I have been looking for an application on the Internet that allows to record TUIO streams. However, I did not find a sufficient solution for this problem. Thus, I decided to write my own application called ThrongOSCDeck that can accomplish this task. It builds upon my Throng application that can be used to multiplex TUIO bundles from different TUIO providers.

Although initially intended for TUIO only, ThrongOSCDeck can be used for any kind of OSC stream. After recording an OSC stream, it can be played back or saved to file. I have designed the file format in a way that it is human-readable and editable.

Check out Throng’s Google code page for more information.

Update: I eventually found another OSC recorder via tuio.org called OSCRecordTools. It is written in Python.

Throng comes in two flavors:

I. Throng provides…

1.) … a Tuio proxy (or bridge) that is necessary for applications that may only access network sources on the local machine (like Adobe Flash). If other devices (like iPhones) want to access such an application via Tuio over the network, a proxy will be necessary.

2.) … multiplexing of Tuio alive messages: If Tuio messages from multiple sources access one client application (or as it is called in OSC: a server application), all sources use alive messages that only contain their alive ids. If the client application does not support different source providers (which is the case for many tuio libraries), each Tuio source will remove the alive objects and cursors of each other Tuio source causing, e.g., touches to flicker.

3.) … individualization of the session ids of each source: if different Tuio message sources use the same session id range, the results can be … awkward. Hence, Throng individualizes them.

4.) … one consistent Tuio Fseq message order for all arriving packets.

5.) … adding of a Tuio source message to each Tuio package or, if such a message already exists, modification of this message after the “@” to contain source_ip:source_port to allow for discerning of sources in the client application.

II. Throng Custom provides an application in which the x and y values of Tuio set messages of different sources can be cropped, shrunk and moved in order to allow for, e.g., a two camera – two tracker system on two computers for one interactive surface.

Throng is hosted (with full code available) on Google Code.

Throng is based on Flosc by Ben Chun the illposed OSC classes and the TUIO Java implementation by Martin Kaltenbrunner.

As I work with Flex Builder 3 I downloaded and configured Air 2 with Flex SDK 3.4 accordingly to Adobe’s manual and everything worked and compiled nicely as well on Mac OS X as on Windows XP (yes, I tried both).

I tried to use UDP datagram sockets within my app (in order to get a direct TUIO connection via OSC/UDP), which are supported by Adobe Air beginning with Air 2. However, whenever I tried to start my compiled Air app in Flex Builder with the adl from Adobe Air 2 I got this error message:
VerifyError: Error #1014: Class flash.net::DatagramSocket could not be found. (with the additional stack trace).

I got rid of that message under Windows XP by following the hint by Adobe that the namespace in the app descriptor from Air has to be changed to Adobe Air 2 beta 2′s:

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<application xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/2.0beta2">

Now, my UDP datagram sockets work nicely under Windows XP. However, if I configure everthing accordingly under Mac OS X matters get worse. The app crashes and I get a native error stacktrace from the adl player.

In my opinion the implementation of the adl under Mac OS X is buggy, which is quite normal for a beta release. Thus, I filed an error message at Adobe’s website.

However, if you try to do the same and you get things working on Mac OS X it would be nice if you dropped me a comment.

By the way: I tried to use the new Touch functionality in Adobe Air 2 under Windows 7 with a HP Touchsmart and it works quite well (except there are no gestures supported as Windows 7 proposes them). Maybe, I find the time to write a follow-up article on this…

Update: It seems like the problem is not connected with Mac OS X but with my version of Flex Builder 3. I moved ahead to Flash Builder 4 beta 2 and now all the Adobe Air 2 beta 2 functionality works.

The Stantum SMK 15.4 Multi-Touch Device

I have used it to develop the multi-touch parts of the TUIO-driven Flash multi-touch application Pf Design Media Installation. The SMK-15.4 comes with drivers for Windows and for the Macintosh. Additionally, for Windows there is a small application available that tranlates Stantum multi-touch events into TUIO events that can be (more or less easily) processed by a Flash Actionscript application.

The image quality of the device is not too good. The foil takes away lots of screen brightness and the colors tend to be fairly flat. The SMK-15.4 produces some error blobs quite next to the center of the screen, which bothers a bit. The whole appearence and manufacturing of the device is fairly prototypeish. I would not trust it to be used in an everyday application because the device and the touch foil coating seems to be rather fragile. However, it has been reported by a Stantum engineer that the panel can be equipped with a thin sheet of acrylic glass, which does not prevent touches from being realized. I only tested this with a thin sheet of paper and the tracking worked through the paper smoothly.

The apperance and the performance of the SMK-15.4 can not overcome the impression that the device is still a prototype that I would not use in a productive environment. However, the device has been a hell of a lot helpful to develop, test and debug my multi-touch application and especially tasks that were related to multi-finger input like pinching and rotating.

Thus, multi-touch software developers will have good use of the SMK-15.4. Everyone else should think twice before buying one.

A picture of my setup with the Stantum SMK-15.4 and my MacBook Pro running under Windows Vista:

Stantum SMK 15.4 Connected to MacBook Pro under Windows Vista

On the Stantum SMK-15.4 you can see Pf Design Media Installation in this picture.

If you are looking for a Stantum to TUIO overlay you might find it here.