TrackThemColors is an Xtra created for Director by Danny Rozin to enhance Director’Äôs video capabilities. The Xtra allows using live video in a variety of ways, from merely viewing it on the stage or blending it with other graphics to sophisticated tracking schemes that allow understanding events in the environment and measuring activities in front of the cameras. TTC (TrackThemColors) also allows for manipulating the live video in real time to achieve many effects.
TTC-Pro is the updated version of TrackThemColors. This Xtra is similar to TrackThemColors in that it lets you gather information about events in the video, you can track objects according to their brightness, color, or pattern. The Xtra also lets you display the video on stage, grab a video frame to a cast member and get the color value of pixels in the video. (*Note that the different versions of the Xtra are not interchangeable. There are significant differences in the lingo code.)
Something to consider when tracking video is that the computer takes in video information as a grid of pixels. It can tell you information about each pixel’Äôs location and color. The computer can not see ’Äúobjects’Äù therefore you must think of the object as group of pixels. You can track the selected group of pixels by looking at the selection’Äôs color range, brightness, and pattern. For best results when tracking video you should try to keep the shape of the object you are tracking, the background, and the lighting consistent.
You can use video to control the interaction of your physical computing projects. The pixel information collected in Director can be sent serially using the Serial Xtra to the microchip of your board.
To download the TTC Xtra and get a detailed informational guide, visit
http://www.smoothware.com/
(The Xtra is freely available to ITP students but the ’ÄúLe Sharing server’Äù where it was located is no longer active. You can get the Xtra directly from Danny Rozin or from Nancy Lewis, the network manager.)
For some principles of video tracking including considerations and tips, visit
http://stage.itp.nyu.edu/~tigoe/pcomp/videoTrack.shtml
Examples of projects using TTC:
Danny’Äôs Projects
http://stage.itp.nyu.edu/~tigoe/pcomp/videoTrack.shtml
The Eye Thing (Tom Igoe)
http://stage.itp.nyu.edu/~tigoe/eyething/index.shtml
Icare/Ecarts’Äô Flight Simulator
http://www.gratin.org/as/txts/icare.html
