tablet2osc Wiki

To send OSC messages with a graphic tablet

Status: Alpha

Brought to you by: shanneton

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Tablet2Osc

The tablet2osc application is a small programm that allow the sending of OSC messages to a host on your computer or on a distant computer.
The primary audience for that tool is the linux audio and music community.
To use it, you have to compile it on your computer.

A video : http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtmjfj_tablet2osc_tech . It shwos the OSC messages generated by the tablet reaching the IanniX live midi sequencer.

A second video : using two different wacom tablets to control sound synthesis (here ; http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xttgdz_synth-control-with-two-graphic-tablets-linux-tablet2osc-processing-beads_music)

Installation

You have to use a LInux distribution that recognize correctly and automatically your graphic tablet. For instance, Ubuntu 12.04 is ok. Be careful, you have to install on your linux system the development version of the following libraries.

Qt (widget library, you can install Qt Creator for instance)
libxi (X11 input event management)
liblo (light weight OSC library)

and the xinput X11 tool in order to be able to set up correctly the interaction between the X1 server and your tablet device.

Download the sources and then type the following commands in the source directory in a terminal :

qmake
make

The tablet3osc application should have been created.

NB : If your version or the path of the required libraries are bad, you can edit the tablet2osc.pro file (cf the LIBS part) before compilation. Replace in this project file the name of the libs by yours.

NB2 : Please let me know if you experiment difficulties during the installation.

Setting up your device

Get the name of the device
Enter the command

xinput list

to get the name and ID of your device.

__ Set the device be a "floating" device __
In order to intercept the events of X server, the state of the device has to be "float". A floating device is not linked to any X display pointer. When a device is floating, it can not anymore control the motion of the mouse on the computer display for instance. In order to do that, you have to use the xinput command again.

For instance, if your device ID is 16, you have to enter the following command :

xinput float 16

If you display again the list of available X input devices, you get something like :

myprompt $ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ 2.4GHz 2way RF Receiver                   id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DualPoint Stick                           id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint TouchPad          id=14   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Wacom Bamboo eraser                       id=17   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Wacom Bamboo cursor                       id=18   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Wacom Bamboo pad                          id=19   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Laptop_Integrated_Webcam_FHD              id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                          id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
∼ Wacom Bamboo stylus                       id=16   [floating slave]

You can see that the last line displays the name of my device (Wacom Bamboo stylus) and its ID with the "float" status.

Running tablet2osc

Tablet2osc can be started either from the command line of a console, or from a shortcuts.

It takes 3 arguments :

the X name of the device (for instance "Wacom Bamboo stylus")
the IP address of the OSC target (for instance "127.0.0.1")
the OSC address of the OSC target (for instance "/iannix")
the port used to send OSC messages (for instance "1234")

Example : to send the OSC data to the iannix software to the host 192.168.0.2 using the port 1234 you have to type :

tablet2osc "Wacom Bamboo stylus" "192.168.0.2" "/iannix" "1234"

The same kind of command line can be included in a shortcut for a more convenient way to run tablet2osc from the desktop of your computer.

Multiple instances : You can run several instance of tablet2osc with the SAME device. It is a very interesting capability of that solution. For instance, to use both the stylus and the eraser of my tablet i can type :

tablet2osc "Wacom Bamboo stylus" "192.168.0.2" "/iannix/stylus" "1234" &
tablet2osc "Wacom Bamboo eraser" "192.168.0.2" "/iannix/eraser" "1234" &

But obviously you can also run several instances of tablet2osc concerning several input devices. For instance, if I use both a Wacom Bamboo and a Wacom Bamboo 2FG Touch I can type

tablet2osc "Wacom Bamboo stylus" "192.168.0.2" "/iannix/stylus" "1234" &
tablet2osc "Wacom Bamboo 2FG finger touch" "192.168.0.2" "/iannix/touch" "1234" &