Webkitchen

While discussing a project with MakingThings, they told me to have a look at Max & Jitter. So here I am... :-)

Let me tell you about this project first.

Basically, the user sees a map with a few buttons on a projected screen in front of him. A camera is pointed at the user and I want to somehow track his hand movements to move a cursor on the screen and have him select one of the buttons. Selecting one of these buttons will play a movie about the selected subject.

1) Is this something that can be done with Max / Jitter? From what I've read over the weekend, I think it should be possible, no?

2) I've looked at a number of different patches for Max but can't seem to get most of them to work. I've looked at cv.jit, cyclops and taptools, but none of these work with Max 4.6.1 or I am doing something wrong.

3) Being a total Max newbie, I really have no clue where to start, so any help from you guys would be greatly appreciated. I've already looked at some of the Jitter tutorials (25jColorTracking) and got it to work with a webcam input but where do I go from here? How can I get these buttons/hotspots in there to listen to my webcam input... Code samples also greatly appreciated.

Let me tell you about this project first.
Basically, the user sees a map with a few buttons on a projected screen in front of him. A camera is pointed at the user and I want to somehow track his hand movements to move a cursor on the screen and have him select one of the buttons. Selecting one of these buttons will play a movie about the selected subject.

1) Is this something that can be done with Max / Jitter? From what I've read over the weekend, I think it should be possible, no?
2) I've looked at a number of different patches for Max but can't seem to get most of them to work. I've looked at cv.jit, cyclops and taptools, but none of these work with Max 4.6.1 or I am doing something wrong.
3) Being a total Max newbie, I really have no clue where to start, so any help from you guys would be greatly appreciated. I've already looked at some of the Jitter tutorials (25jColorTracking) and got it to work with a webcam input but where do I go from here? How can I get these buttons/hotspots in there to listen to my webcam input... Code samples also greatly appreciated.

motion-detectiontracking-max-newbie

> 1) Is this something that can be done with Max / Jitter? From what I've read over the weekend, I think it should be possible, no?

Yes, but if you've never used Jitter or Max before, you'll want to

budget some time just to learn how to use thte environment in general.

Also, there is not out of the box solution here, so you're going to

need to do some reading up on CV and figure out exactly what you mean

> 2) I've looked at a number of different patches for Max but can't seem to get most of them to work. I've looked at cv.jit, cyclops and taptools, but none of these work with Max 4.6.1 or I am doing something wrong.

If you're new, you might not know about the issues revolving around

the new release Universal Binary vs the old CFM style. Most likely,

your issues have to do with conflict due to mach-o/CFM

incompatibilities. You can download the CFM version of Jitter and

install the CFM support to get access to cv.jit.

> 3) Being a total Max newbie, I really have no clue where to start, so any help from you guys would be greatly appreciated. I've already looked at some of the Jitter tutorials (25jColorTracking) and got it to work with a webcam input but where do I go from here? How can I get these buttons/hotspots in there to listen to my webcam input... Code samples also greatly appreciated.

Go through the tutorials and try to search through the archives

(Jitter forum on C74 site) for answers to your questions regarding CV

stuff. There are tons of posts on this stuff. As a starting point,

https://cycling74.com/forums/index.php?t=msg&goto=78457&rid=0&srch=hand+gestures#msg_78457

Yes, but if you've never used Jitter or Max before, you'll want to
budget some time just to learn how to use thte environment in general.
 Also, there is not out of the box solution here, so you're going to
need to do some reading up on CV and figure out exactly what you mean
by "somehow track his hand movements".

If you're new, you might not know about the issues revolving around
the new release Universal Binary vs the old CFM style.  Most likely,
your issues have to do with conflict due to mach-o/CFM
incompatibilities.  You can download the CFM version of Jitter and
install the CFM support to get access to cv.jit.

Go through the tutorials and try to search through the archives
(Jitter forum on C74 site) for answers to your questions regarding CV
stuff.  There are tons of posts on this stuff.  As a starting point,
here's one recent thread:

> figure out exactly what you mean by "somehow track his hand movements".

Well... the user will be some 8 feet away from the screen and camera. So the camera will probably pick up more than just the hands. I've tried to do this with MakingThings' video board but that was just not good enough to get the resolution I wanted

Thanks for the tip... Will have a look at it.

By the way... If there's a Max user out here that can whip up this kind of application in a few hours, I'd be more than willing to pay for it. Due to a faulty delivery from MakingThings I've now lost 4 weeks on this project only to find out that the Making Things board isn't going to do what I intended so in order to keep this project, I'm gonna have to find a solution really soon...

> figure out exactly what you mean by "somehow track his hand movements".
Well... the user will be some 8 feet away from the screen and camera. So the camera will probably pick up more than just the hands. I've tried to do this with MakingThings' video board but that was just not good enough to get the resolution I wanted

> CFM version of jitter
Thanks for the tip... Will have a look at it.

By the way... If there's a Max user out here that can whip up this kind of application in a few hours, I'd be more than willing to pay for it. Due to a faulty delivery from MakingThings I've now lost 4 weeks on this project only to find out that the Making Things board isn't going to do what I intended so in order to keep this project, I'm gonna have to find a solution really soon...


> > figure out exactly what you mean by "somehow track his hand movements".

>Well... the user will be some 8 feet away from the screen and 

>camera. So the camera will probably pick up more than just the 

>hands. I've tried to do this with MakingThings' video board but that 

>was just not good enough to get the resolution I wanted

you could have a look at softVNS - 3rd party objects for max. Soft 

VNS is very very good at this kind of things (tracking etc) - it's 

http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/softVNS.html

>  > figure out exactly what you mean by "somehow track his hand movements".
>Well... the user will be some 8 feet away from the screen and 
>camera. So the camera will probably pick up more than just the 
>hands. I've tried to do this with MakingThings' video board but that 
>was just not good enough to get the resolution I wanted

you could have a look at softVNS -  3rd party objects for max. Soft 
VNS is very very good at this kind of things (tracking etc) - it's 
probably its main purpose..

kasper
-- 
  Kasper T. Toeplitz
noise, composition, bass, computer
http://www.sleazeArt.com

Yes... I did have a look at softVNS but I couldn't install it... I got an error saying he couldn't find Max. Even after pointing it to my max folder, I still got that error... :-(

Motion detection/tracking :: Max Newbie