stereofan

So I have this idea to code video->cartoon for burning dvd yearbooks for kids and parents at their parties.. but I've been out of computers for 20 years and just finished the start of a first-time quad build.

I'm getting the sense that OSX with XCode is the best for stream coding and storage. What alternatives are out there? Languagewise, what would be best to learn for video and math? I can deal with detail but don't really want to learn more than one language for the foreseeable future..

Coma

What do you mean? Vector tracing the video?

C, and asm.

stereofan

Yes, vector tracing I think is part. I have a few things I've looked at: plug-ins (http://www.digitalanarchy.com/toonAP/main.html, http://www.newbluefx.com/cartoonr/) and VirtualDub/AVIsynth script via http://compression.ru/video/cartoonizer/index_en.html.

There are others, c is actually in line with my intent to learn *nix, ASM will be tedious but should be manageable.

rabidgnome229

I know that vlc can do this, and there are likely already more flexible tools that can do the job. If you're okay with putting investing a little to begin you should take a look at what already exists

If you're saying that for performance reasons there's little reason to focus on that unless he needs real-time video processing (very unlikely)

stereofan

Yeah, I knew of vlc and have looked at the plug-ins requiring nonlinear editors, I'm unhappy with them as I want a limited, dedicated environment for eventual porting to machinery. I had a compsci background, but I'm rusty -- I am eventually, however, looking at rotoscoping live in hardware implementations so c certainly is in line with those needs. I was uncertain about c over c++, tho'..

I'm researching algorithms now and have been wondering if OpenCV would be useful or if it's entirely unrelated. If I weren't going to try for a close-to-realtime process, I would have fitted my rig differently. Then there's legal voodoo , efficiency, scaled cost of supplies for systems integration and other stuff.

Thanks for feedback.

Coma

Well, he did ask for "best". He probably referred to speed, or else he would ask for ease of use.

Anyway, you could use posterization to achieve an effect similar to what you'd get from vector tracing. It's fast and can be easily tweaked to change the style.