Graphics

For a project using the XPression SDK  my application needs to know which layers of an xpOutputFramebuffer contain a scene. The only way now seems to be iterating over all layers of a framebuffer and check if there is a scene present. However a scene could,  in theory, be on one of hundred thousands of layers, so iterating is practically undoable. Anyone have an idea how to get around this?
Of course I can keep track of the scenes I put on air myself, but my application doesn't know about scenes put on air manually and/or by automation.

By the way: the subject of this post is not completely correct, I know, but I was unable to edit it after posting.

------------------------------
Gerard de Vries
Solution Architect Live Graphics & Virtual Graphics
EMG
The Netherlands
------------------------------

Only check the layers you know you'll be using in your project? 

For a project using the XPression SDK  my application needs to know which layers of an xpOutputFramebuffer contain a scene. The only way now seems to be iterating over all layers of a framebuffer and check if there is a scene present. However a scene could,  in theory, be on one of hundred thousands of layers, so iterating is practically undoable. Anyone have an idea how to get around this?
Of course I can keep track of the scenes I put on air myself, but my application doesn't know about scenes put on air manually and/or by automation.

By the way: the subject of this post is not completely correct, I know, but I was unable to edit it after posting.

------------------------------
Gerard de Vries
Solution Architect Live Graphics & Virtual Graphics
EMG
The Netherlands
------------------------------

Hi Simon,

Unfortunately not. That would be fairly easy. Our application should also be aware of scenes being put on air manually by an operator, either through double clicking a scene in the Scene manager, or being put on air from the sequencer by an operator. So the best solution would be if an xpFramebuffer would have a property, being a list, containing all layers which have content, but there doesn't seem not to be a property like this. To solve this now we iterate over all layers in a certain range and check for each layer if it has contents and, if so, get the scene name. But potentially that range could run from -10000 to 10000 (and an even bigger range would be possible). No clue why someone would put a scene on air on layer 10000, but is is possible, so the application should be able to detect and report that. Or would there be another solution besides iterating?

Only check the layers you know you'll be using in your project? 

For a project using the XPression SDK  my application needs to know which layers of an xpOutputFramebuffer contain a scene. The only way now seems to be iterating over all layers of a framebuffer and check if there is a scene present. However a scene could,  in theory, be on one of hundred thousands of layers, so iterating is practically undoable. Anyone have an idea how to get around this?
Of course I can keep track of the scenes I put on air myself, but my application doesn't know about scenes put on air manually and/or by automation.

By the way: the subject of this post is not completely correct, I know, but I was unable to edit it after posting.

------------------------------
Gerard de Vries
Solution Architect Live Graphics & Virtual Graphics
EMG
The Netherlands
------------------------------

but even in my most complex project I used 200 layers, even if your operators are double-clicking or however they are putting them online they should not be using their own layers, they should be decided as part of the workflow early in the project. Are people just randomly choosing layers to put things on? 

Hi Simon,

Unfortunately not. That would be fairly easy. Our application should also be aware of scenes being put on air manually by an operator, either through double clicking a scene in the Scene manager, or being put on air from the sequencer by an operator. So the best solution would be if an xpFramebuffer would have a property, being a list, containing all layers which have content, but there doesn't seem not to be a property like this. To solve this now we iterate over all layers in a certain range and check for each layer if it has contents and, if so, get the scene name. But potentially that range could run from -10000 to 10000 (and an even bigger range would be possible). No clue why someone would put a scene on air on layer 10000, but is is possible, so the application should be able to detect and report that. Or would there be another solution besides iterating?

Only check the layers you know you'll be using in your project? 

For a project using the XPression SDK  my application needs to know which layers of an xpOutputFramebuffer contain a scene. The only way now seems to be iterating over all layers of a framebuffer and check if there is a scene present. However a scene could,  in theory, be on one of hundred thousands of layers, so iterating is practically undoable. Anyone have an idea how to get around this?
Of course I can keep track of the scenes I put on air myself, but my application doesn't know about scenes put on air manually and/or by automation.

By the way: the subject of this post is not completely correct, I know, but I was unable to edit it after posting.

