MASyV / News: Recent posts

Here is what changed since MASyV 0.10:

. Capture to movie files is now done using gstreamer instead of transcode. This
switch fixes the messed up colour problems that sometimes arose using
transcode's independent codecs library. Now, gstreamer uses a single shared
pipeline with harmonized codecs for the different encodings. This changes
MASyV's optional dependencies for encoding simulations to movies (see
http://masyv.sourceforge.net/help/#getting). Simulations can now be encoded
to either:
- Raw (.avi): raw stream in avi container;
- Theora Multimedia (.ogm): theora stream in an ogg container;
- Apple QuickTime (.mov): mpeg4 stream in a mov container; or
- Windows Media Video (.wmv): msmpeg4 stream in an asf container.
XViD/DivX encoding was removed because it added an extra dependency on
gstreamer-plugin-really-bad that I probably shouldn't encourage.... read more

Yep, I finally got around to writing instructions on how to get MASyV installed on a Mac OS X. Check it out in the "More specific directives for the Mac OS X users" subsection of the new "Getting Help" section of MASyV's website.

You'll find it at:
http://masyv.sourceforge.net/help/#onmac

Yay!
cbeau.

The old "Tutorial" section of MASyV has been renamed "Getting Help" and has been subdivided in more logical and useful subsections. Some of the material has also been moved from the main page to the "Getting Help" section. Go check it out!

Coming soon:
I will be editing the "MASyV's API (or Writing your own client simulations)" section of "Getting Help". I am aiming to offer a complete API description for all the functions provided by libmasyv and make the presentation similar to that used by GTK+ and GtkGLExt. Stay tuned...

MASyV 0.10 provides nice changes:

. Created the pkg-config file libmasyv.pc which provides compiler and linker flags for easily linking clients against libmasyv.

. Created directories lib, include, and include/masyv and implemented a libmasyv library. Each client now needs to #include <masyv/masvy.h> instead of the old #include "ma_message.h". Also renamed all of the functions that used to be provided by ma_message.c (now libmasyv.so) so that their name starts with masyv_ (see ma_hello.c as an example).... read more

Not a whole lot of changes, but still, here's the list:

. MASyV now checks for the presence of the GNU scientific Library (GSL) and the clients who depend on GSL will only be built if GSL is present.

. Added the ChangeLog to MASyV's distribution.

. masyv allows more codec options for capture to movie file through transcode. Options are now:
- XviD;
- Raw;
- Apple QuickTime; and
- Windows Media Video v1... read more

MASyV has now been converted to use the Gnu Autotools!

But here is a more detailed list of changes:

. Replaced usage of mktemp with mkstemp in masyv.c and logmasyv.c, and changed the type of client_socket_addr_length in function accept_client of ma_message.c from int to unsigned int. This got rid of all warnings.

. MASyV has been converted over to use the Gnu autotools. This means that installing MASyV is done by typing "./configure", "make", and "make install". Before the switch to Gnu autotools, logmasyv depended on GTK+, GtkGLExt, etc. when in reality logmasyv needs none of this. Now, the Gnu autotools check whether you have GTK+ and GtkGLExt, and will build masyv only if you have them. Otherwise, only logmasyv will be built. This allows the user to run their client using logmasyv, for data generation only, on systems that do not have GTK+ and/or GtkGLExt.... read more

with tones of changes. Check the change log for details ;)

This new releases includes the new ma_hello client, a Hello World client consisting of a small grey square moving randomly on a square grid. It's very useful in trying to figure out how to use the message passing library to talk to the UI servers.

I am planning on releasing MASyV-0.8 sometime this summer with fixes to the "obscuring" problem when doing a video capture or screenshot and switching over to using automake.... read more

Finally, after all this time, I got around to writing a tutorial. You will find it on MASyV's website at:

http://masyv.sourceforge.net/tutorial

Among the topics covered in the tutorial, there is a section on how to write a client simulation illustrated by a Hello World client simulation, ma_hello, which consists of a small grey square moving around randomly on a square grid.

The tutorial is a work in progress. If there are things you'd like to see added to it, let me know and I'll be sure to add it.