1	General / News / A Long-Overdue Update  on: Jul 11th, 2009, 12:38pm
Started by Forum Admin | Post by Forum Admin
It's been a tremendously busy year and once again I've fallen behind on my personal site updates. On top of that, I am currently getting ready to head out to a long-awaited vacation. Consequently, even though I have a lot of exciting news I would love to share, the updates may have to wait for a little bit longer while I focus on recharging my batteries. In the meantime, below are links of some of my more recent projects that have been taking up a good chunk of my creative energy:   http://l2ork.music.vt.edu http://disis.music.vt.edu/main/portfolio.html   Now back to packing...

2	Technology / Max and Pd corner / myu Max-Unity Toolkit v.1.0 Released  on: Feb 24th, 2009, 1:39pm
Started by Forum Admin | Post by Forum Admin
It is my great pleasure to announce immediate availability of the μ [myu] Max-Unity Interoperability Toolkit version 1.0. μ [myu] is designed to simplify communication between the Max/MSP/Jitter http://www.cycling74.com and Unity3D http://www.unity3d.com rapid prototyping environments. Utilizing the TCP network packets, μ [myu] allows for easy bi-directional control of Unity3D and Max/MSP/Jitter assets, as well as importing of dynamic Jitter textures into Unity3D scene. Apart from the Jitter-specific texture communication protocol, μ [myu] relies upon the netsend/netreceive framework, thus making it also compatible with Pure-Data http://www.pure-data.info.   Max/Msp/Jitter and Unity3D logos are trademarks of their respective owners.   WHY μ? Max/MSP/Jitter and Pure-Data offer unprecedented flexibility in digital signal processing, particularly audio, as well as easy integration of external controllers and sensors, video, and 3D assets, while Unity3D is an advanced scalable and optimized 3D gaming engine with integrated intuitive scene editor and physics engine. By coupling their strengths μ [myu] aims to expand their rapid prototyping potential with minimal integration overhead.   μ [myu] was developed at DISIS http://disis.music.vt.edu and is available for download from the DISIS website http://disis.music.vt.edu/main/portfolio.html.   For a YouTube tech demo please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=137huPA9sto. A high-resolution video available at http://disis.music.vt.edu/main/portfolio.html.   COPYRIGHT μ [myu] copyright DISIS 2008.   This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the version 3 of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation.   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.   For additional info on the GNU General Public License see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.   Questions, Comments, and PR Contacts: ico@vt.edu

3	Technology / Max and Pd corner / disis.aka.wiiremote 1.04 update  on: Feb 18th, 2009, 8:58pm
Started by Forum Admin | Post by Forum Admin
A new version of disis.aka.wiiremote Max external is now available from the usual place offering better Wii Fit balance board jitter calibration. By default the new external requires a minimum of 2kg (as opposed to 1kg used by v.1.03) to measure the center of balance. While testing the external with a number of Wii Fit boards, we found this to be the minimum threshold capable of alleviating the jitter consistently. The update also introduces the "jitteroffset" message, allowing for the adjustment of the said minimum weight threshold. Additional info can be found in the Max help file.   Cheers!

4	Technology / Borealis / Borealis Superkaramba Historic Re-Release v.2.6  on: Feb 8th, 2009, 4:36am
Started by Forum Admin | Post by Forum Admin
Not much of a news. Finally got around to repackaging what used to be a popular Superkaramba theme on http://www.kde-look.org. This version is identical to the version 2.5b except for the lack of automatic uninstaller that was buggy and whose use could result in accidental deletion of files unassociated with this theme. Given that I've done 0 testing, it is very likely this version may not (in part or at all) work with newer versions of KDE and/or Superkaramba. Hence, this release is mainly for historical reasons. For more info, check out the online manual:   http://ico.bukvic.net/Linux/Borealis_superkaramba/Borealis_manual/