------------------------------
Gerard de Vries
Solution Architect Live Graphics & Virtual Graphics
EMG
The Netherlands
------------------------------

Practically they probably will not randomly choose a layer, but theoretically they can and, basically, our assignment is to be aware of this (they are not our systems nor our operators so we can advise but not force).
However, this is not the question. The question at hand is: is there an easy way to know what is on which layer of a framebuffer besides iterating over a range of layers and checking for each layer if there is anything on it and, if so, what is on it. And if there is no easier way, then it would be great if you could in a future build/release have access to a list as property of an xpFramebuffer listing the layers which are occupied. XPression knows it, since it displays the contents of the layers in the Output Monitor, it just doesn't seem to expose it.

but even in my most complex project I used 200 layers, even if your operators are double-clicking or however they are putting them online they should not be using their own layers, they should be decided as part of the workflow early in the project. Are people just randomly choosing layers to put things on? 

Hi Simon,

Unfortunately not. That would be fairly easy. Our application should also be aware of scenes being put on air manually by an operator, either through double clicking a scene in the Scene manager, or being put on air from the sequencer by an operator. So the best solution would be if an xpFramebuffer would have a property, being a list, containing all layers which have content, but there doesn't seem not to be a property like this. To solve this now we iterate over all layers in a certain range and check for each layer if it has contents and, if so, get the scene name. But potentially that range could run from -10000 to 10000 (and an even bigger range would be possible). No clue why someone would put a scene on air on layer 10000, but is is possible, so the application should be able to detect and report that. Or would there be another solution besides iterating?

Only check the layers you know you'll be using in your project? 

For a project using the XPression SDK  my application needs to know which layers of an xpOutputFramebuffer contain a scene. The only way now seems to be iterating over all layers of a framebuffer and check if there is a scene present. However a scene could,  in theory, be on one of hundred thousands of layers, so iterating is practically undoable. Anyone have an idea how to get around this?
Of course I can keep track of the scenes I put on air myself, but my application doesn't know about scenes put on air manually and/or by automation.

By the way: the subject of this post is not completely correct, I know, but I was unable to edit it after posting.

------------------------------
Gerard de Vries
Solution Architect Live Graphics & Virtual Graphics
EMG
The Netherlands
------------------------------

There is something I use in my dashboard projects; 

Its for timecode but it actually includes the layer which for me is the most useful bit, it shows up in the dashboard widget. 

Maybe that could be of use? 

Practically they probably will not randomly choose a layer, but theoretically they can and, basically, our assignment is to be aware of this (they are not our systems nor our operators so we can advise but not force).
However, this is not the question. The question at hand is: is there an easy way to know what is on which layer of a framebuffer besides iterating over a range of layers and checking for each layer if there is anything on it and, if so, what is on it. And if there is no easier way, then it would be great if you could in a future build/release have access to a list as property of an xpFramebuffer listing the layers which are occupied. XPression knows it, since it displays the contents of the layers in the Output Monitor, it just doesn't seem to expose it.

but even in my most complex project I used 200 layers, even if your operators are double-clicking or however they are putting them online they should not be using their own layers, they should be decided as part of the workflow early in the project. Are people just randomly choosing layers to put things on? 

Hi Simon,

Unfortunately not. That would be fairly easy. Our application should also be aware of scenes being put on air manually by an operator, either through double clicking a scene in the Scene manager, or being put on air from the sequencer by an operator. So the best solution would be if an xpFramebuffer would have a property, being a list, containing all layers which have content, but there doesn't seem not to be a property like this. To solve this now we iterate over all layers in a certain range and check for each layer if it has contents and, if so, get the scene name. But potentially that range could run from -10000 to 10000 (and an even bigger range would be possible). No clue why someone would put a scene on air on layer 10000, but is is possible, so the application should be able to detect and report that. Or would there be another solution besides iterating?

Only check the layers you know you'll be using in your project? 

For a project using the XPression SDK  my application needs to know which layers of an xpOutputFramebuffer contain a scene. The only way now seems to be iterating over all layers of a framebuffer and check if there is a scene present. However a scene could,  in theory, be on one of hundred thousands of layers, so iterating is practically undoable. Anyone have an idea how to get around this?
Of course I can keep track of the scenes I put on air myself, but my application doesn't know about scenes put on air manually and/or by automation.

By the way: the subject of this post is not completely correct, I know, but I was unable to edit it after posting.

------------------------------
Gerard de Vries
Solution Architect Live Graphics & Virtual Graphics
EMG
The Netherlands
------------------------------

Most interesting! Where can I find this setting? I've been looking in the Preferences and Widgets of XPression, but couldn't find this.

