Fugio Friday: New Logo and Easy Shader 2D

Happy Fugio Friday!

And I am happy to show off the excellent new Fugio logo that was kindly created by designer Eleanor Hyland-Stanbrook.  Thank you, Eleanor!  As we speak it is being made into laptop stickers and pin badges that will be available at the upcoming Ars Electronica Mini Maker Faire.

If you’re not able to make it to Linz but you still want a sticker/badge, I will be sending them out to all the lovely people who are supporting Fugio on Patreon (don’t forget to enter your shipping address!).

Work has been continuing on the updated OpenGL implementation and I’ve created a new, and much simpler way of using 2D shaders.

While Fugio aims to provide the most flexible access to the underlying technologies, this can sometimes result in having to use a lot of nodes, and this is very obvious when creating an OpenGL shader.  The current wobbly kitten shader example looks like this:

That’s a lot of nodes!  However, with the new Easy Shader 2D node that I’m working on, it now looks like this:

That’s eight less nodes, which means less clutter and the patch being easier to navigate. It also works on both desktop and Raspberry Pi.  Additionally, you can still use the existing shader nodes if you need the extra power and control they give you.

The code for this is in GitHub now if you want to try it out but a binary release is a little while off while I continue work on the Raspberry Pi support.

Have a great weekend!

Fugio Friday: Ars Electronica Mini Maker Faire in Linz

Happy Fugio Friday!

This week it was confirmed that Fugio will have its very own stand at the Mini Maker Faire Linz, in Austria as part of the Ars Electronica Festival 2017.

We’ll be introducing Fugio to visitors and helping them make some patches with MIDI controllers, lights, sounds, and probably some bananas.

We’ll also be showing Fugio running on Raspberry Pi with the new OpenGL support in place, as can be seen running in this short video where Fugio is being synchronised between a Windows machine and a Raspberry Pi 3.

Hopefully we’ll have some badges to give away too!

The Mini Maker Faire will be at POSTCITY on Sunday, September 10, 2017, 10 AM-7 PM

Hope to see you there!

Fugio Friday: August 2017 WIP

Happy Fugio Friday!

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on refactoring the whole OpenGL plugin to better support Raspberry Pi.

The new release of the Raspberry Pi operating system called Raspbian Stretch has Qt 5.7 built in and comes with FFMPEG instead of libav.  This is great news for Fugio as it’s much more in line with the libraries we’ve been using.

I’m busy building Fugio on my Raspberry Pi 3 (not cross compiling) as I type, although I wouldn’t recommend trying this yourself just yet as it needs some work to get it compiling.

With this latest update, I should be able to create a binary repository for installing Fugio onto Pi’s without compiling.

As ever, this is loads of work that will be available to everyone for free, so if you can, please consider supporting the project by donating just $1 a month via Patreon.

Also, check out the first look at my new projector blending tool that Fugio will support for multi-screen projections.

Have a great weekend!

Fugio Friday: ISF Render To Texture

Happy Fugio Friday!

This week we have a new release: v2.13.0

It was noted in the Fugio Users Group that there was no (easy) way to render an Interactive Shader Node (ISF) to a texture, which would be very handy for passing to Syphon and Spout.

This release has a new Render To Texture node and several fixes in the OpenGL and ISF plugins that make this possible.

There has also been a lot of work done on the new time synchronisation system but that’s not quite ready for release yet (the code is on GitHub if you want to check it out early).

As there is a new binary release, I’m pushing the launch of The Fugio Zone to next Friday, but if you want to get early access, you can get the login details right now by becoming a Fugio sponsor on Patreon!  Just a little donation helps with all the costs of running an open source project, such as hosting, domain names, etc.

Download Fugio v2.13.0 for Windows and macOS (source code)

Have a great weekend!

PS: Near Derby?  Go see my robot artworks in the Our Friends Electric exhibition!

