I clicked on the surface add tab and was greeted with a few options - Surface Quad, Surface Triangle and Surface Mask.Ĭlicking Quad once its added makes the surface transparent blue, and then you can manipulate the image via the corner handles or the rotation and scale handles. The split screen can be adjusted to display Input and Preview Output, Input Only, Preview Output only, or toggle between side-by-side or top-over-bottom. I double-clicked on the Modul8 Main View under Syphon and immediately saw what was being output. (You can get various media into MadMapper by using File > Import Media, or just by dragging and dropping.) For purposes of the review I used video output from Modul8 and some test patterns. On the right, a preview output screen shows what those inputs will look like. You have a split-screen with input sources (video feeds via Syphon from other apps, pictures, movies, etc.), a few control buttons and a source info box. Upon opening the application, you’re greeted with a simple user interface that belies its power. The MadMapper GUI is simple and clean - almost Spartan.
The beauty of Syphon is that it provides a pipeline between apps using the hardware acceleration on the GPU, instead of duplicating resources and causing bottlenecks.įor this review, I tested MadMapper on a Mac Pro Tower with 20GB RAM, three ATI Radeon 2600 cards and four 7200 RPM SATA drives.
To accomplish this, MadMapper uses a Mac OS X-based framework known as “Syphon.” Syphon is built into many applications (VDMX, Modul8, MadMapper, VPT, CoGe, Quartz Composer, MaxMSP/Jitter, Unity 3D, Cell DNA), and the list is growing. It can also use the textures that are being created live from other apps. It accomplishes this first by assuming you’ve created the textures (or video or graphics, or whatever) in some other app.
MadMapper is a software application that, in its simplest form, allows you to project and shape texture maps onto complex surfaces, albeit with no Bezier curves as of yet (coming soon, we’re told). As its influence grows, it’s demystifying projection mapping and bringing the art form to more people. Its sister app, MadMapper, is from GarageCube and 1024 Architecture. The VJ community has had a pretty big influence in all of this, and one particular app that has been in use is Modul8, from GarageCube. It once required pricey projectors and a variety of tools not really designed for the task, but the number of software providers has grown, and the cost of the projectors needed has dropped. Projection mapping, or “video mapping,” usually involves projecting radical graphics and live video onto complex shapes and surfaces. You see a different amazing example practically weekly, involving everything from building facades to cars to trees and castles - and if you can’t see it in person, chances are it’s up on Youtube.