Adventures in Electrostatic

For some reason I have been craving coding lately, maybe its because I have three pComp (building) projects and I need some variety, but regardless I have had the itch. So when it came time for “try some new languages/libraries” week in Computational Cameras, I jumped on something I had wanted to do for some time: try out C++. Luckily, a new open source project has come into the world that does for C++ what Processing did for Java called “Open Frameworks.”

At first I was scared because I have always been told “C is tricky” and “arcane,” but after using it a little I realized there’s nothing really to fear: Its syntax is almost identical to Java (Processing) and Open Frameworks does a good job of hiding some of the messyness. So after I gained some confidence, I decided I would try to remake one of the early Image Processing examples from compCameras in OF. I picked an easy one: Turn all the pixels within a color threshold red, and found an OF example that got me part of the way there.

When I was done, very suprisingly my Open Frameworks code looks extremely similar to the Processing code, a bit longer, but very close conceptually. I realized this would be a great example to show my class, and you fine internet folks, how familiar Open Frameworks really is to a Processing user. To do this I took screen shots of both code blocks and laid them side by side so they could be compaired. Below is a link to that document… so take a look and don’t worry, C++ (in Open Frameworks at least) is not too scary.