Quartz Composer
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| Quartz Composer | |
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 The Quartz Composer 3.0 interface and a composition |
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| Developed by | Apple Computer |
| Latest release | 3.0 / 2007-10-26 |
| OS | Mac OS X v10.5 |
| Genre | Visual programming language/Software development tool |
| License | Proprietary |
Quartz Composer is a node based visual programming language provided as part of the Xcode development environment in Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" and Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" for processing and rendering graphical data.
Quartz Composer uses OpenGL, Core Image, Core Video, and other technologies to build an API and a developer tool around a simple visual programming paradigm. Apple has embedded Quartz technologies deeply into the operating system. Compositions created in Quartz Composer can be played standalone in any QuickTime-aware application (although only on Mac OS X 10.4 and later), from inside the Quartz Composer application, or can be embedded into a Cocoa or Carbon application via supplied user interface widgets. Because Quartz Composer makes extensive use of hardware acceleration and pixel shaders, it is recommended to have a recent graphics card with at least 32MB of VRAM.
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[edit] Patches
Quartz programming through Quartz Composer works by implementing and connecting patches. Similar to routines in traditional programming languages, patches are base processing units. They execute and produce a result. For better performance, patch execution follows a "lazy evaluation" approach, meaning that patches are only executed when their output is needed. There are three color-coded types of patches, the pink renderers, green data processors, and blue external input patches that can receive and output mouse clicks, scrolls, and movements; MIDI and audio; keyboard; or other movements. A collection of patches can be melded into one, called a macro. Macros can be nested and their subroutines also edited.
Quartz Composer has many similarities to Max/MSP although its primary usage is for graphical rather than audio processing. The ability to construct interactive video compositions that react to audio or MIDI signals but which can be played from any QuickTime aware application has caused a great deal of interest in Quartz Composer from VJs.
Pierre-Olivier Latour originally developed the predecessor to Quartz Composer under the name PixelShox Studio.
[edit] External links
[edit] Tutorials and Documentation
[edit] Compositions
[edit] Custom Patches / Plugins
[edit] Images and Videos
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