Also, when looking at Dashboard (I actually never have really worked with it) I noticed that in the Sequence Items tab the used layers of a framebuffer are listed. And if I put a scene on air, doesn't matter in which way and on which layer, the newly added scene immediately pops up in Dasboard as well, so apparently the framebuffers/layers/scenes info is send by XPression to Dashboard in some way. For this project we don't want to use Dashboard itself since the application is way more complex than just reporting which scene is on which layer, but is there a document describing the protocol of data send from XPression to Dashboard? If I could tap into that info I have everything I need.

There is something I use in my dashboard projects; 

Its for timecode but it actually includes the layer which for me is the most useful bit, it shows up in the dashboard widget. 

Maybe that could be of use? 

Practically they probably will not randomly choose a layer, but theoretically they can and, basically, our assignment is to be aware of this (they are not our systems nor our operators so we can advise but not force).
However, this is not the question. The question at hand is: is there an easy way to know what is on which layer of a framebuffer besides iterating over a range of layers and checking for each layer if there is anything on it and, if so, what is on it. And if there is no easier way, then it would be great if you could in a future build/release have access to a list as property of an xpFramebuffer listing the layers which are occupied. XPression knows it, since it displays the contents of the layers in the Output Monitor, it just doesn't seem to expose it.

but even in my most complex project I used 200 layers, even if your operators are double-clicking or however they are putting them online they should not be using their own layers, they should be decided as part of the workflow early in the project. Are people just randomly choosing layers to put things on? 

Hi Simon,

Unfortunately not. That would be fairly easy. Our application should also be aware of scenes being put on air manually by an operator, either through double clicking a scene in the Scene manager, or being put on air from the sequencer by an operator. So the best solution would be if an xpFramebuffer would have a property, being a list, containing all layers which have content, but there doesn't seem not to be a property like this. To solve this now we iterate over all layers in a certain range and check for each layer if it has contents and, if so, get the scene name. But potentially that range could run from -10000 to 10000 (and an even bigger range would be possible). No clue why someone would put a scene on air on layer 10000, but is is possible, so the application should be able to detect and report that. Or would there be another solution besides iterating?

Only check the layers you know you'll be using in your project? 

For a project using the XPression SDK  my application needs to know which layers of an xpOutputFramebuffer contain a scene. The only way now seems to be iterating over all layers of a framebuffer and check if there is a scene present. However a scene could,  in theory, be on one of hundred thousands of layers, so iterating is practically undoable. Anyone have an idea how to get around this?
Of course I can keep track of the scenes I put on air myself, but my application doesn't know about scenes put on air manually and/or by automation.

By the way: the subject of this post is not completely correct, I know, but I was unable to edit it after posting.

------------------------------
Gerard de Vries
Solution Architect Live Graphics & Virtual Graphics
EMG
The Netherlands
------------------------------

Perhaps look under timecode in the sdk, I have been looking. 

Regarding Dashboard, I think its a closed api between XPression and Dashboard but hopefully someone can jump in here and confirm that. 

Most interesting! Where can I find this setting? I've been looking in the Preferences and Widgets of XPression, but couldn't find this.

Also, when looking at Dashboard (I actually never have really worked with it) I noticed that in the Sequence Items tab the used layers of a framebuffer are listed. And if I put a scene on air, doesn't matter in which way and on which layer, the newly added scene immediately pops up in Dasboard as well, so apparently the framebuffers/layers/scenes info is send by XPression to Dashboard in some way. For this project we don't want to use Dashboard itself since the application is way more complex than just reporting which scene is on which layer, but is there a document describing the protocol of data send from XPression to Dashboard? If I could tap into that info I have everything I need.

There is something I use in my dashboard projects; 

Its for timecode but it actually includes the layer which for me is the most useful bit, it shows up in the dashboard widget. 

Maybe that could be of use? 

Practically they probably will not randomly choose a layer, but theoretically they can and, basically, our assignment is to be aware of this (they are not our systems nor our operators so we can advise but not force).
However, this is not the question. The question at hand is: is there an easy way to know what is on which layer of a framebuffer besides iterating over a range of layers and checking for each layer if there is anything on it and, if so, what is on it. And if there is no easier way, then it would be great if you could in a future build/release have access to a list as property of an xpFramebuffer listing the layers which are occupied. XPression knows it, since it displays the contents of the layers in the Output Monitor, it just doesn't seem to expose it.

but even in my most complex project I used 200 layers, even if your operators are double-clicking or however they are putting them online they should not be using their own layers, they should be decided as part of the workflow early in the project. Are people just randomly choosing layers to put things on? 