NEW

  • New Examples:
    • ISF/Render To Texture
  • New Nodes:
    • OpenGL/Render To Texture
    • Time/Universe Receive
    • Time/Universe Send
  • Time synchronisation is working and almost ready for release

UPDATED

  • ISF and Texture Monitor use the correct texture coords

FIXED

  • ISF wasn’t restoring the current framebuffer
  • Saving broke some file paths
  • Cleaned up some incorrect OpenGL calls
  • Image format could get confused in OpenCV/Flip

Fugio Friday: v2.12.0

Happy Fugio Friday!

This week we have a new release, the twelfth this year: v2.12.0

This release features several new nodes, and some needed bug fixes to the media playback plugin, and many more updates and features.

One key feature is the ability to save a JPG or PNG screenshot of your patches, which you can then upload to the new website I’ve been building called The Fugio Zone that allows users of Fugio to share and discuss the patches they make.

If you want early access to the site, you can get the login details by becoming a Fugio sponsor on Patreon!  Just a little donation helps with all the costs of running an open source project, such as hosting, domain names, etc.

Download Fugio v2.12.0 for Windows and macOS (source code)

Have a great weekend!

NEW

  • Added ability to save an image of the currently open patch from the file menu
  • New Nodes:
    • Core/BitsToBool
    • Core/BoolToBits
    • Math/Modulus
    • Network/PacketDecoder
    • Network/PacketEncoder
    • Serial/SerialDecode
    • Serial/SerialEncode
    • Text/TextEditorRemote
    • Time/UniverseTime
  • New Pins
    • Core/BitArray
    • Text/SyntaxError
  • Added Bias pin to SignalNumber
  • Saving patches creates (backwards compatible) human readable header
  • Started adding the concept of a Universal Time between Fugio instances running over a network (not quite ready for use yet!)

UPDATED

  • Compiled with Qt 5.9
  • Fugio now processes patches on a separate thread (currently locked to 100fps)
  • Updated SyntaxHighlighter system
  • Updated Lua Matrix4x4 and Vector3d classes
  • FugioLib is now compiled and linked as a static library
  • OutputRange accepts index
  • Lua now has a trigger pin
  • Adjusted latency handling in DevicePortAudio
  • Added performance counter in SpoutReceiver
  • Rewrote OpenGL/Context to use QOffscreenSurface (a good thing!)

FIXED

  • Fixed a whole heap of issues in FFMPEG media playback
  • Magnitude wasn’t using sample count
  • Caught invalid input to ScaleImage

Fugio Friday: Entering the Zone

Happy Fugio Friday!

It’s been a hot and busy past couple of weeks.  Last week I didn’t even have time to do Fugio Friday as I was busy installing robots in a new art exhibition in QUAD Derby.

Since then I have started work on a new website for users of Fugio to upload and share their patches.

It’s called The Fugio Zone

As you can tell, it’s not quite ready for public use yet, and not being a web designer it’s going for a heavy minimal look!  I will be inviting a few people to test it over the coming weeks, so if you’re interested in doing that then let me know.

Have a good weekend!

Fugio Friday: Text Syntax Update

Happy Fugio Friday!

This week work has continued on doing fun things with Raspberry Pi’s!

One key thing I need to be able to do is control patches remotely.  While there are already plenty of options for sending and receiving pin data (see the updated Network plugin documentation), there is no possibility for using a text editor remotely while retaining syntax highlighting and error reporting, which are both very helpful when hacking shaders and scripts.

The dream being that I can have an editor on a laptop and remotely live code a shader on a Raspberry Pi.

So I’ve refactored the syntax highlighting and syntax error reporting system to facilitate sharing this information remotely.  Next up is writing a couple of nodes for sending and receiving this information over a network.

This should even work over the internet, which opens up some interesting remote collaborative options!

You’ll also notice in the image at the top, I’ve updated the Text Editor to show errors by highlighting the line numbers in red, which is a lot clearer.

I also enabled sending keyboard events from one Fugio to another, which should also prove useful in the future.

All the code changes are available in the GitHub repository.

I’ve cleaned up and organised the Core plugin documentation.  Still much to do, though I’m slowly working my way through it.

Finally, I wanted to highlight this new patch by Winfred Nak that he posted up in the Fugio Users Group on Facebook.  It’s a rather cool game show buzzer where the first button pressed will trigger off the music for that team.  It’s a good application of logic nodes, which are really useful!

