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From: hgm@ccvr1.ncsu.edu (Hal G. Meeks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.multimedia
Subject: Re: mandala, other intro questions
Message-ID: <1991May8.135614.5798@ncsu.edu>
Date: 8 May 91 13:56:14 GMT
References: <33939@mimsy.umd.edu>
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Reply-To: hgm@ccvr1.ncsu.edu (Hal G. Meeks)
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In article <33939@mimsy.umd.edu> spector@mimsy.umd.edu (Lee Spector) writes:
>I've seen a Mandala installation, but I couldn't tell and would like
>to know:
>  - how can I get more info? (email?  800 number?)

Here's some information that was posted a while back. 
-------------------------------------
	Mandala is now available as a separate software package
for the Amiga at a price of $495. What is Mandala? It, combined
with an Amiga and a Live! board will allow you to:
1) Aim the camera at a person
2) It will take an image of the person and put it into the
computer. It then appears as an image in the monitor that can
interact with everything going on in the screen.
	It comes with its own authoring software designed for it.
For info on finding the Live board call MicroPace at (217)
356-1884 and for info on Mandala itself call (416) 340-9290.
Also, if you are interested in being a Mandala developer you can
contact Fred Holland at holland@cbmvax.commodore.com.
------------(end of repost)------------

You may also want to look at Cyberscape, available from Tensor Productions.
It also uses the Live! to do very similar things. It's also cheaper
($250.00).  Telephone # is 805-685-6245

>  - if I can do some image hacking myself, how easy is it to access
>    image data from frame grabbers from other Amiga language
>    implementations?  (I'm not interested in the video output...)

The Live! digitizer comes with a reasonably well documented library
(Live.library) of functions. Or you could talk to the hardware directly.

Sunrize's Perfect Vision and Progressive Peripheral's FrameGrabber are more
oriented for one-shot grabs. They both come with code examples. 

>How cheaply can I get a setup with
>  - a video capture board that grabs at least one (possibly very low res)
>    frame per second.

The Live! board can grab 32 color 356x240 images at a rate of about 10-12
frames per second. You can either grab a single image, or "record" incoming
video into an ANIM or RIFF format file, depending on which software you are
using. The Live! card for the 2000 costs in the neighborhood of $350.00. I'd
recommend that if you were to purchase one, that you buy Invision Plus, a
software package that greatly expands the Live's capabilities. Since the
Live! uses your machine's memory for captures, I'd recommend at least 3 meg
of memory. This will give you the ability to grab about 5 seconds of video
in 356x480 mode. Oh, buy a decent sized HD to store your captures. Some of
mine are over 2 meg in size. 

The Perfect Vision hardware can grab a decent 320x200 16 color image
(grayscale) in 1/30 of a second. I'm fuzzy on the Framegrabber, but I'm
pretty certain that it can grab a 320x200 8bit image in the same amount of
time. 

>  - an amiga powerful enough to support the board, some modest crunching
>    on the images, MIDI output, and control of local sound.

Unfortunately, the Live!2000 card will only work on a ZorroII bus (someone
please correct me if I'm wrong!). However, it works fine with accelerated
systems. I'd recommend that you buy a 2000, simply because the Live!2000
card has configurable inputs; you can either have two video inputs
with/without passthrough, or it will accept an RGB input (separate inputs
for red, green and blue guns). I'm using mine on a plain-jane 2000. Works
great. 

>What other systems/languages would people recommend 
>for projects with various kinds of inputs (video input, digitized
>sound input, switches hacked into the ports) and only sound output 

I'm severely biased, but it's based on experience with trying to get other
systems to work in a video enviroment. The Amiga is simply the best, most
cost-effective system for multimedia production available currently. Apple
is slowly catching up, but they still have a ways to go. 

>Thanks for any information you can provide!  (email would be best...)
>  -Lee (spector@cs.umd.edu)

--hal 
--
hgm@ccvr1.cc.ncsu.edu   "Fashion is fascism with a neat haircut." 
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