Hi Simon,

Unfortunately not. That would be fairly easy. Our application should also be aware of scenes being put on air manually by an operator, either through double clicking a scene in the Scene manager, or being put on air from the sequencer by an operator. So the best solution would be if an xpFramebuffer would have a property, being a list, containing all layers which have content, but there doesn't seem not to be a property like this. To solve this now we iterate over all layers in a certain range and check for each layer if it has contents and, if so, get the scene name. But potentially that range could run from -10000 to 10000 (and an even bigger range would be possible). No clue why someone would put a scene on air on layer 10000, but is is possible, so the application should be able to detect and report that. Or would there be another solution besides iterating?

Only check the layers you know you'll be using in your project? 

For a project using the XPression SDK  my application needs to know which layers of an xpOutputFramebuffer contain a scene. The only way now seems to be iterating over all layers of a framebuffer and check if there is a scene present. However a scene could,  in theory, be on one of hundred thousands of layers, so iterating is practically undoable. Anyone have an idea how to get around this?
Of course I can keep track of the scenes I put on air myself, but my application doesn't know about scenes put on air manually and/or by automation.

By the way: the subject of this post is not completely correct, I know, but I was unable to edit it after posting.

------------------------------
Gerard de Vries
Solution Architect Live Graphics & Virtual Graphics
EMG
The Netherlands
------------------------------

@Garner Millward or @Patrick Twomey any comment on the above? Is or will the communication protocol of Dashboard become public in the near future?
Dashboard is free anyway. Why not open the possibilities for the community to develop their own solutions using the protocol. I, for one, already have a use case. And maybe 'the community' will develop an HTML version of (simplified) Dashboard.

Perhaps look under timecode in the sdk, I have been looking. 

Regarding Dashboard, I think its a closed api between XPression and Dashboard but hopefully someone can jump in here and confirm that. 

Most interesting! Where can I find this setting? I've been looking in the Preferences and Widgets of XPression, but couldn't find this.

Also, when looking at Dashboard (I actually never have really worked with it) I noticed that in the Sequence Items tab the used layers of a framebuffer are listed. And if I put a scene on air, doesn't matter in which way and on which layer, the newly added scene immediately pops up in Dasboard as well, so apparently the framebuffers/layers/scenes info is send by XPression to Dashboard in some way. For this project we don't want to use Dashboard itself since the application is way more complex than just reporting which scene is on which layer, but is there a document describing the protocol of data send from XPression to Dashboard? If I could tap into that info I have everything I need.

There is something I use in my dashboard projects; 

Its for timecode but it actually includes the layer which for me is the most useful bit, it shows up in the dashboard widget. 

Maybe that could be of use? 

Practically they probably will not randomly choose a layer, but theoretically they can and, basically, our assignment is to be aware of this (they are not our systems nor our operators so we can advise but not force).
However, this is not the question. The question at hand is: is there an easy way to know what is on which layer of a framebuffer besides iterating over a range of layers and checking for each layer if there is anything on it and, if so, what is on it. And if there is no easier way, then it would be great if you could in a future build/release have access to a list as property of an xpFramebuffer listing the layers which are occupied. XPression knows it, since it displays the contents of the layers in the Output Monitor, it just doesn't seem to expose it.

but even in my most complex project I used 200 layers, even if your operators are double-clicking or however they are putting them online they should not be using their own layers, they should be decided as part of the workflow early in the project. Are people just randomly choosing layers to put things on? 

Hi Simon,

Unfortunately not. That would be fairly easy. Our application should also be aware of scenes being put on air manually by an operator, either through double clicking a scene in the Scene manager, or being put on air from the sequencer by an operator. So the best solution would be if an xpFramebuffer would have a property, being a list, containing all layers which have content, but there doesn't seem not to be a property like this. To solve this now we iterate over all layers in a certain range and check for each layer if it has contents and, if so, get the scene name. But potentially that range could run from -10000 to 10000 (and an even bigger range would be possible). No clue why someone would put a scene on air on layer 10000, but is is possible, so the application should be able to detect and report that. Or would there be another solution besides iterating?

