MacVisSTA News

MacVissta is able to tag events in video again! Currently in the process of restoring/adding annotation editing features to the new interface. This project is looking for developers! Experience with QuickTime, OpenGL, Cocoa/Obj C, and/or MySQL preferred. Contact rtrose@vt.edu if interested.

This release is a minor update (bug fix). When the new graphics code was added, the graphical displays were getting out of synch. Now all displays go to the same time point when created. Currently in the process of restoring annotation editing features to the new interface. This project is looking for developers! Experience with QuickTime, OpenGL, Cocoa/Obj C, and/or MySQL preferred. Contact rtrose@vt.edu if interested.

MacVissta has been updated to load MPEG-2 video. You will need the QuickTime MPEG-2 codec. Development for this software is resuming for some new annotation & visualization requirements. Currently in the process of restoring annotation editing features to the new interface. Expect to see some new capabilities in the near future!

MacVisSTA has been updated. It now does better tagging in the annotation view. This is the first Cocoa/Objective C application to combine cocoa plotting, OpenGL, QuickTime, and MySQL/SQLite, among other features!! As such, it can be used as an annotation & visualization tool. Coming soon: A detailed "read me" for new users!

A preview of some new graphics is available as part of the new MacVisSTA 2.1 (2.x) software. There will be an upcoming release sometime during the next week, on or before 7/12/07 with several new features making use of the new graphics capabilities.

The newest release of MacVisSTA includes updates to its rendering for text and continuous plots. This is a "demo" version of this software, for which updates will follow soon.

In addition, there is now drag-and-drop support for importing CSV files and Annotation Graph XML format files. These and additional features will be documented in an upcoming release.

The disk image includes a read-me for a proposed "lite" version of this software as well as a paper documenting the round-trip conversion of data to/from Annotation Graphs.

The newest release of MacVisSTA is scheduled for mid-to-late January (between Jan.19, 2007 and Jan.26, 2007). It will still have all of the drag-and-drop support for managing all of the different datatypes, organized into projects, complete with support for both Cocoa graphical plots and OpenGL rendering of continuous and event data, all of which can be freely arranged in the same panels. Just as before, it is easy to add events as label lists that you can build on-the-fly, or use unique labels for rarer events. For continuous plots, CSV files are segmented into individual columnar data for fast loading (since CSV can be massive and unwieldy to use as soon as they are greater than ~10-12 columns).... read more

MacVissta 2.0 is a new release for Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger). The source code has been packaged and uploaded also. This application is currently in an intermediate stage: it has a consolidated interface with much more drag-and-drop support than early versions. Currently there are individual browsers for easily switching between multiple MacVissta project files, adding audio/video files (drag-and-drop), and a view of individual data types (panes) that can be dragged onto container views (panels). The first step for starting a new project is to click "New". If desired one can import Praat TextGrid files using apple-I. The notebook browser still needs to be updated: the ability to create notes/notebooks will be fully realized in the next release. ... read more

This is a new release of the MacVisSTA software that demonstrates several new features in active development:
- automatic query generation to search for overlapping events (using the interval analysis tool)
- a new way of viewing and organizing notes in notebooks; (currently newly created notes get saved to the notebook "All", this module is being revised)
- creation of flexible schemas for notebooks: these can be defined for different notebooks;
- User's choice of using embedded SQL (SQLite) or MySQL for querying the annotation data
- The "import from SQL" interface will remain, but should not be needed for use with queries that detect overlap of events (see discussion below).... read more

MacVissta received a more integrated interface this year to improve organization and workflow. Features include drag-and-drop adding of videos and audio, drag-and-drop definition of panes in panels for constructing views, drag-and-drop for setting the data and project directories. More developments are on the way. Another release is planned for the coming week (around May 17th/May 18th).

Hello!
There is a new version of macvissta that now uses drag and drop for defining panes and panels. Also, the audio and video can be added using drag and drop (using project settings). The user's project directory and data directory can now be defined using drag and drop, and the software does more searching and keeps a history using these directories. The organization of the menus is better, and workflow has been made more apparent in the new interface. You can switch between projects (i.e. there is handling for working with a set of projects). This is an early release of macvissta with more improvements on the way; I'm making it available because it will likely be useful for you to use this version now. An update is planned for later this week;
More later!!!
Travis

This release contains the ability to scale the audio waveform using the up and down arrows after clicking in an audio view. More features will be have further documentation in the "read me" soon. If you have comments about any aspect of this tool (from either the user's or developer's perspective) feel free to send an email to:
rtrose@vt.edu

Within the past several months, this video annotation tool had a new import facility to create new annotations from CSV files; this developed from a need to build a 2-way street between query and annotation.

During the past semester at Virginia Tech, I have been developing a companion tool for query and analysis of such data. I thought it was important to continue building the link between query & annotation using a principled design. As a result, an upcoming release will contain the companion tool that embodies my latest research.... read more

This software was recently presented at a multimodal/annotation tools workshop (involving both users of these systems and developers!) at ISGS 2005:
http://gesture-lyon2005.ens-lsh.fr/

Regarding software releases:
I have been uploading incremental (daily or weekly) versions of this software to my homepage; I also show the date of the release:
http://vislab.cs.vt.edu/~rtr/
You will also notice I have some powerpoint presentations about the software.
The macvissta application on SourceForge is typically updated each month. The reason for using two servers is that I can quickly release the small changes for collaborators that make life easier for them, then commit those changes to sf.net for use by the broader public.... read more

The newest version of MacVissta is now available on sourceforge. This version handles color-coded annotations in a more flexible manner. Also, a minor patch that addresses occasional accidental creation of overlapping time-tagged regions ("tags"), having different labels.

The newest sources and Xcode project have been committed to the CVS on this site.
In addition, there is a release for the application itself, in the MacVissta-app release for 04/24/05.
To do anonymous check out the sources, the commands are as follows:
setenv CVS_RSH ssh
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/macvissta login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/macvissta co -P MacVissta... read more

The newest sources and Xcode project have been committed to the CVS on this site.
In addition, there is a release for the application itself, in the MacVissta-app release for 04/24/05.
To do anonymous check out the sources, the commands are as follows:
setenv CVS_RSH ssh
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/macvissta login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/macvissta co -P MacVissta... read more

I am in the process of cleaning up the CVS for MacVissta.
I created a new branch of the development that is better organized and can be accessed as follows:
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/macvissta co -P MacVissta2
The module name is MacVissta2.This module contains the latest *.nibs that are part of the English.lproj/ directory; I've had trouble updating the "MacVissta" module with *.nibs, and this is the main reason that I created a new module.
Also, I've found that the Vissta.pbproj currently in this CVS is slightly outdated and I am fixing that.
In the meantime, I've uploaded a package as a stand-in for this part of the CVS called "MacVissta-project", which contains a tar of Vissta.pbproj; this should be used in place of the CVS version.

Hello all,

I have been working on MacVisSTA to make it able to handle "stepping" through audio.

I have an early prototype interface for an "audio manager" which can be accessed under "Extras" in the menu bar. It works in a similar fashion to the "movie manager".

The audio manager system has controls to let the user "step" through the data, using an audio file as the "master clock". The user can specify the time interval for the amount of audio to play back during each step. In practice, I've found that a 16-20 millisecond interval should be used for the interval to be audible. Finally, when using the audio as a "master", be sure to select an audio file from the list of available audio files that you have imported into the system (otherwise, stepping will have no effect). The step buttons are represented as ".<" and ">." to step backward or forward, respectively.... read more

I have uploaded source code (as well as xcode projects) for the following:

MacVisSTA application: MacVissta-source
MacVisSTA plugin: MacVissta-plugin
SQLDatabaseDemo (performs SQL queries on annotation data)

In addition, the MacVisSTA and SQLDatabaseDemo applications can be downloaded together in one disk image with a ReadMe describing how to get started using MacVisSTA (the disk image is in the MacVissta-app release). The disk image also includes a configuration file for SQLDatabaseDemo, which should be placed in the ~/Library/Preferences/ folder. Finally, MacVisSTA looks for plugins in the user's ~/Library/MacVissta/ folder; this will change to ~/Library/Application Support/ in the near future.