Gameshow Buzzer by Winfred Nak

If one was so inclined, one could add a Firmata node and use an Arduino and real physical buttons as inputs…

Next week I’ll be setting up our robots as part of a new exhibition called Our Friends Electric at QUAD Derby.  The launch event is on Friday and I’ll be speaking at an event there on Saturday.  Come along and say hello!

Have a great weekend…

Fugio Friday: Raspberry Pi updates

Happy Fugio Friday!

I’ve been getting the Raspberry Pi support in Fugio up to speed.  The wiki build instructions have been updated to support Qt 5.9, which is the latest version.

The main work is on getting the OpenGL support working, which is going quite well but there is some refactoring to do to support OpenGL ES.

There’s also been some work on synchronising Fugio running on multiple computers across a local network.  This is in early stages but is looking very interesting.

In a couple of weeks I’m aiming to have the first Fugio RPi image ready for download so you don’t need to go through the long process of compiling it yourself.

If you’re enjoying the ongoing Fugio developments, it would be great to have your support:

Have a great weekend!

Fugio Friday: CMake build progress

Happy Fugio Friday!

This week I’ve been focussing on creating a fully working CMake build system in place for Fugio.

As Fugio currently builds using Qt’s qmake, why do we need an alternative?

  • In a recent Qt blog post it was made clear that qmake is going to be deprecated in Qt6 in favour of a new tool called Qbs (pronounced cubes).
  • As CMake can be used to build all sorts of projects, and not just Qt ones, it enjoys a much larger user base.
  • The CMake file for a Fugio plugin seems to be a lot simpler than for the equivalent qmake file, especially when specifying cross platform options.
  • It seems easier to setup clean, automated builds that I seem to be needing more to simplify and make more reliable the process of Fugio binary releases, specifically for Raspberry Pi builds, too.
  • If someone wants to work on the Fugio code base, CMake allows the user to use their IDE of choice and be less tied to Qt Creator.

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So I’ve been struggling through creating the first set of CMake files, getting my head around how best to bring in all the required libraries.

I’ve invested in this book (associate link) so I can get my CMake skills up to scratch.

You can follow my progress on this GitHub branch and I hope to have a release ready for next week.

Until then, have a good weekend!

Fugio Friday: Interactive Shader Format support

Happy Fugio Friday!

This week we have a new binary release of v2.11.0 that introduces the new Interactive Shader Format (ISF) plugin that I’ve been working on for the past few weeks.

The plugin allows loading and developing of OpenGL shaders with a much simpler interface and has built in support for audio and FFT data so you can easily make audio reactive shaders.

Download Fugio 2.11.0 for Windows (7, 8, 8.1, 10)

Download Fugio 2.11.0 for macOS/OS X (Mavericks 10.9+)

New Fugio Art Installation

My other big news is that I have just signed off for a major new Fugio based art installation for the Francis Crick Institute in London.

The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute dedicated to understanding the fundamental biology underlying health and disease. Its work is helping to understand why disease develops and to translate discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, infections, and neurodegenerative diseases.

An independent organisation, its founding partners are the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK, Wellcome, UCL (University College London), Imperial College London and King’s College London.

The new artwork will reflect the highly active and diverse range of activities taking place within the institute that are at the cutting edge of biomedical science, and incorporate historical elements referencing Francis Crick’s achievements and legacy.

The installation will be constructed over the course of 2017 and launched in January 2018.

The artwork will be using Fugio running on around 20-25 Raspberry Pi computers, so expect to see a lot of updates for the RPi build of Fugio in the coming months.

Have a good weekend and see you next week!

NEW

  • Interactive Shader Format (ISF) plugin
  • OpenGL TextureMonitorNode
  • Added exprtk submodule
  • Added initial Windows 64 build (not all plugins supported)

UPDATED

  • Builds with Qt 5.5
  • FilenameNode reports error when file doesn’t exist
  • Optimised drawing of background in MIDI and Media timeline

FIXED

  • Various minor build issues