Life-based Systems Project Update 01

I have decided to use openFrameworks and the openFrameworksExtensions (ofx-) for my project. For those not familiar with openFrameworks, think of it as the C++ brother of Processing. It doesn't hide nearly as much from you, which presents a steeper learning curve for non-programmers but allows more control and efficiency as a tradeoff.

openFrameworks for Processing Users

Libraries

L-systems

I've been working on gathering together the libraries I will need to accomplish my goals

First I found a basic L-system library that I will be modeling my L-systems after. For the time being, it accomplishes the basics of what I need and has a simple draw class for debugging, which makes it convenient.

LSys/ofxLSys: https://github.com/daanvanhasselt/snippets/tree/master/LSystem

Audio Output

The idea is to eventually route MIDI output to a MIDI application where I can potentially run filters on the code. I will probably use Abelton for this work, but for the meantime I do not want that to slow down my development of the actual program

Ableton Extension: https://github.com/tassock/ofxAbleton
Generic MIDI Extension: https://github.com/danomatika/ofxMidi



In the meantime, I have alternatively downloaded some audio files of a sampled piano, modified, and exported them as wave from here:

University of Iowa Music Instrument Samples: http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MIS.html

Progress

I've got openFrameworks up and running (as seen in image above)

I figured out how to install addons

I've rounded up the initial addons I need for my base proposition, and started looking at addons for my stretch goals

I'm working on modifying the parser from LSys to play music back while it reads the l-system, but that is going to need to be modified further so that the sounds play back appropriately

I'm currently just working with a subset of the C-major scale (C, F, G, A, D) because it's easy to make something more coherent, and it limits my inputs and axioms.

Notes

• I'm worried about the MIDI side of things. If the wav side is fast enough, I may just run with it for this project, though it wouldn't be ideal
• I need to make a decision about what I want the visuals to be so I can begin developing them as well. I feel very behind right now because of the weekend (family came in to visit, birthday)
• I'm worried about the length of the strings getting too long, so I need to do a better job of encoding my