terminal to administer the Raspi remotely via ssh or sftp.  Sometimes its just easier to use WinSCP to graphically drag and drop a bunch of files though.  For forwarding X11 I use Cygwin’s installation of XWin on my Windows machine as the client.  It’s as simple as setting the DISPLAY env variable and opening a ssh connection in conjunction with using the display forwarding option.

The Setup

  • Windows 7 PC running Cygwin with XWin
  • RaspberryPi running Raspbian — Debian Wheezy for RPi
  • Arduino powered with an old Linksys modem DC adaptor
  • Additional software: ssh, sftp, winSCP, Processing, Arduino, VICE
  • All software is free and open-source
  • All hardware is open-source and very cheap or salvaged!
RaspberryPi with Arduino

RaspberryPi with Arduino, 2 Hearts beating in just one LED.

Continue reading →

 

2012: The Year of the Dragon, DIY, Hacktivism (Oh, hai der Mr. Blarg!)

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oh hai!

It’s been long enough. The intention to get back to blogging, probably the most enriching things that the internet can be used for, is not as easy as it the benefit would lead one to believe. It is often the hardest these sort of things in life that have the greatest benefit that go without being utilized, but that changes now with the mother of all instigators, New Years Day.

What’s the topic of the year that is a continuation and solidification of growing interest in the previous year? What else, the ubiquitous topic across the blog-o-sphere; filtering, utilizing and leveraging the mind-numbingly viral growth of open source hardware and software, DIY, Hacktivism, Public Domain, and Creative Commons information to engage in gratuitous amounts of geekery, life/career hacking.

Expect expositions in 2012 on topics in addition to the aforementioned and the regular posts on 3d animation and tech art ranging in this list of interests:

Linux
C-Shell Scripting
Python
Arduino
Use of hobby as a way of making money
Dynamic DNS
Game Dev
Futurism
Virtual Computing

Hopefully shedding some light on some of the fundamentals will blaze trails for others that are interested to get started in the most noble of activities of the modern era, one that is being affected by movements like SOPA; developing and sharing software and media and artist entrepreneurialism.