A previous workshop

Intermediate Creative Coding with openFrameworks

with Jeff Crouse

####This is a 6 week workshop. Saturdays, 1pm-5pm, September 21-October 26th

Have you been working with Processing or ActionScript, but need more performance to realize your interactive project? Are you a JavaScript hacker who’d like to add c++ to her arsenal of skills? If so, it’s probably time to make the jump to openFrameworks, an open source c++ toolkit for creative coding. OpenFrameworks is not only a very powerful tool for creative coding, but a great way to enter the sometimes daunting world of c++. For just a few examples of the type of things that are possible with openFrameworks, check out the oF gallery here.

This 6-week intensive workshop is for coders who are already familiar with object oriented programming concepts, but would like to dive into openFrameworks. We will cover topics such as interfacing with web services, intermediate-level oF/openGL classes, common computer vision techniques, and working with addons. For a full list of topics covered, please see the agenda below.

Participants are encouraged (but not required) to come in with a specific idea for a project they’d like to do. Each week, we will work for 3 hours on covering new concepts, and then (time permitting) spend the last hour working on individual projects. Additional “studio/office hours” for working on and getting assitance with projects can be arranged for a nominal fee.

###Prerequisites

This is an intermediate level workshop. You must be comfortable with object oriented programming concepts to participate. If you aren’t sure whether you are ready to take this workshop, please ask me. If you would like to take this workshop but aren’t sure you meet the prerequisites, please contact me and let me know. If there is enough interest, I will run a 3 week “Introduction to Creative Coding with openFrameworks” workshop before this one, or we can arrange one-on-one tutoring to prepare you for this workshop.

IMPORTANT Participants should download and install openFrameworks (and appropriate IDE) and run all examples in the “examples” folder before the first workshop. If you need help with either of these steps, please contact us.</p>

###Agenda

This is is a rough outline of the topics that we will cover in the workshop. I will try my best to get through every topic listed here. However, at Kitchen Table Coders we keep wokshop sizes very small so that we can personalize each one as much as possible. So it may change over the course of the class based on interest and skill level.

Week 1: Sept 21 - Introduction

  • openFrameworks introduction
  • basic drawing and colors
  • ofImage vs ofTexture (what’s the difference?)
  • using vectors in 2D and 3D space
  • noise
  • ofTrueTypeFont, ofDirectory
  • ofVideoGrabber, ofVideoPlayer
  • Finding/Using addons

Week 2: Sept 28- openGL

  • matrix transformations
  • ofMesh (ofVBO, ofVboMesh)
  • ofCamera
  • ofFbo
  • ofShader

Week 3: October 5 - Networking/Web

* ofxLibWebSockets

  • ofURLFileLoader
  • interfacing with web services (REST, JSON)
  • Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, EchoNest, Awesomium
  • basic regular expressions
  • calling command line programs from within oF

Week 4: October 12 - Computer Vision

  • sifting through pixels
  • isolate a single color in video input
  • background subtraction
  • blob detection
  • blob tracking
  • Kinect

Week 5: October 19: c++ && Memory

  • References
  • Pointers
  • Passing by pointer vs pass by reference
  • Constructors
  • the “new” operator

Week 6: October 26: Buffer Week

This week will either be used to cover stuff we didn’t get to in the previous weeks, or any topic that the participants wish to cover. Last year, we did a basic Unity introduction and some additional Kinect lessons. Oher potential topics could be iOS development, physics simulators, or just about any other addon that you can find at ofxAddons.

Please contact us with any questions/concerns/suggestions.