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Topic: Request Touchpad Support (Read 2024 times) |
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abhunkin
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MIDI-OX Rules!
 
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Request Touchpad Support
« on: Apr 3rd, 2005, 11:06pm » |
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Hi, Jamie -
Greetings from the OPL2/4 days. You were a great help to me back then, and I really appreciate it.
These days I'm much involved in real-time Csound software synthesis, and use MIDIOX and MIDIYOKE to combine MIDI controllers in Csound performance. Currently I'm combining various control (slider/rotary) surfaces with a Korg KAOSS Pad.
What I'd really love to have, as part of MIDIOX, is a "poor man's" KAOSS Pad in the form of a touchpad. No on-screen box, just 0-127 CC values mapped to the x and y dimensions of the typical touchpad. Only setup needed: choice of the two CC numbers, channel, and perhaps CC value range. The right touchpad button might toggle this "feature" on/off.
This could be, I think, a fairly easy thing to add. Everything else I've seen (such as MIDIJoy) works with an on-screen box, and I need something completely screen-independent.
Hope maybe I could interest you in this. I really could use a viable alternative to the KAOSS (particularly to entice other performers to do my pieces and not to have to buy expensive equipment to do so!)
Art Hunkins
http://www31.brinkster.com/abhunkins
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Art Hunkins
abhunkin@uncg.edu
http://www.arthunkins.com
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Jamie OConnell
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Re: Request Touchpad Support
« Reply #1 on: Apr 4th, 2005, 12:23am » |
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Hi Art,
What is the 'typical touchpad'? I have to plead ignorance regarding these things, and don't even know how they connect to a computer (USB today?), much less what information they emit in some format?
We experimented with doing a joystick controller a few years ago, but abandoned it because of the requirement to install the full-blown DirectX package for the desired interfaces. Perhaps that's not so much of an issue today if we end support for Windows 9x (I can hear some people howling already  )
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--Jamie
Music is its own reward.
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abhunkin
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MIDI-OX Rules!
Posts: 35
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Re: Request Touchpad Support
« Reply #2 on: Apr 4th, 2005, 10:50am » |
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A typical touchpad is like what comes on a typical PC laptop and functions as a mouse. If externally connected, they plug into the PS2 mouse port or a serial port; some new ones are USB; all act like mice, and I presume put out similar data.
The typical dimension (I've measured several) is 2.375 x 1.75 inches (the KAOSS Pad is 3.875 x 3 - just about the same aspect ratio). (This is fairly close to the typical screen aspect ratio as well.)
The big difference here (between a mouse and this touchpad) is that the surface is fixed, and touches on it are mapped to fixed horizontal and vertical values - typically (as CC's) 0-127. How this could be done and the fixed mapping accomplished will no doubt be the challenge.
As I imagine it, an invisible screen box could be drawn, encompassing the entire screen; this could be the box boundaries in which an invisible cursor would operate, without exceeding them. These coordinates could then be converted to values between 0 and 127 (or whatever other values were specified). Maybe this is way off; just a wild idea.
Art Hunkins
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Art Hunkins
abhunkin@uncg.edu
http://www.arthunkins.com
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G
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Re: Request Touchpad Support
« Reply #3 on: Sep 14th, 2005, 11:27am » |
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Thats exactly what im looking for. some form of software that
can emulate the kaoss pad with the x/y axis of a touchpad/mouse...pls help...is anyone currently working on such a program??
G (south africa)
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Toby
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Re: Request Touchpad Support
« Reply #4 on: Oct 1st, 2005, 2:13pm » |
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I just read some sdk docs on the synaptics touchpad and guess what: it can also transmit finger pressure. So, I guess is possible to hit the pad, get the pressure data and map it to midi velocity. Split the pad into quadrants and map each quadrant to a different midi note. Use the buttons to switch or shift assignments and combine all that with the keyboard for more options....
Synaptics has a simple drum pad program in it's site. It splits tha pad into quadrants, but do not output the data as midi, nor it is pressure-aware.
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| « Last Edit: Oct 1st, 2005, 2:14pm by Toby » |
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