Hey, I was contemplating the idea of what it would take to write a program that reads a PD abstration and produces something that "TRIES" to clean up the appearance of the patch. From the discussion of segmented lines, and from seeing some other people's patches, it made me wonder if anyone else has tried to write a program that will attempt to clean up the tangled mess that some patches come to...
I have some ideas about how to do this, but wanted to first check out to see if others have already attempted this sort of thing, and if they found it to be fruitful.
Thanks,
Mike
It's impossible to prescribe any certain way to patch, it's a bit of an art and very personal, but I have established a kind of pattern that I seem to follow and always try to tidy up patches into this form. This is mainly for DSP, synthesis and effects...
Any inlets lined up along the top. Signal to the left, control to the right. Input preconditioners, max, min, clip, >=, == etc Scales and offsets all lined up Any [receive] or [delread] that form part of a loop within the patch need to come out near the top
Then, however many parallel sets of:
All intermediate variable calculations, cutoffs, filter coeffs, converting periods to freq, midi to freq etc
Primary signal sources, noise, phasor, osc Shaping functions Output conditioners, limiters, volume, DC traps etc
Other rules;
Things with cohesive function are clustered together Things that feed back or to side chains are offset sideways No patch cords ever run on top of each other Avoid cords passing over another inlet en route to destination Fan outs 1:n greater than 3 are arranged symmetrically around a vertical center line Fan ins n:1 (n>3) the same
How you can parse the file and identify any of this is a damn hard problem imho.
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:34:49 -0600 "Mike McGonagle" mjmogo@gmail.com wrote:
Hey, I was contemplating the idea of what it would take to write a program that reads a PD abstration and produces something that "TRIES" to clean up the appearance of the patch. From the discussion of segmented lines, and from seeing some other people's patches, it made me wonder if anyone else has tried to write a program that will attempt to clean up the tangled mess that some patches come to...
I have some ideas about how to do this, but wanted to first check out to see if others have already attempted this sort of thing, and if they found it to be fruitful.
Thanks,
Mike
-- Peace may sound simple_one beautiful word_ but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal. _Yehudi Menuhin (1916_1999), musician
On 12/11/07, Andy Farnell padawan12@obiwannabe.co.uk wrote:
It's impossible to prescribe any certain way to patch, it's a bit of an art and very personal, but I have established a kind of pattern that I seem to follow and always try to tidy up patches into this form. This is mainly for DSP, synthesis and effects...
Yes, I know this. My idea is not to create a tool that will force a user to lay things out in a specific way, but more a tool that will clean things up, and then the user can accept those changes and start with that patch. it would not overwrite the original patch, that would be left for the user to do.
How you can parse the file and identify any of this is a damn hard problem imho.
My idea stems from not worrying about the functionality of these objects, but in how they are connected. Basically, when I build my patches, I try to stack all those things that are connected directly in a line. While this doesn't always work out, I think that something like this could be programmed to help people clean up some of the mazes of patch cords.
I am not claiming that this would fix any problems, just an attempt to make the flow of objects and their placements in the patch cleaner.
Mike
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:34:49 -0600
"Mike McGonagle" mjmogo@gmail.com wrote:
Hey, I was contemplating the idea of what it would take to write a program
that
reads a PD abstration and produces something that "TRIES" to clean up
the
appearance of the patch. From the discussion of segmented lines, and
from
seeing some other people's patches, it made me wonder if anyone else has tried to write a program that will attempt to clean up the tangled mess
that
some patches come to...
I have some ideas about how to do this, but wanted to first check out to
see
if others have already attempted this sort of thing, and if they found
it to
be fruitful.
Thanks,
Mike
-- Peace may sound simple_one beautiful word_ but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal. _Yehudi Menuhin (1916_1999), musician
-- Use the source
PD-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list
-
Andy Farnell -
Mike McGonagle