Handwriting and outline projection

gapworks

dear all,

i have some request from a choreographer about projecting handwriting in real time (i was hoping to use my i pad or leap motion ) on a screen behind the dancer in the first part of the upcoming show, for the second part she wants to extract the outline of the moving dancer via motion tracking. i have no idea where to start any of the 2 :(. any help out there?

thanx

peter

Skulpture

For handwriting in real time you need a shape actor and lots of motion blur. The X and Y movement will create a paintbrush like effect. To use your iPad look at Touch OSC and a big XY controller. This at its very basic will work.

Motion tracking is a difficult one at times. Lots to think about. I suggest looking at my blog posts as a starting point.

http://vjskulpture.wordpress.com/category/isadora-tutorials/

There are quite a few about Motion Tracking also.

MatthewH

Real time handwriting can also be done with the Particle system actor. Depending on your desires look that can sometimes give better results than the shapes actor

Skulpture

Also:

[http://troikatronix.com/troikatronixforum/discussion/41/joystick-and-other-hid-devices./p1](http://troikatronix.com/troikatronixforum/discussion/41/joystick-and-other-hid-devices./p1)

MatthewH

For handwriting, and iPad with a stylus or a Wacom tablet is probably going to be your best bet

gapworks

@ sculpture: thanx, i tried with shapes actor and motion blur. it works in a way but 2 major problems

1) i can´t get rid of the dot, only if i increase the gaussian blur, but the the writing gets to soft!

2) the letters disappear :( and there is quite a latency which means i can only write very slow !

i attached my first try, maybe i made some mistake.

@matthewH

i have a stylus and an i pad mini. i will try the particle version tomorrow! thanx

9b690e-handwriting.izz.zip

Another approach could be using a syphon screencapture sent into Isadora, and using Illustrator or sth along those lines. Experimented with it for a production where it wasn't used in the end, but it worked

PS: o yes and a Wacom pen is seriously recommended for this

gapworks

@ BartvanG this also sounds interesting , any more information about the syphon screen capture you worked with? I only found Information for MaxMsp.

thanx

ps: i have a bamboo pad!

There's a Quartz Composer/Syphon screencapture plugin, don't remember exactly where I got it, but with Google it shouldn't be too difficult to locate. I think now there's an example included which should work directly with Isadora once composition and plugin are put into the correct folders on your HD. Otherwise it's tinkering with inputs and outputs within Quartz. All this is assuming you're working on a Mac with the Core Version installed btw. The QTZ comp will show up as an actor in the Isadora Quartz toolbox which allows for screencapture with an "image" output to be used with the CI projector.

Hope this helps ;-)

vjw

I've been working on tracking dancers on stage, and we've been able to 'write' as a projection using an overhead camera to track the dancers. Wearing different color hats, each dancer can be tracked separately. I've attached a couple scenes made in 1.30f24. Valerie 24d604-writedecaysend.izz