Book Image

Mapping and Visualization with SuperCollider

By : Marinos Koutsomichalis
Book Image

Mapping and Visualization with SuperCollider

By: Marinos Koutsomichalis

Overview of this book

SuperCollider is an environment and programming language used by musicians, scientists, and artists who work with audio-files SuperCollider has built-in graphical features which are used in conjunction with the sound synthesis server to create audio-visual mapping and sound visualization. If you wish to create data visualizations by acquiring data from audio and visual sources, then this book is for you.Digital sound artists need to analyze, manipulate, map, and visualize data when working on a scientific or an artistic project. As an artist, this book, by means of its numerous code examples will provide you with the necessary knowledge of SuperCollider's practical applications, so that you can extract meaningful information from audio-files and master its visualization techniques. This book will help you to prototype and implement sophisticated visualizers, sonifiers, and complex mappings of your data.This book takes a closer look at SuperCollider features such as plotting and metering functionality to dispel the mysterious aura surrounding the more advanced mappings and animation strategies. This book also takes you through a number of examples that help you to create intelligent mapping and visualization systems. Throughout the course of the book, you will synthesize and optimize waveforms and spectra for scoping as well as extract information from an audio signal. The later sections of the book focus on advanced topics such as emulating physical forces, designing kinematic structures, and using neural networks to enable you to develop a visualization that has a natural motion with structures that respect anatomy and which come with an intelligent encoding mechanism. This book will teach you everything you need to work with intelligent audio-visual systems to extract and visualize audio-visual data.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)

About the Reviewers

João Martinho Moura is a researcher and media artist born in Portugal. His interests lie in digital art, intelligent interfaces, digital music, and computational aesthetics. He was invited as a professor at the Master Program in Technology and Digital Arts at the University of Minho, Portugal, teaching Programming for Digital Arts.

In 2013, he received the National Multimedia Award-Art & Culture from the APMP Multimedia Association in Portugal.

He has presented his work and research in a variety of conferences related to arts and technology, including:

  • The International Festival for the Post-Digital Creation Culture OFFF (2008)

  • World Congress on Communication and Arts (2010)

  • SHiFT—Social and Human Ideas for Technology (2009)

  • International Symposium on Computational Aesthetics in Graphics, Visualization, and Imaging CAe (2008)

  • ARTECH (2008)

  • ARTECH (2010)

  • Computer Interaction (2009)

  • ZON Digital Games (2007)

  • International Creative Arts Fair (2008)

  • ZON Multimédia Premium (2008)

  • Le Corps Numérique-entre Culturel Saint-Exupéry (2011)

  • Semibreve Award (2012)

  • TEI International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (2011)

  • Guimarães European Capital of Culture 2012

  • Bodycontrolled Series LEAP—Lab for Electronic Arts and Performance Berlin (2012)

  • Future Places (2012)

  • The Ars Electronica Animation Festival (2012)

  • SLSA Conference-Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (2013), xCoAx—Computation Communication Aesthetics and X (2013)

His work has been presented in a variety of places in Portugal, Italy, USA, Brazil, UK, France, Hong Kong, Belgium, Germany, Israel, Spain, and Austria.

He is a researcher at engageLab, a laboratory at the intersection of arts and technology, established by two research centers at University of Minho, the Centre for Communication and Society Studies and the Centre Algoritmi.

Joshua Parmenter is a composer and performer of contemporary music with a focus on interactive live electronics. His works have been performed throughout America and Europe. Over the past decade, he has also been one of the developers in the open-source SuperCollider project. He also contributed to the SuperCollider Book available from MIT Press.

Phil Thomson is a Vancouver-based listener, composer, and writer/editor. His works have been heard in concerts and broadcasts in Canada, US, and abroad. His works for dance routines have been integrated with performances by choreographers, such as Jennifer Clarke Arora, James Gnam, and Sara Coffin. His writings have been published online by the Canadian Electroacoustic Community and in print by the Cambridge University Press.