Here are a few screenshots that were created during a workshop at Node08 in Frankfurt.

We set up a Tagtool that talked to another computer running VVVV over OSC.

The input from the Tagtool was then remixed to produce different brush esthetics. Mainly we created textured quads along the path of the lines that where scaled according to the pressure and the speed of the cursor.

These images show that the Tagtool as an interface can also be used with different visual software to create interesting effects. Also they point to a refinement of the brush esthetics that we would like to incorporate into the Nodekit Tagtool patch.

Here’s a video of the talk at Breakpoint 08 held by Richard, Markus and Matthias.

For this seminar Richard wrote up a guide how to program a custom node for the Nodekit.

Props go out to the Breakpoint crew for making their seminars available!

We are happy to announce two upcoming Nodekit Events in Germany.

Breakpoint 2008, world’s biggest pure demoscene event. For the 6th time, up to 1000 creative participants from more than 30 nations are once again expected to gather in the beautiful town of Bingen am Rhein, Germany, from the 21st to the 24th of March 2008, enjoying 4 days of round-the-clock activities in arts, technology and international socializing.

Richard and Markus will give an introduction to the Nodekit, which is a node-based programming environment for interactive graphics that runs the Tagtool program. Richard, as the lead programmer, will explain the software architecture of the Nodekit and demonstrate how to program your own nodes. Markus, as the application designer, will talk about how the project evolved so far, the implications of offering the software under an Open Source licence and about the future roadmap of the project.

Saturday, 22. April 2008, 14:45
Seminar: Introducing the Nodekit - An Open-source Node-based Programming Environment for Interactive Graphics

NODE08 provides an event to the ever growing vvvv community, to get to know each other, to present, to exchange and share with a curious and interested audience. NODE08 is also part of the Luminale light art festival, which takes place at the same time in Frankfurt and will be supported by lighting art and lighting installations created by our participants.

The goal of the workshop is to communicate between vvvv and the Nodekit. We will send the data collected by drawing onto the Tagtool to vvvv to create parallel visual remixes.

Attention! Date has been changed to Thursday, 10th of April
UPDATE: The workshops take place on Wednesday, 9th of April
10am-1pm: Tagtool & Nodekit Workshop
2:30-5:30pm: Nodekit talks to VVVV over OSC Workshop

We’re pleased to announce a new version of the Tagtool software.

Previously we’ve been referring to it as the Tagtool Kit. We’ve decided to disassociate its name from the Tagtool, to emphasize that it is in fact a versatile toolkit for interactive graphics, rather than a specialized program. The Tagtool is just its most prominent application to date.

So let’s call it…

What’s new in Version 0.7:

• A new look
• Easier installation/removal
• New nodes
• Some major under-the-hood improvements

Here’s a guide to the Tagtool Controls in Version 0.7.

You can download Nodekit 0.7 and the sourcecode here.

For more details check the release notes!

This image demonstrates two new features in the works - brushes (Richard made a brush that draws Koch curves), and the new screenshot function - which can save screenshots at about 8000×6000 pixels. This could be an interesting feature for saving images for print. Of course saving out vector images is also on the roadmap, but this will probably still be a while.

I guess it will be quite important not to make the user interface of the Tagtool more complex when adding the brushes functionality… the plan right now is to connect a brush to the pen ID, so using a different brush means physically taking a different pen. The basic brushes we wanna implement are standard, calligraphic and a “paintbrush”, that can be used quite painterly, with more texture, without trying to emulate analogue paintbrushes. We got some inspiration from Caligraft.

Workshop @ Planet Prozess 2007

We have now enabled Full-Screen Anti-aliasing - so the visual quality of the Tagtool drawings has improved noticeably.

Further Progress:

• The Animator can now fade out individual or all tags with the gamepad.
• OSC functionality is progressing well (Listener and Sender nodes are working, only bundles still need to be implemented)
• And a few smaller bug fixes.

Some more progress both on the Software- and Hardware side…

We are now using the open-source physical computing platform Arduino to read out the sliders and pushbutton and get the data into the Tagtool Kit software. This is both cheaper and gives us higher resolution data than the Midi-based solution we were using so far.

The implementation of the OSC functionality is progressing well and the Listener node is functional.

The latest source code and the Arduino program will be available for download soon!

Drawing over the network has progressed quite well… the server node now can handle several client tagtools and drawing works without any visible lag… although there is still some optimizing to be done.

One issue that still needs to be addressed is how to synchronize the movement across all tagtool clients. In our current setup, the gamepad is connected to the server tagtool and all clients get the movement data. Unfortunately movement gets out of sync quite badly. So we need to figure out a way of synchronizing the positions of all tags across all clients.

But since our main priority for now is to have a multi-tagtool setup with only one display (from the server), we’ll be looking at other issues first before tackling this problem.

Our next tasks are implementing OSC, and replacing the .NET framework with Mono - so a Linux version is in sight.

Maki

We tested drawing over TCP/IP… the results are promising. We got it to work so you can join a Tagtool session with a second Tagtool that’s hooked up to another computer.
We still need to optimize performance though and fix a few issues, but the basic functionality is in place.