Bart from Resolume has posted some details of the release of FreeFrame 1.5, including OpenGL-based FreeFrameGL:

FreeFrame 1.5 Release

Here’s why it makes us smiling, happy visualists:

• Open and wide: It’s open, and supported by multiple hosts (the creators of VJamm, Resolume, and Salvation all contributed to the 1.5 team)
• GPU, go! It gives you GPU-powered goodness, meaning more flexibility, power, and speed for 2D and 3D effects alike
• More pixels, more frames: It runs at higher resolutions and frame rates
• Third Dimension: It supports 3D functions and pixel shaders for joyous new eye candy
• Timing: A timing function allows time-dependent visual effects like particle systems and physical simulations (tasty!)
• Developer-friendly: Sample projects (Microsoft Visual Studio, Delphi, Xcode) and source should help get coders up and running — and the coders then turn out goodness for you non-coders
• User-friendly: If you don’t want to code, you can expect lots more awesome plug-ins for your VJ app of choice.

Join us in CDM Labs: If you’re interested in joining a special CDMotion team working on additional documentation and sample projects, give me a holler. Otherwise, stay tuned.

Pictured: one of the Resolume team’s plug-ins in development.

Anyone up for doing the Death Star?

One notable problem with Java (and thus Processing) is that, on its own, it’s not the best solution for doing the pixel-by-pixel processing and computer vision / motion tracking / video analysis, as it’s not as efficient for those kind of tasks as C/C++. The motion tracking / computer vision library for processing JMyron is actually written in C++ and wrapped in Java, for instance — though it’s important to note that the ability to wrap C/C++ code in Java is very nice. (And once you’ve done the basic analysis, you can get away with some iterating through pixels in Java/Processing, and it is fast for some related tasks like doing the actual animation.)

But C++ can be a bit unfriendly. There are libraries that are very helpful for doing this kind of work, but you have to track them down. Chris O’Shea of Pixelsumo writes about a new solution that could bring some of the basic ease of use of Processing’s integrated libraries to C++ work, in the form of Zach Lieberman’s new C++ library “OpenFrameWorks”:

OpenFrameWorks at Ars Electronica [Pixelsumo]

I’d keep a close eye on this, as Lieberman’s extensive experience building work that uses these techniques means he knows a lot about what’s needed in the way of performance. But there are some major caveats that mean this isn’t quite “Processing for C++”: