Praxis is a Java-based modular framework for live creative play with video, images, audio, and other media. Its primary focus is on the easy development of generative and interactive media installations, as well as live performance. Praxis LIVE is a graphical, patcher-style interface for developing Praxis projects 'on the fly'. Praxis is developed by UK Artist and Technologist Neil C Smith. It is partly inspired by projects such as AudioMulch, Bidule and Isadora, and to a lesser extent Pure Data and Processing; however, it is not intended to be a clone of any of them.

Praxis LIVE

Update January 23rd 2012 Praxis LIVE build 120123 is now available for download. This is the first full release, and brings graphical editors for GUI control panels and MIDI bindings. There are also installers for Windows and Linux, as well as the zip distribution (OSX users will have to use the zip distribution for now). Please read the full ReleaseNotes.

NB. This release is not fully compatible with patches from the "early access" builds. The examples have been updated.

Some additional (old) screenshots can be found here - http://netbeans.dzone.com/nb-modular-java-framework-video

Have a look at GettingStarted.

Please sign up to the discussion group to be informed of new releases or ask any questions.

Various of the audio libraries from Praxis are being released separately as JAudioLibs.

Primary Features

• Media neutral architecture. Praxis is built around a simple but robust asynchronous message-passing system, allowing different media (and the system) to communicate with each other without interfering with each other's processing.
• Intuitive patcher-style graphical editor. Drag and drop components from the palette on to the patch window; draw in audio, video and control connections; edit properties in the property window.
• Edit everything live. Praxis and Praxis LIVE are built around the central concept that everything should be editable at run time.
• Background loading of all resources. Load images, samples, etc without interrupting playback.
• Optimized, software graphics pipeline, including a range of pixel effects and blend modes. (A hardware-accelerated OpenGL version of this pipeline is partially completed).
• Video input and playback using bindings to the GStreamer library. You must have GStreamer installed on your system for this to work. (Other video libraries may be supported in the future).
• Low latency audio support through JavaSound and JACK.
• Custom GUI's and MIDI control. Create custom controls panels bound to any parameter, or control any parameter using a MIDI controller.

And finally ...

• Live Java coding. Praxis comes with a small but growing range of built in components, but for those times when the built in stuff doesn't do what you want you can enter fragments of Java code, compiled and added to the graph while your project is running. The video code component provides a subset of the Processing (2D) API ported to the Praxis graphics pipeline, along with some additional features such as access to blend modes and animatable parameters.

History

praxis derives from a framework developed during a year-long Arts Council England funded residency at The Animation Station, Banbury (UK) during 2006, and used on a number of projects since. Since 2009 this framework has been completely rewritten as Praxis. Praxis LIVE has been in development since April 2011.

These two videos give some idea of the areas of work that praxis is aimed at. The first is Sound Pool, an interactive audio-visual installation developed for and shown at Banbury Museum (UK) in November 2006 - this installation uses a webcam to track movement in the gallery and trigger changes to the audio and video. It is the project that kicked it all off! The second video is of Magoria, a generative portrait of the people of Oxfordshire, past and present - a version of this is included in the examples with Praxis LIVE

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1631892283027158552
• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4764035630193883215