Grabbo, MIDI Controller Software for BeOS, Uses Computer Vision
May 23, 1998Tebo Software announces the availability of a
free demo version of Grabbo, a unique "video-to-MIDI converter" for the
BeOS. Grabbo uses a realtime computer vision algorithm to generate MIDI
commands that can be sent to external devices or to the BeOS internal MIDI
synthesizer. Operating in realtime, Grabbo works with any video source,
including broadcast television signals. Incoming video is analyzed and
compared to stored video frames to compute MIDI values for output. Future
versions of Grabbo will be able to send messages to any BeOS program, using
BeOS inter-application messaging. Grabbo is the only BeOS software available
for video control of MIDI devices.
The free beta version of Grabbo 0.9 is available today at the Tebo Software
website, http://www.idiom.com/~tebo/, and will soon also be available at the
BeWare site, http://www.be.com/beware/. The full commercial release is
planned for Q4 1998, pricing to be determined. Check for final pricing and
online ordering information at the Tebo Software website. Grabbo 0.9 will
expire on August 1, 1998.
Grabbo analyzes images based on the orientation of objects, rather than
position. Two different algorithms are currently provided: one outputs an
index based on the closest matching image in a set of stored video frames.
The other is a 3D interpolation scheme, which associates stored frames with
points in 3D space, and computes a position between the points based on the
similarity of the current video image to the keyframes. Although the current
demo version controls a single 3D point, the full commercial release will
support the interpolation of multiple 3D points, simultaneously; each
coordinate of the interpolated positions will be assignable to a separate
MIDI parameter. (The current demo release has these parameters hardcoded to
specific parameters.) Using BeOS inter-application messages from Grabbo, the
current 3D position is displayed using OpenGL by a companion application,
3dReceiver.
Bill Thibault, the creator of Grabbo, said, "Using Grabbo is like having
your body connected to another place by an unseen, alien mechanism. Your
body knows what to do with Grabbo, even if your mind is boggled by it."
Grabbo requires a BeOS-supported video capture card, which currently
includes most cards using a Bt848 chip, such as the Hauppauge WinTV. Grabbo
also requires a video display card which supports BeOS BDirectWindow, which
allows 30fps display of incoming video. Currently, only Matrox Millenium and
Mystique cards have BDirectWindow support. External MIDI hardware is not
required, but is needed to realize Grabbo's full potential as a MIDI
controller: Grabbo can the BeOS built-in synthesizer. On a fast cpu, Grabbo
analyzes frames at 30fps. However, this version of Grabbo will only analyze
at about 10fps on a Bebox-133. The size of the frames grabbed for analysis
will be user-configurable in the commercial release, allowing any BeOS
machine to achieve video-rate image analysis. BeOS was chosen for Grabbo due
to its efficient handling of multimedia and its object-oriented API.
The BeOS (available from Be, Inc. at http://www.be.com ) is a new, modern,
high-performance, media-optimized personal computer operating system that
runs on Intel Pentium-based and PowerPC desktop computers. The BeOS
incorporates pervasive multithreading, symmetric multiprocessing, protected
memory, a 64-bit journaling file system, client-server based architecture
and an object-oriented API. The BeOS delivers the performance required for
multimedia applications, with unprecedented user responsiveness and enabling
real-time manipulation and feedback capabilities in applications.
Tebo Software was founded by Bill Thibault in 1997. Dr. Thibault has a Ph.D.
in Information and Computer Science from Georgia Tech, and is a member of
the faculty of California State University Hayward. His work with Binary
Space Partitioning (BSP) trees appears in SIGGRAPH conference proceedings
and numerous textbooks on Computer Graphics. More recently, his work has
focused on realtime multimedia performance. For more information, visit their web site at www.idiom.com/~tebo. |
