vvvv gamma 7.0 release

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Artwork by Arístides García aka lasal

Here is to introduce vvvv gamma 7.0 with all its pomp and glory. And make no mistake: This is not your parents vvvv!

Download vvvv gamma 7.0

Since the full change log is not easy to digest, we’ll provide you with quick rundown of our personal release highlights:

Patch Editor

Workspace customization

The most obvious change with this release is the dockable user interface: Tabs of patches or tool windows like the Inspector, Debug Views, … can now be freely arranged and docked to allow for a side-by-side view of tabs or multiple windows. However you arrange your workspace, it will survive a restart and you can always continue working exactly were you left.

New settings supporting this feature: “Open previous windows” and “Open previous documents”.

And as a cherry on top, the Quad menu now also has a “Recent…” entry that will give you quick access to your latest .vl documents.

Snapping

We heard you want to keep your patches tidy, so we give you snapping: While dragging elements in a patch around, they will now automagically align themselves to their neighbouring pins and nodes. This gives you cleaner patches by default and saves you a lot of time re-arranging things.

New settings supporting this feature: “Snapping” and “Show snapping guides”.

Refactoring

One of the most requested features: Make it less clicks to refactor a bunch of nodes into one new custom node. Here goes:

CTRL + G to group nodes to a process node
CTRL + ALT + G to group nodes to an operation node

And while at it we came up with two related shortcuts that’ll save you another bunch of clicks:

F2 on a node to rename it’s definition: Like this you no longer have to open a nodes definition to rename it
CTRL + SHIFT + X to cut a nodes definition: Like this you no longer have to navigate to a nodes definition in case you want to move it around <- pro-alert!

Public Channels

As an addition to “Channels”, VL’s dead-simple solution for bi-directional data-binding, “Public Channels” allow you to define channels that are “public” in the sense that you can access them by name from anywhere in your app. Like this they become app-wide parameters that allow you to define a control-surface for your patches. And you get an excellent overview of all your public channels in the new Public Channel Browser.

For more details, please see The Channel Browser.

Presets and Transitions

As soon as you start working with Public Channels, you’ll find it convenient to use the new Preset system, that allows you to save the state of your public channels under a preset name and recall them anytime. Either by jumping to the values or smoothly transitioning to them. Via UI or programmatically (allowing you to build your own UIs on top). Sky is the limit.

For more details, please see Presets and Transitions.

Channel Bindings

And the other thing you’ll find valuable as soon as you start working with Public Channels is the fact that you can easily bind any of them to external data sources. Think one-click exposure via OSCQuery, OSC, MIDI, Redis (and more protocols still to come). Again via UI or programmatically via a set of nodes.

For more details, please see Bindings.

Type Editor

Specifying nested type annotations was a bit of a drag up until now. Here you see how the new type editor auto-completes types when pressing the TAB key and has support even for nested types.

Comments and IOBoxes

Adding comments to your patches makes them more understandable to others and your future self. You can now not only prettify your comments using emojis 👀 (by typing 🪟 + .), but we’ve also added new shortcuts to much quicker let you change their size. Try these from big to small:

ALT + 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Path IOBoxes are now automatically created when drag-dropping in a file or folder from the Explorer.

Float IOBoxes default to a precision of 2. Changing the precision involved a couple of annoying clicks. Now there are shortcuts to quickly add/remove digits:

CTRL + +, -

Helpbrowser

In the help browsers Learn tab where you find help to all the packs you have installed, the packs didn’t have links back to their online readme. This is now shown for all packs. Plus, packs can also have 4 more optional buttons:

Website: Link to a website covering the pack
Source: Link to the packs source repository
Sponsor!: Link to a page where this pack can be supported
Chat: Link to a dedicated chat room

To learn how to provide those links for your packs, please refer to Providing Help.

Application Exporter

3 little improvements for the Exporter:

Can now export console apps also for MacOS in addition to Windows and Linux
Has a new option to ignore unhandled exceptions at runtime: So far by default unhandled exceptions would result in a popup and halt the application. This can now be disabled, which would only write those exceptions to the log.
Has a new option to ignore errors at compile time: There are cases where you are aware of errors in your patch that you simply want to ignore for the time being and still be able to export

Commandline Compiler

While so far exporting your patches was only possible via the Application Exporter UI, you can now also export apps via the commandline, ie. without the need to open vvvv itself.

For more details, please see our Introduction to vvvvc.exe.

Arm builds

With the advent of Arm-based Windows Laptops we now also offer dedicated builds for this architecture in order to run at full speed also on such devices. As a side effect, vvvv now also runs at close to native speeds when run on Apple Silicon hardware.

