Processing OpenGL Tutorial Video #2- Bubbles! from Andy Best on Vimeo.
Interested in performing high-performance, high-quality video processing, computer vision, motion tracking, and analysis? And want to do it in the friendly Processing coding environment – an ideal place to start, even for non-programmers? First, you’ll want to read Andy Best’s introduction to OpenCV posted a few days ago, to get started with the topic:
Processing Tutorials: Getting Started with Video Processing via OpenCV
But we’ve got next steps for you, as well. Andy has added a second tutorial which begins to cover actual motion analysis. It’s a simple technique, one possible even in Flash – but with OpenCV and Java/Processing, it can run very efficiently, and it’s a good stepping stone to more sophisticated techniques. Andy writes:
In this tutorial, I will show you how to use a thresholded frame difference (motion) image in order to perform collision detection with objects onscreen. Essentially we will be creating something similar to one of the old webcam games where you can ‘pop bubbles’ with your hands (or indeed anything that moves).
Processing OpenCV Tutorial #2- bubbles [andybest.net]
For another trick, here’s reader naus3a playing with OpenCV’s face recognition algorithm. I’ll let you figure out what to do with this one (but it could make an interesting performance tool … hmmm).
Andy also points us to two other powerful techniques using other libraries, as seen on Bryan Chung’s blog:
Augmented Reality Library in Processing
Gesture Recognition in Processing 1
The gesture recognition toolkit uses a mouse as input, but the idea could be applied to video, as well.
Good stuff, and we’ll keep following applications and keep the tutorials coming. Let us know how you fare, and if you get stuck / have any questions.
One little point on Andy’s tutorial. Andy says: “The fact that Processing is based in Java means that while it isn’t as fast as a higher level language like C, it makes up for it with the huge amount of libraries availiable to the Java platform. If speed is what you’re after though, I’d definitely recommend the C++ framework OpenFrameworks.” Now, I’m a big fan of OpenFrameWorks. But in fact, when you’re using OpenCV inside Processing, you should get performance roughly equivalent to OpenCV in OpenFrameWorks/C++, because OpenCV is built with C++. And it is possible to get high performance with Java (which is a higher-level, not lower-level language than C), though the actual variables there can be complex, having to do with the garbage collector, whether you want real-time performance, and what libraries you’re using. Anyway, best to think of these as separate tools, and certainly you should feel perfectly confident in using Java/Processing if you like!