Touché 1.0b2

• Touché 1.0b2

  Touché 1.0b2 is a major update to the initial release, 1.0b1. It includes some new features, as well as lots of under-the-hood improvments. Have a look at the following release notes for more details.

  Important Notice 1: Since so many internal workings have been changed/improved, you might want to delete the preferences file created by 1.0b1, especially if you're experiencing weird issues with 1.0b2. It is located at ~/Library/Preferences/com.gkaindl.Touche.plist. Simply drag this file to the Trash.

  Important Notice 2: ToucheFramework.framework in 1.0b2 is API-compatible with 1.0b1, but not ABI-compatible. This means that you will have to re-compile any application you've already written with the new framework. Also, the old demo apps won't work with this. Use the demo apps that bundled in the 1.0b2 zip instead.

  Important Notice 3: Touché works best with cameras that are either supported by a native (i.e. non-third party, but Apple provided) QuickTime driver or by libdc1394 (i.e. any FireWire camera). Third-party drivers such as Macam can be very slow, so avoid them.

• New Feature: TUIO Support

  

  Touché can now output tracking data in the TUIO/OSC format.

  To add a new TUIO client, click "Add TUIO Client..." in the "Clients" menu. Into the dialog that pops up, enter the IP address (or host name) as well as the port that your TUIO client is listening on for tracking data. Click the "Add" button, and Touché will start sending TUIO data to this endpoint. You can add an arbitrary amount of TUIO clients this way. Framework clients and TUIO clients can also co-exist.

  To remove a TUIO client, right-click it in the list and select "Quit Client". Touché will immediately cease sending TUIO data to the client.

  Under "Settings" → "TUIO Settings", you can specify the sensitivity of what Touché will consider a "moving" blob in respect to TUIO output.

• New Feature: Color Inversion Filter

  

  There's now a Core Image color inversion filter in the filter chain. This is not only cool to take snapshots of yourself as a zombie, but also if you need to track dark blobs in front of a bright background (like in some DI setups). In this case, enable the filter.

• New Feature: Preservation of bright areas during background subtraction

  

  There's a new background subtraction filter setting that can be used to preserve bright pixels during background subtraction, if the difference between the unmodified pixel and the background-subtracted pixel falls above a given luminance threshold. Consult the built-in help book for more info on this setting (or simply play around with it). It's especially useful if the background is already very bright (like during daylight).

• 32/64-bit Universal Binary

  

  Touché 1.0b2 and its framework are universal binaries with a total of 4 different architectures: ppc, ppc64, i386 and x86_64, meaning that it now runs in 64-bit native mode on processors that support it.

  The speed gain from this will be especially noticeable on 64-bit enabled Intel processors, where the amount of general purpose and SSE registers is double that of 32-bit mode, reducing register pressure and potentially allowing for faster execution.

  64-bit compatible Macs are all MacPro models, all G5 models and all Macs with a Core 2 Duo processor.

• Performance Improvements

  

  Various performance improvements have gone into 1.0b2. Examples are a fully multi-threaded tracking pipeline (throw 2, 4, 8 or more cores at it — it knows to use them all), re-use of allocated resources (rather than throwing them away and re-allocating them later), a couple of math code tunings, etc. The difference should be more than noticeable, especially on fast systems.

• Other Changes

  For a detailed list of all the changes, check out the commit log on Google Code.

  • Better support for libdc1394 cameras
  • Updated help book
  • Stability improvements
  • Bugfixes