For more details, please see our Introduction to running vvvv on arm.

New VL features

Regions are a powerful language concept in VL. And the fact that you can even come up with your own, is actually quite crazy. If you’re curious, now is a good time to learn all about them, as we’ve improved and simplified the API for creating custom regions.

And unrelated but also new: When using process nodes that stem from classes or records: You can now make their State Output visible even when not enabled by the creator of the node!

New libraries

As ya’ll know, vvvv is not a monolithic tool, with features, but a development environment with libraries that you can install and update independently as needed. Following is a list of new libraries since vvvv’s last major release.

Support for VST audio plugins

Audio in vvvv got a big bump with the seamless integration of support for VST3 audio plugins. Any VST3 plugin can now be used as just another node, with audio in/out and parameter and MIDI input pins.

Needless to say this also works when exporting your patches allowing you to build complex standalone audio tools!

For more details, please see our Introduction to the support of VST3 audio plugins.

Effortless avateering

Controlling virtual characters with vvvv has been a tough nut, but this nut is cracked and we’re committed to adding simple introductions on how to do so for all skeleton tracking options available with vvvv.

As of this writing, your first option is using DollarsMoCap but you can expect support for Kinects, Orbbec’s Femtos and StereLab’s ZED devices soon.

Orbbec Femto depth cameras

You can now use Femto Bolt and Mega cameras by Orbbec with the node-set known from AzureKinect devices. For details, please see Introducing Support for Orbbec Femto devices via K4A.

Axis network cameras

Need to access and control a network camera by Axis? We have you covered! For details, please see Introducing support for Networks cameras by Axis.

Slamtec Lidars

Want to work with the data sensed by one of the Lidars of Slamtec? Easy! For details, please see Introducing support for RPLidar devices.

Blueiot realtime location system

Need a stable ID tracking people in a large space? Try this: Introducing Blueiot realtime location system.

Updated Libraries

So the above was all new stuff. Now here are some highlights of changes to existing libraries for this release:

VL.Stride

A new node “Location” allows for manipulating entities (including Undo) in Edit Mode (F4). Gizmos are always rendered on top and can get resized via Shift + mousewheel.

With much gratitude we’ve acceppted the following pull requests:

More changes.

VL.Skia

Skia rendering can now be extended into the titlebar and the renderer can be set to be always on top. More changes.

VL.Audio

AudioPlayer now applies automatic resampling if the files sample rate doesn’t match the engines samplerate. More changes.

VL.OpenCV

A new maintainance release is out, see: VL.OpenCV 4.0 is out

And it has been featured in the following vvvvTv episodes:

VL.CEF

For rendering websites in vvvv we’ve updated the underlying Chrome engine to version 132. Plus some more changes, see: Update: VL.CEF improvements.

VL.OpenEXR

Reading and writing OpenEXR textures in vvvv got greatly improved, see Update: VL.OpenEXR improvements.

Devices

The following device libraries got new releases:

Industrial cameras by The Imaging Source got a stable release
Industrial cameras by IDS got a stable release
ZED Stereo cameras by Stereolabs got a stable release
Leap Motion Controllers by UltraLeap now supports latest devices
VL.Augmenta now supports their new WebSocket based protocol including pointcloud streaming and zones

Networking

The following libraries finally got a stable release and have been discussed in a vvvvTv season 2 episode:

VL.IO.MQTT as featured in Networking with MQTT
VL.IO.WebSocket as featured in Talking to an API and Multiplayer Installation and Controlling an app via a WebUI
VL.IO.WebServer as featured in Serving a WebUI for mobile access

Community efforts

The big focus on extendability we have with vvvv, makes it possible for everyone to contribute to its ecosystem of libraries. And many of you do! Following is a list of profile pages on nuget.org by all individuals and groups that have published libraries for use with vvvv since the last vvvv gamma stable release. In no particular order:

AristidesGarcia - anamirbast - tebjan - bj-rn - phlegma, sebl - antokhio - D21s - 3e8.studio - cnisidis - wirmachenbunt - sebescudie - mhusinsky - chkworks

These contributions are extremely valuable and we bow before every single one of you! Often those contributions are also demonstrated at a vvvv meetup that are expertly run by The NODE Institute in collaboration with chk and ravazquez.

Licensing

The release of a new vvvversion is always a good moment to make sure you still have a valid license for commercial use. To check, view your vvvv gamma licenses. Requires to be logged in!

In case, you simply buy a license the moment you start working on a commercial project. And don’t forget: We also have monthly options!

We wish you a very productivvvve time ahead. And should you have thoughts on this release, we`d would love to read them in the comments.

Good patch,
your devvvvs!