Hi everybody,

Since we won’t switch to TUIO for the communication from iPhone to Desktop for our multi-touch framework, we would like to contribute code for an open source iPhone TUIO application. So if there is someone who knows how exactly the TUIO protocol looks like (which commands have to be send) we could create this app together really quickly.

With best wishes, Stefan

Hello Stefan,
following the recent developments of OSCemote and your Multitouch Framework, I also have been thinking that the creation of an open source TUIO multi-touch controller for the iPhone should be a great thing and also a very useful tool in addtion to the TUIO simulator.
So I am happy to team up with you with the creation of the TUIO server component, I was actually planning to release some example TUIO server code with the final reacTIVision 1.4 release, which could be used with other open source multitouch/tangible applications that need to transmit data using TUIO.

let’s keep in touch,
Martin.K

if it helps, Pawel and I went through the BBOSC framework a while back and made sure it compiles and runs fine on the iPhone. 

(if you don’t already know, the BBOSC is a fully cocoa implementation of the OSC server/client protocol. )

Also, there is a TUIO implementation to look at as an example if you want in the BBTouch code (it uses the BBOSC framework to generate it’s TUIO events) and that is of course all cocoa.  (take a look at the BBTUIOEventDelegate object, i think that is what it is called)

(bbtouch code here: http://code.google.com/p/opentouch/)
(bbosc code here: http://code.google.com/p/bbosc/)

I had planned on doing something similar to what you guys are talking about but haven’t had time to get to it, but in any case, the BBOSC + the TUIO code in BBTouch + an iphone interface and you are pretty much done.

Cheers!
-panda

Anyone interested in doing the graphics?

I still don’t understand, why do you need graphics in a TUIO App?  In my mind you would want it command line for the least CPU overhead.

Well, there needs to be some interface, which means at the very least someone has to go into IB and build one.  But i could definitely see a use for interface elements.  Maybe a few buttons that you could assign an OSC command to so that you could just tap it and it would send that command..

all that said, i most definitely agree that one of the options should be an OSC command line.  (which would have the most general utility)

My original thoughts were that you could use the iPhone as a sort of remote trackpad for your computer, that might be fun (doesnt require any graphics really) as well as adding some OSC controls to the interface (switch from TUIO trackpad to some other view) where you could configure knobs and sliders to send OSC commands to whatever. 

anyhow, this is all just my crazy ideas.  take it all with a grain of salt

cheers!
-panda

Hello Guys,
I’d keep it rather simple:
A blank screen with some basic visual touch feedback.
And a configuration dialog that let’s you define the IP and port where the TUIO messages should go.

The whole purpose of the application is just to provide a simple multi-touch surface.
If you want more OSC control, I think that OSCemote already does that job, and there are many other applications like that around.

chao,
Martin.K

Stefan Hafeneger - 20 August 2008 06:39 PM

Anyone interested in doing the graphics?

LOL, Stefan - Yes - i know i promissed this Sure i’m on that. I will take a look at the IB stuff in the iPhone SDK - is slightly different from the XCode IB stuff. Could one of you cocoa-gurus drop me a line with some brief description of the planned elements etc. - respectivley how the IPhone interface should look like? Will do my best…

Stefan: take a look BTW at the new posting from Ben regarding the TUIO stuff in his blog… Does that fit with your framework? Or do you still need a TUI server for?

Groovy!

Martin Kaltenbrunner - 21 August 2008 03:18 AM

Hello Guys,
I’d keep it rather simple:
A blank screen with some basic visual touch feedback.
And a configuration dialog that let’s you define the IP and port where the TUIO messages should go.

I totally agree. But there are still some graphics that have to be done: App Icon, loading screen, background image, touch feedback image. Not much but this has to be done.

You can’t do “command line apps” on the iPhone. The app should be very simple, but it should look nice, shouldn’t it?

I think the UI should be: You click on the App Icon, a loading screen appears (this is just a graphic Apple uses during launching to give some visual feedback) and then you get the view where you can generate touches. The App has no status bar or other visual components of course, since this would mean less space for touching. In addition there is a category in the settings app where you can setup IP and port.

What do you think?

With best wishes, Stefan

any proposals which open source platform we should use to host the project? and how should we call the app?

Hey Guys,

i just had a look at the “Remote” application on the iPhone. I think that is something that our application should/could look like… BTW: Remote is using a 4 digit code to identify the mediatheque - would that not be also a feature in our application? I mean there are quite a lot of people they are dealing with multiple tables. And maybe i am just going too far, but starting/stopping particular MT applications could be a nice feature - so if you are running a multitouch installation (let’s say on a booth or so) and you are getting some trouble, you don’t have to open your box and hassle around with mouse and keyboard… But i’m sure i’m going too far

Had 10 minutes for doodling - her’s a crude mockup for “ iNuit “ (LOL)…
I just thowed up a Photoshop template for iPhone Icons in case that one of you guys would like to play with…

Groovy (like Ben and Austin says...)

First, I wanted to mention that the iPhone SDK is still under an NDA, so you are technically not allowed to open-source software written with it. I don’t know how draconically Apple enforces this, but WordPress has open-sourced their client recently, without Apple stepping on their toes, but I still thought I’d mention it.

So if there is someone who knows how exactly the TUIO protocol looks like (which commands have to be send) we could create this app together really quickly.

Have a look at the BBTouch source code. That’s what I’m currently doing to add TUIO output to Touché. BBOSC seems to be a useful framework for OSC too, and I think that’s what I’m going to use in Touché, even though I’ll be using a proper CFSocket wrapper rather than BSD-style sockets as BBOSC does.

any proposals which open source platform we should use to host the project?

I’d vote for Google Code.

But there are still some graphics that have to be done: App Icon, loading screen, background image, touch feedback image.

How about creating the background image (a grid or something) and touch feedback image (like, a disc with a semi-transparent halo around it?) on the fly when the program launches, using CoreGraphics? Makes the app smaller and has the added benefit of being more future-proof, should Apple decide to slap a higher-res screen onto upcoming generations of the iPhone.

Anyway, I’ve had a similar idea when starting to work on TUIO support for Touché, so I’d be glad to contribute if you start this project. Also, I think it would be nice if the app could also output OSC data of the iPhone’s accelerometer, since that might be fun for some people, too (say, using PureData and OSC to build a Theremin sim or something).

This sounds great Stefan =)

I’m in for helping where I can.

We’ve been talking about this application for more than 4 months, it’s great to see something getting started now.

gkaindl, I thought there already was an application that sends out OSC data (not sure about the accelerometer though).

Man… nui community rules… keep it up everyone… I think a Open TUIO app for iphone/ipod would really expand development abilities, If we can make it easy a 15 yr old kid will be making MT applications with his ipod.

Please let me know if you need any help developing… here is some information on TUIO: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/1495/

Also on getting started on Apples SDK: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/1479/

okay, should we start? let’s use google code. project name: “tuio-iphone-app”. which license should we use?

Hello,
I will put the TUIO server reference API and the example C++ code on the reacTIVision repository by tomorrow.
The license I will use for that is GPL, so if you want to go for it the project should be GPL as well.

best,
Martin.K