[gephex-devel] Similar project

[Philipp Promesberger]

Jean-Sébastien Senécal wrote:

> Hi,
>
>    I don't know if this is the right list to send this, please feel 
> free to tell me if not.

It is :)

>
>    We're currently developping an Open source software for online 
> video/audio effects, available here: http://orangeseeds.net/drone/ 
> (sorry, it's not very well maintained for now). We didn't know about 
> GePhex until recently and it seems that most of the things we'd like 
> to see in our software are currently part of GePhex, namely:
> - easy-to-use and intuitive interface
> - dataflow view (graphical meta-language)
> - real-time effects

I'm sorry that i haven't really had a look at your code yet but I'll try 
and compile it tomorrow and check it out. I think the one single point 
gephex is missing atm is the first point on your list: the easy to use 
and (especially) intuitive user interface. We have talked about how to 
design this in the next version (which is being developed right now) a 
lot and would certainly like to hear about your ideas regarding this issue.

>
>    We also really like the fact that it's object-oriented and that is 
> makes use of STL, because we think it's time for Open source software 
> to move on to advanced object-oriented programming now that the 
> compilers are (mostly) stable. 

Exactly :)

> Right now, we're looking for a way to make our software better, but 
> I've started to think, by looking at your software, that a cooperation 
> with you would be a very good thing for our project (and yours, 
> ultimately). I don't know yet what is the best formula, but here are 
> the options that I would consider:

I think this is very exciting and we can surely figure out a way to 
combine forces. I haven't really talked to any of the other developers 
yet but i'm fairly sure they will agree with me on that.

> 1) have a unifying framework for filters (won't be difficult since we 
> share the same dataflow-oriented, hard-typed philosophy)

This is being discussed in a lot of places.
First there is the freeframe API which gephex is gonna support in the 
next major release (0.5 / http://freeframe.sourceforge.net/ ).
Another approach is the (currently under development) livido API. It's 
being discussed for some time now and there hasn't been any agreement 
yet, so nobody can be exactly sure what is going to be happen with that 
( http://livido.dyne.org/ ).
During our attendance at piksel 04 we sketched our own API interface 
which is already supported by the current gephex version (no release 
version yet) and one other application written by a guy we met at 
piksel. It's a really simplistic approach to video effects and subject 
to improvement (there are no mutliple sources yet for instance) but it 
is meant to be as minimalistic as it is and there will be a more 
advanced version in the future. Check it out at: 
http://frei0r.kexbox.org/doc/html/frei0r_8h.html
We're gonna port most of the simple gephex effects to this format anyway 
because it the plugin loader will be changed in the next major version 
and it will make things easier.
So, as you can see, there are already many aproaches going on in this 
field. We're waiting for your comments :)

> 2) we continue developping our software but exchange code with you
> 3) we develop our own branch of GePhex
> 4) we drop our project and start contributing ideas and code to yours

I don't like 2) because it would probably involve a lot of redundancy. 
3) is probably the way to go if we can't agree at all on certain 
aspects. 4) is nice, but it's your choice to "drop your code" and IMHO 
it's pretty harsh. We certainly do not want to force our way of coding 
onto you and if there's a way to combine code it would probably be a 
much better solution to the issue.
There's a lot of stuff planned for the next major release and we'll be 
glad to tell you about our ideas and hear about yours. The development 
is in a very early stage right now and I would love to give you further 
details but I'm fairly tired atm so I might do so tomorrow :)

This is very exciting, I hope we can find a way to work together!

-coma