README.md

Pure Data L2ork

maintainer: Ivica Bukvic ico@vt.edu

maintainer: Jonathan Wilkes jancsika@yahoo.com

• One Paragraph Overview
• Flavors of Pure Data
• Three Paragraph Overview
• Goals
• Installation Guide
• Contributor Guide
• Core Pd Notes
• GUI Message Spec

One Paragraph Overview

Pure Data (aka Pd) is a visual programming. That means you can use it to create software graphically by drawing diagrams instead of writing lines of code. These diagram shows how data flows through the software, displaying on the screen what text-based languages require you to piece together in your mind.

Flavors of Pure Data

There are currently three main distributions of Pure Data:

1. Pd-l2ork. Version used by Ivica Bukvic for his laptop orchestra. This guide is for Pd-l2ork.
2. Pure Data "Vanilla". Miller Puckette's personal version which he hosts on his website and maintains. It doesn't include external libraries like objects for doing graphics, video, etc.
3. Pure Data Extended. A monolithic distribution which ships with lots of external libraries. At the moment it doesn't look to be maintained.

Three Paragraph Overview

Pd has been designed with an emphasis on generating sound, video, 2D/3D graphics, and connecting through sensors, input devices, and MIDI as well as OSC devices.

Pd has a special emphasis on generating audio and/or video in real time, with low latency. Much of its design focuses on receiving, manipulating, and delivering high-quality audio signals. Specifically, the software addresses the problem of how to do this efficiently and reliably on general purpose operating systems like OSX, Windows, Debian, etc.-- i.e., systems designed mainly for multi-tasking.

Pd can easily work over local and remote networks. It can be used to integrate wearable technology, motor systems, lighting rigs, and other equipment. Pd is also suitable for learning basic multimedia processing and visual programming methods, as well as for realizing complex systems for large-scale projects.

Goals

Pd-l2ork has the following goals:

1. Documentation. We like documentation. It's like code, except friendly.
2. Be reliable. Binary releases must be usable for performances and installations. The git repo must always be in a workable state that can be compiled. Regressions must be fixed quickly.
3. Be discoverable. Undocumented features are buggy. Missing help files are bugs. Patches for new functionality that lack documentation are spam.
4. Be consistent. Consistent interfaces are themselves a kind of documentation. We like documentation, so it follows that we like consistent interviews.

Installation Guide

To install using a pre-compiled binary, follow these instructions: http://l2ork.music.vt.edu/main/?page_id=56

To set up a development environment, first make sure you have the following package dependencies listed here: http://l2ork.music.vt.edu/main/?page_id=56

Then follow the steps outlined here: http://l2ork.music.vt.edu/main/?page_id=56#install-dev

Contributor Guide

Contributing is easy:

1. Join the development list: http://disis.music.vt.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/l2ork-dev
2. Tell us what you'd like to work on. Unfortunately there are lots of externals and even core features that are poorly documented. We can help make sure you aren't duplicating functionality (or that you at least know what's already been implemented).
3. Send us your patch and we'll try it out. If it's well-documented and there aren't any bugs we'll add it to the software.
4. If you want to do regular development and have commit access, just request it, then follow the Pd-l2ork goals above.

Here are some of the current tasks:

• coming up with a better name than Pd-l2ork. :)
  • skills needed: creativity, basic knowledge about programming in Pd
  • status: no work done on this yet
• writing small audio/visual Pd games or demos to include in the next release
  • skills needed: ability to write Pd programs
  • status: I wrote a little sprite-based game that will ship with the next version of Pd-l2ork. In it, the character walks around in an actual Pd diagram shoots at the objects to progress, and to make realtime changes to the music. What I'd like is to include a new, smallish game with each release that has a link in the Pd console. It can be a little demo or game, just something fun that shows off what can be done using Pure Data.
• porting Pd-l2ork's graphical user interface from Tcl/Tk to Qt.
  • skills needed: knowledge about Qt5/QML, threading, and Pd's core design and deterministic message-dispatching and scheduling
  • status: under active development
• designing/implementing regression test template
  • skills needed: knowledge about... regression tests. :) But also some expertise in using Pd so that the tests themselves can be written in Pure Data. At the same time, they should be able to be run as part of the automated packaging process (i.e., in -nogui mode).
  • status: some externals have their own testing environments, but they are limited as they require manual intervention to run and read the results inside a graphical window. Here's an email thread with Katja Vetter's design, which looks to be automatable: http://markmail.org/message/t7yitfc55anus76i#query:+page:1+mid:chb56ve7kea2qumn+state:results And Mathieu Bouchard's "pure unity" (not sure if this is the most recent link...): http://sourceforge.net/p/pure-data/svn/HEAD/tree/tags/externals/pureunity/pureunity-0.0/

Core Pd Notes

The following is adapted from Pd Vanilla's original source notes. (Found in pd/src/CHANGELOG.txt for some reason...)

Sections 2-3 below are quite old. Someone needs to check whether they even hold true for Pd Vanilla any more.

Structure definition roadmap.

First, the containment tree of things that can be sent messages ("pure data"). (note that t_object and t_text, and t_graph and t_canvas, should be unified...)