Since its release, Syphon has demonstrated how visual materials can be more fluid on computers. The open source technology on OS X has changed the way people work with visual apps, become the key enabling tech that helped popularize streaming visuals to dedicated mapping applications, and, probably, convinced more than a few people to splurge on that MacBook Pro instead of a PC.
So, it’s always worth revisiting some of what it can do.
Earlier this year, Syphon co-creator vade demonstrated mapping with Syphon at New York’s now-legendary Eyebeam art research center, below:
(Via Le Collagiste [French])
Introduction to Syphon and Projection mapping workshop @ Eyebeam from vade on Vimeo.
In one concise video, vade (Anton Marini) illustrates the power of Syphon:
Quartz Composer was used to composite the various Syphon streams, via the Syphon plugin for Quartz Composer.
v002 Screen Capture plugin captures the screen within Quartz Composer, 4 Syphon Clients pull frames from Modul8, VDMX, and Resolume Avenue 4 and “Simple Client” simultaneously (all at 720p resolution) with alpha channels.
Quartz Composer then composites these live video feeds together along with the Eyebeam logo, and then a single Syphon Server sends the entire mix to both the Syphon Recorder application, and to Mad Mapper simultaneously.
Also updated in recent months, Camera-Live turns a camera into a live Syphon source. You can do this in any application that supports camera input and Syphon output, but Camera-Live performs another neat trick: with just this one app (and nothing else), you can directly transform a Canon DSLR into a live feed. And performance isn’t bad:
Typical latency of a Canon 7D is 120 ms (between 3 and 4 frames at 30 FPS), which is comparable to the latency of the same camera’s HDMI output connected to a capture device.
On GitHub:
https://github.com/v002/v002-Camera-Live
See the related post (though GitHub is your current source for the latest project): Canon2Syphon v1.2 [Blair Neal]
(Off-topic: good to hear that Apple will continue to support AppleScript, despite missing dictionaries for the new iWork, because that means you can do things like full-screen MadMapper.)
What are you doing with Syphon? Which clients do you use? We’d love to hear about it. Send us your work, and let us shamelessly promote it – seriously.
this is the first time, i deeply regret choosing my otherwise beloved pentax over a canon.
anyway, i made this with and for syphon a few months back:
http://blog.floriangrassl.net/2013/09/syphon-video-over-network-via-jitter/
Syphon is now part of Isadora by Troikatronix also. Shows up in isadora as a general user actor. Syphon input and Stage Syphon Output making it very easy to send and receive Syphon video feeds.
Yeah, client/server support on desktop and now even mobile is pretty stunning.
I’ve been using Syphon to send camera’s in Unity3D to Millumin. Check it: https://vimeo.com/77218535
I used Syphon to bring Processing sketches into VDMX for a live audio-visual performance with the Orlando Philharmonic last year: http://nathanselikoff.com/works/four-dimensions
super cool!
I use syphon to output my VJ Session(CoGE) to traditional Skype/LiveStreamming websites , using the virtual camera of CamTwist.
I’ve included support for Syphon on CamTwist (https://github.com/barrabinfc/camtwist-syphon), but camtwist 3 already has Syphon Native.