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New (free) Android app using pd - user feedback needed!
  • freewheelnatfreewheelnat
    I have been working on a music app for Android using libpd  for Android and finally, I have managed to release v0.0 - this is very much a beta version and I would like to get as much user feedback as possible for it... 

    The app is free and for Android 2.3+, it is called Mov Synth and is available at https://market.android.com/details?id=net.cogitas.movsynth

    Note: The app is better suited for devices with a front facing camera.
  • hanshans
    Fun idea! Its quite responsive, but its not always apparent what is causing the response. A little feedback: the close button on the upper left is a bit odd since that's the play area. It seems like all those buttons on the screen should affect the sound. The close makes more sense if it was on the menu.
  • freewheelnatfreewheelnat
    Hi Hans, thanks for taking the time to check it out and for your feedback!

    Re responsiveness: I have in mind to automatically adjust the settings to the ambient light in the future, I think it will help a lot with improving the responsiveness. At the moment, you are right, depending on your lighting conditions, some gestures you may not be even aware of may trigger a sound and as the only sound provided is mono, it means the gesture you wanted doesn't get picked up (for each preview frame, the first movement gets played only, first starting simply in top left corner if my memory serves me well). On a scale of 1 (rarely happens) to 10 (happens all the time), how often would you say it happens for you? I want to make the app as controllable as possible so this is extremely important for me to get this right.

    Re close button: Thanks for your suggestion, I'll keep that in mind.
  • freewheelnatfreewheelnat
    PS: Just read this, the menu button is dead! http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/01/say-goodbye-to-menu-button.html So I guess that means the "close" button will have to either remain on the screen or not be there at all.
  • freewheelnatfreewheelnat
    PS2: Ignore what I said above, as it seems the action bar will be doing the same function as the menu, I had read the article too quickly.
  • rjmarsanrjmarsan
    Cool app! It's pretty impressive.  What are you using for motion detection?

    Like you said, Action bar!  There's quite a few libraries out there to backport it to gingerbread as well.

    Also, I can confirm it works great on Ice Cream Sandwitch.
  • rjmarsanrjmarsan
    also, I wouldn't bother having a close button, even in the menu, as that's what the back button is for, yeah?
  • freewheelnatfreewheelnat
    Hi RJ, thanks for the feedback, glad to hear it works in ICS! 

    Yes, I'll have a look at the action bar and also, you are right, the close button may not be necessary.

    For motion detection, I use the luminance value, which I compare to the one of the previous frame. I use a luminance threshold value, so if the absolute value of the diff of the luminance value for a pixel between current frame and previous frame is > threshold, I consider that this pixel has had a movement. Then, I consider there has been a movement in the cell (as drawn on the screen) if a certain % of pixels have had a movement. To speed calculations up, I don't check all pixels, I only check one pixel in 4 (every other on in each direction basically). Both the luminance threshold and % for movement are settings.
  • rjmarsanrjmarsan
    Just a tip, it might be faster if you scaled the image down and check all pixels vs checking every 4 pixels (cache stuff).   If you're comfortable with the NDK, you could try using OpenCV for motion detection as well (it's Fast).  Interesting algorithm though.  Works well.
  • freewheelnatfreewheelnat
    Thanks for the tip RJ. I think I'll leave it how it is at the moment because the calculations are pretty quick on my Samsung Galaxy SII so that's not really an issue (my main issue is audio latency but nothing I can do about it :-( ) but when I get a tablet, I will revisit this and do some measurements to check efficient of my algorithm on a bigger screen.
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