5	Technology / News / Neverball Networking Hack  on: Feb 7th, 2009, 6:45pm
Started by Forum Admin | Post by Forum Admin
As part of a recent fun we had at DISIS with coupling Wii Fit, Max, and Neverball, earlier today I released a patch that allows for easy networking with the Neverball game that can also serve as an ideal platform for testing new and experimental user input devices. Make no mistake, this is an ugly hack, but the main point is that it for the most part works. More importantly, there has been some interest among the Neverball developers to possibly clean-up the patch and merge it into the game source (although considering the "quality" of my contribution I would not hold my breath on this one ). You can download the patch from the link below. It has been built against the 1.4.0-6 source available as part of the Ubuntu 8.10.   Happy recompiling!   http://ico.bukvic.net/Misc/neverball_networking_hack.tar.gz (18KB)

6	General / News / DISIS YouTube Channel  on: Feb 7th, 2009, 6:16pm
Started by Forum Admin | Post by Forum Admin
I quite honestly don't remember if I ever mentioned this before, so I guess better late than never.   Over the last year or so, my students and I have been uploading a footage of DISIS performances, creations, research, installations, and tech demos on the DISIS Youtube channel. As a result, the page has grown into a reasonable library of highlights reaching all the way back to DISIS inception. Time permitting, we are hoping to add more footage soon, so if this is something you might be interested, make sure to check out both the DISIS Youtube channel as well as the DISIS main page.

7	Technology / Max and Pd corner / Wii Fit + Max + Neverball = Lots of Fun  on: Feb 7th, 2009, 6:03pm
Started by Forum Admin | Post by Forum Admin
Last December, while developing disis.aka.wiiremote Max external, I could not resist but try to integrate controller in the awesome Super Monkey Ball clone and an open-source game Neverball. Within a day, my students and I were having way too much fun with this unbelievably easy hack (gotta love open-source software ).   As a result of the recent DISIS video footage clean-up, we've posted series of videos including the one showing off what we've come to believe to be the way to play this really cool game. For this and other DISIS footage, including performances, installations, and tech demos visit:   http://www.youtube.com/vtdisis   More specifically, for the Neverball video click here.   Finally, for those interested in trying this at home, the patch for the Neverball can be found here (I haven't gotten around to including the Max patch but putting it together should not be too difficult, as you need simply an UDP connection to the port 3000 with control data being formatted as space-delimited integer pairs that correspond to the game window resolution, e.g. 800x600 resolution would have no tilt with values of 400 300, whereas 0 0 value would lean fully towards the top-left corner).

8	Art / Research, Papers & Lectures / Lecture at the UVA Colloquium  on: Jan 27th, 2009, 1:09pm
Started by Forum Admin | Post by Forum Admin
Last Friday, I gave a lecture on my art and research (including the DREAM technology) as part of the UVA Colloquium. I had a lot of fun and it was wonderful to see old friends as well as make new contacts. Special thanks go to Dr. Judith Shatin for organizing this event!

9	Technology / Max and Pd corner / disis_munger~ 1.3.2 released  on: Jan 27th, 2009, 1:01pm
Started by Forum Admin | Post by Forum Admin
Version 1.3.2 of the "Swiss army knife of real-time granular synthesis" is now out in the wild. Includes source, project files, and binaries for Pd-linux, Max-Win32 (4 and 5), and Max-OSX (4 and 5).   New version fixes stability issues on Max5 (Win32).   disis_munger~ (a.k.a. munger1~) is a flext port of munger~ granulator from the PeRColate library with additional features and enhancements.   Download from: http://ico.bukvic.net/Max/disis_munger~_latest.zip

10	Technology / Max and Pd corner / disis.aka.wiiremote 1.03 now available  on: Jan 13th, 2009, 6:38pm
Started by Forum Admin | Post by Forum Admin
OK, so I missed a boatload of bug fixes in the last build . Hopefully, this is the final version--apart from remaining fixes (hopefully last of them), it also includes better build optimization and code clean-up.   Download: http://ico.bukvic.net/Max/