An introductory course to processing at Lahti

This February, from the 5th to the 12th, I have had the wonderful opportunity of being in a awesome country, Finland. In particular, I was invited to teach a short course in Processing, at the Lahti University of Applied Sciences.

It was a very good chance to see what a student is able to learn about processing in just 10 hours. My finish students didn't have any computer graphics background, but all had previous knowledge in programming.

The result has been very satisfactory, actually, I am now correcting an exam they had to solve after the course. Good marks.

It's clear now that processing is a very interesting alternative in any introductory course in computer graphics.

Two interesting OpenGL links

Although I'm not working on OpenGL recently, I have just found today two interesting links.

When I have to develop in C++ and OpenGL, I have to do it normally for Windows, so I have to deal with MFC and OpenGL. I have a sort of an initial template, but it is much better to let the VS 2008 wizard to allow us to create an initial OpenGL + MFC project. Thanks to Dave Kerr we have here how.

From time to time, I also develop in C# and it is always interesting to use OpenGL. There are several alternatives, but SharpGL seems to be all the majority of us need. Here a brief article about it.

Kodu: a new game programming environment for kids

Game programming has always been considered one of the most difficult programming fields. As a computer graphics lecturer and a former game programmer, when I was a teenager actually, I can not say the opposite.

Processing is an excellent framework for those interested in developing games without having to use more low-level API's or development environments.

XNA, visit this and this, is perhaps the perfect choice if you want to use a specific API for computer game development. It is based on .NET and has the additional advantage of letting the game to be deployed directly into a Xbox console.

Thinking basically in new developers, beginners and those who do not want to know anything about programming, Microsoft is about to launch Kodu.

Kodu is not just a game, is a game generator. Using a graphical language, it offers the opportunity to develop computer games without a single line of code.

It is better to see it in action:




Kodu has been created by Microsoft. The project web site can be found here.

QuickHandNote - A note-taking application

I'm a digital tablet user and I love tablet PC's. When I was a Windows user, OneNote was my tool of choice. Now, using mainly Linux and Mac OS, I have to say I have not found something similar. So, I decided to develop my own tool: QuickHandNote.

QuickHandNote is a project which objective is the creation of a notetaking application especially designed for teaching purposes, thinking overall in electronic whiteboards, digital tablets and tablet pcs.

I have developed it using processing with Eclipse. Actually, this project is an experiment about the real possibilities of processing in the development of real applications.

You are invited to test and cooperate: http://sourceforge.net/projects/quickhandnote/

It will be fantastic to receive suggestions or bugs. At the sourceforge site of the project, you can find a tracker, called 'Bugs', where you can post any suggestion or bug of yours.

I have tested it in Mac OS, Linux and Windows. The only drawing tool is a handwriting one, but I'm preparing now much more. The results can be saved in a XML format file and can be also exported to PDF.

An introductory course to processing.org

I've been teaching an introductory course to computer graphics for some years. The subject lectures are taught in one semester (2 hours per week) and with fifteen laboratory sessions of one hour.

From this year on, I have decided to use processing as the framework for the laboratory sessions.

The experience has demonstrated the many advantages of processing in this field. Students are able to work from the very beginning and the introduction to the different topics is seamless. Students do not spend too much time in learning development environments, initial code templates, languages or tools that are only interesting for educational purposes.

Everything that students develop can be reused, improved and is able to be part of a final application. The level of complexity is gradual, from just writing some sentences of code to C-like programs (a collection of functions) to complete object-oriented applications.

Based on Java, with a comprehensive graphic library, inspired in PostScript and OpenGL, and thousands of users, processing is a serious alternative to other approaches. With its use, I have managed to cover more computer graphics topics in our laboratory sessions, to help our lectures at the classroom and to capture student interest in a more effective way.

You have the complete slides of the laboratory sessions I have prepared in this website.

Try Augmented Reality on-line !

In my profile, you can see a photo of mine I took using ARToolKit.

Based on ARToolKit, at Boffswana web-site, you can enjoy a complete example of an AR application based on optical tracking without having to install anything.

It's really very funny and easy to use (if you use a Mac, read the instructions carefully).

The example was developed using FLARToolkit which, at the same time, is based on NyARToolkit (a Java/C#/Android ARToolKit wrapper without native code).

An example with myself again:

Hug a developer

Funny but completely true ...

Wii Fit - There's no limits in Nintendo's imagination

Wii fit is going to be the next Nintendo's toy everybody is going to talk about, and the truth is that it seems there's no limits for the range of possibilities we're going to enjoy with it.

It's not the future, it's the present. The conception of computer game is continuously reinvented by Nintendo.

Enjoy the video:

An amazing 2D physics game

Visit Kloonigames web site and enjoy a very simple but effective 2D physics game. It's perfect for children (and those not so child...)

See a fantastic video of it with a tablet pc (although a tablet is not required to play with it):

Another nice look to the future - UMPC

Uhmm... again, a refreshing new look to what Ultra Mobile technology will be able to offer us in a near future ...