~~NOTOC~~

====== DIMPLE: Dynamically Interactive Musically PhysicaL Environment ======
{{template>summary
|title=DIMPLE: Dynamically Interactive Musically PhysicaL Environment|
|participants=[[people:Stephen Sinclair]]\\
 [[people:Marcelo M. Wanderley]] (supervisor)|
|funding=Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada - IPS Grant (Sinclair)|
|type=Research (M.A. and Ph.D.)|
|period=2005-- |
|status=ongoing|
|image=software:dimple:dimple_sphere.png
|caption=DIMPLE logo
}}

===== Project Description =====

This project is an implementation of a physical dynamics environment which can be controlled via [[http://www.opensoundcontrol.org|OSC]], so that audio projects such as [[http://www.puredata.info|PureData]] can create physical objects in a virtual space, and then let them interact with each other, colliding and otherwise moving around.  Data about objects' position and acceleration, for example, can be retrieved and then used to affect some sort of audio synthesis.  It is a part of the [[projects:haptics:force feedback for audio systems]] IDMIL project and was first presented at [[http://itp.nyu.edu/nime/2007/|NIME 2007]].

The environment can also be used for interacting with a hand controller [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haptic|haptic device]].

This is all accomplished via many GPL (or similar) libraries, such as:

  * [[http://www.chai3d.org|CHAI 3D]], for haptics
  * [[http://www.ode.org|ODE]], for physical dynamics
  * [[http://liblo.sf.net|LibLo]], for OSC messaging
  * GLUT & [[http://freeglut.sourceforge.net/|FreeGLUT]], for graphics (optional)

It is cross-platform, running on Linux, OS X, and Windows.  Unfortunately, most haptic devices only provide drivers for Windows, though CHAI 3D does support the SensAble Phantom family of devices under Linux if you have the driver.

A beta version of this software is available here:

  * [[http://idmil.org/pub/software/dimple/dimple-0.0.9.tar.gz|dimple-0.0.9.tar.gz]] (source)
  * [[http://idmil.org/pub/software/dimple/dimple-0.0.9-win32.zip|dimple-0.0.9-win32.zip]] (Windows binary)
  * [[http://idmil.org/pub/software/dimple/dimple-0.0.9-osx.dmg|dimple-0.0.9-osx.dmg]] (Mac OS X binary)
  * [[http://idmil.org/pub/software/dimple/dimple_0.0.9-1_i386.deb|dimple_0.0.9-1_i386.deb]] (Ubuntu 32-bit binary)

The Ubuntu release is my first .deb, so please inform me if you have
any trouble installing or executing it.  (Currently it provides no
menu icon, so you'll need to start a terminal and type `dimple` to run
it.)  Users of other Linux distros or 64-bit architectures may compile
the software from source.  Please run "bootstrap.sh" before proceeding
with "configure" and "make".

Snapshots of [[http://idmil.org/pub/software/dimple/|older versions]] are also available.

Documentation of DIMPLE's [[projects:software:dimple:messages]] is available.

=== Requirements ===

To run the included test patch, **test.pd**, you'll need
[[https://www.puredata.org/downloads/|PureData]].  You need at least 0.40.1, with the extended build since it requires sendOSC and dumpOSC, and a few other objects.  Remember to run **dimple.exe** before clicking the "Initialize" bang.

=== Mailing list ===

A mailing list for discussing both using and developing DIMPLE can be
subscribed to here:

  * http://music.mcgill.ca/mailman/listinfo/dimple

=== Development ===

If you'd like to track the
[[https://github.com/IDMIL/dimple|development version]], or even
contribute patches, please feel free to clone the
[[http://git-scm.com|git]] tree with the following command:

  git clone https://github.com/IDMIL/dimple.git

Please run the ''bootstrap.sh'' script before compiling, which takes
care of downloading and compiling dependencies on the respective
platform.  The build platform for Windows is MingW/MSYS with
[[http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/|msysGit]].

To contribute patches, please either provide an accessible repository
to pull from, use github pull requests, or generate them using ''git
format-patch'' and send to the mailing list as an attachment.

----
===== Publications =====

{{template>:projects:publications|keyword=dimple}}

{{tag>DIMPLE Software}}