Automating Screen Capture with MIDI AE
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Dear All,
A top user requested some help with this problem: how to automate the capture of stages output as a picture interactively. This is one solution that works. It requires a free app called MIDI AE that can be [downloaded here](http://www.intlab.soka.ac.jp/~unemi/1/MIDIAE/). This solution is for Mac OS X only.Attached you will find a .zip file with an Isadora demo file (which includes all instructions in Comment actors) and an example file for MIDI AE. Here are the steps required to use these files.SETUP- Ensure the IAC bus is enabled in Audio Midi Setup. See this URL for help: https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209774225-Using-virtual-MIDI-buses-in-Live
- Download and install MIDI AE. Double click "screencapture-setup.mdae" to open the file in MIDI AE
- Edit each command by double clicking the items under "COMMMAND." You need to edit the part after '-R'. The four values that follow are the left, top, width, and height of the area to be captured. You need to look at the arrangement of your screens and their position to come up with the values. For instance, for a Mac Book Pro with a 1920x1080 monitor directly to the right of the laptop display, you would enter "-R0,0,1440,900" to capture the main display and "-R1440,0,1920,1080" to capture the second display
- Also, for each command, you can edit the path where the file will be stored. Right now it is ~/Desktop/ which saves files to the desktop. You could also do something like ~/Documents/Pictures1/ to save the file into a folder called Pictures1 inside the Documents folder.
- Choose Window > MIDI Sources and ensure that the IAC Bus is checked as the MIDI Input.
- SAVE THE MIDI AE FILE. This is very important because there is a bug in MIDI AE that will cause it to lock up after the first MIDI Command is received. You will have to force quit MIDI AE and open the file again to edit it further.
- In Isadora, choose Communications > MIDI Setup and set Output 1 to "IAC Driver : Bus 1" (The IAC Buss will not be available unless you enable it in the Audio Midi Setup
- Trigger one of the Send Control actors. The appropriate screenshot will be taken and will appear on your desktop, or whatever folder you specified in the file path.
That's it. Tested and works well on Mac OS X 10.10.5Best Wishes,Mark
