Scribble is intended to be a three-dimensional drawing program for the Cube, similar to a 3d version of MS Paint or iPaint. Forming artwork in a virtual 3d environment would allow users to create and view art in a different way. It would also allow non-programmers to see their own conceptions in the Cube and would enable those whom 3d visualization would assist to model their work. The project is not yet complete: it will take time to develop an appropriate palette and to create additional drawing functions (e.g. drawing a plane or cube) that use sound effectively. Ideally, Scribble would include--at the very least--a straight line function, a plane-drawing function, a solid/wire cube function, and a solid/wire sphere function in addition to the freeform line function, the eraser, and the clearall function that currently exist. It is hoped, however, that animation can also be brought into the program by allowing users to generate undulating lines or shapes with to-and-fro or eddying motions.

In order to create sound for Scribble--and for other projects, notably those in future editions of Math 198 and the REU--it was necessary to become comfortable with the Virtual Sound Server (VSS) for the Cube. VSS generates sound in real time, a distinct benefit to applications in that the sound can be modified with raw data from the program to update and play smoothly. It took time to get VSS running (made difficult mostly in that it was being worked with on a virtual PC, but it was soon if full working order. Moreover, thanks to Camille, a VSS client for the Macintosh operating system was compiled. (Unfortunately, while it worked on most of the computers that were tested, it failed to work on the newest version of the MacBook Pro. This is still being troubleshooted.) VSS is well-documented elsewhere, and was the basis of a previous Math 198 project and (albeit years ago) an REU project.

A lot of programs, including the dcvss (which is a project to sonify the Cube's DeviceClient, a feature that would put sound in any Cube program), made use of the skeleton framework to compile. Important to this was an understanding of makefiles, especially ones in which the extensive syzygy framework was used. I became more proficient in editting and creating makefiles to compile programs, a process that had once been very mysterious and vague to me, with the aid of practice and sites like these.

Last Updated by Christopher Bisom August 3, 2010

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