Only check the layers you know you'll be using in your project? 

For a project using the XPression SDK  my application needs to know which layers of an xpOutputFramebuffer contain a scene. The only way now seems to be iterating over all layers of a framebuffer and check if there is a scene present. However a scene could,  in theory, be on one of hundred thousands of layers, so iterating is practically undoable. Anyone have an idea how to get around this?
Of course I can keep track of the scenes I put on air myself, but my application doesn't know about scenes put on air manually and/or by automation.

By the way: the subject of this post is not completely correct, I know, but I was unable to edit it after posting.

------------------------------
Gerard de Vries
Solution Architect Live Graphics & Virtual Graphics
EMG
The Netherlands
------------------------------

@Gerard de Vries - Hi Gerard, right now, we are not planning to open the Dashboard API protocol to the public. 

We are currently looking at possibly adding your feature request (xpFramebuffer layer array property) to v12 of XPression (the next release) 

@Garner Millward or @Patrick Twomey any comment on the above? Is or will the communication protocol of Dashboard become public in the near future?
Dashboard is free anyway. Why not open the possibilities for the community to develop their own solutions using the protocol. I, for one, already have a use case. And maybe 'the community' will develop an HTML version of (simplified) Dashboard.

Perhaps look under timecode in the sdk, I have been looking. 

Regarding Dashboard, I think its a closed api between XPression and Dashboard but hopefully someone can jump in here and confirm that. 

Most interesting! Where can I find this setting? I've been looking in the Preferences and Widgets of XPression, but couldn't find this.

Also, when looking at Dashboard (I actually never have really worked with it) I noticed that in the Sequence Items tab the used layers of a framebuffer are listed. And if I put a scene on air, doesn't matter in which way and on which layer, the newly added scene immediately pops up in Dasboard as well, so apparently the framebuffers/layers/scenes info is send by XPression to Dashboard in some way. For this project we don't want to use Dashboard itself since the application is way more complex than just reporting which scene is on which layer, but is there a document describing the protocol of data send from XPression to Dashboard? If I could tap into that info I have everything I need.

There is something I use in my dashboard projects; 

Its for timecode but it actually includes the layer which for me is the most useful bit, it shows up in the dashboard widget. 

Maybe that could be of use? 

Practically they probably will not randomly choose a layer, but theoretically they can and, basically, our assignment is to be aware of this (they are not our systems nor our operators so we can advise but not force).
However, this is not the question. The question at hand is: is there an easy way to know what is on which layer of a framebuffer besides iterating over a range of layers and checking for each layer if there is anything on it and, if so, what is on it. And if there is no easier way, then it would be great if you could in a future build/release have access to a list as property of an xpFramebuffer listing the layers which are occupied. XPression knows it, since it displays the contents of the layers in the Output Monitor, it just doesn't seem to expose it.

but even in my most complex project I used 200 layers, even if your operators are double-clicking or however they are putting them online they should not be using their own layers, they should be decided as part of the workflow early in the project. Are people just randomly choosing layers to put things on? 

Hi Simon,

Unfortunately not. That would be fairly easy. Our application should also be aware of scenes being put on air manually by an operator, either through double clicking a scene in the Scene manager, or being put on air from the sequencer by an operator. So the best solution would be if an xpFramebuffer would have a property, being a list, containing all layers which have content, but there doesn't seem not to be a property like this. To solve this now we iterate over all layers in a certain range and check for each layer if it has contents and, if so, get the scene name. But potentially that range could run from -10000 to 10000 (and an even bigger range would be possible). No clue why someone would put a scene on air on layer 10000, but is is possible, so the application should be able to detect and report that. Or would there be another solution besides iterating?

Only check the layers you know you'll be using in your project? 

For a project using the XPression SDK  my application needs to know which layers of an xpOutputFramebuffer contain a scene. The only way now seems to be iterating over all layers of a framebuffer and check if there is a scene present. However a scene could,  in theory, be on one of hundred thousands of layers, so iterating is practically undoable. Anyone have an idea how to get around this?
Of course I can keep track of the scenes I put on air myself, but my application doesn't know about scenes put on air manually and/or by automation.

By the way: the subject of this post is not completely correct, I know, but I was unable to edit it after posting.

------------------------------
Gerard de Vries
Solution Architect Live Graphics & Virtual Graphics
EMG
The Netherlands
------------------------------