====== Image Compositor Socket ======
{{:wiki:ardour2vis.png?250  }}
[[http://ardour.org|ardour]] - the new digital audio workstation - includes rudimentary support to display video-timelines. - For this to work the video-data needs to be supplied by a 3rd-party application via TCP-socket, hence the name: Image Compositor Socket. 

Back in 2004/2005 ''aniComp'' from the CMT, Glasgow Animatics-server was supported in Ardour-0.99; but since then
ardour-2.X ICS code has been mostly unmaintained. 

I took to code a [[oss:sodankyla:start|video-server]] that implements the ICS protocol to communicate with ardour and manages EDL video-sessions.  This wiki page documents information regarding interoperability and interaction with ardour.

===== ICS and ardour 2.X =====

ardour-0.99.3 works //just fine//. However the 2.0-ongoing branch (currently ardour-2.5, svn rev. 3617) introduces video-display regressions that require patching: You can grab split-patches and follow discussion at
http://tracker.ardour.org/view.php?id=2364 or download a {{:wiki:ardour-r3617-video2.patch|combined patch}} from here.

===== Setup =====

ardour enables it's video-capabilities if it can find an executable ''aniComp'' in ''$PATH''. Probably the easiest way to accoplish this is to:
  sudo ln -s /bin/true /usr/local/bin/aniComp

ardour2 will also need the an additional line in the ''ardour.menus'' configuration file:
  <menuitem action='aniConnect'/>
I've added it below the "AddTrackBus" entry.

Launch the [[oss:sodankyla:start|socket-server]], ardour and activate ardour's "connect" menu-entry.

===== ICS Protocol =====
{{:wiki:ardourvis-doc.png?250  |handwritten ICS-ardourvis annontations}}
ICS communicates via TCP port 30000. The general syntax is in ASCII text: Every message but the raw-video-data is encoded as Text, integers are represented as decimal values. 

  NUMBER  := <ascii-decimal-integer (3 or 10bytes)>
  TEXT    := <length (3bytes)><data (length bytes)>
  REPLY   := "RT0" | "RT1"
  COMMAND := <2-byte-command> [2-byte-id]* [TEXT]* [NUMBER]*

there are various 2-byte identifiers for commands, items and attributes (eg. ''IN'': insert, ''RM'': remove, ''IT'': imageframe time axis etc). for a full list see the ardour source:
  gtk2_ardour/ardour_image_compositor_socket.h
  gtk2_ardour/imageframe_socket_handler.cc
  gtk2_ardour/imageframe_socket_handler.h
  
If you don't have aniComp and can't wait until [[oss:sodankyla:start|sodankyla]] is deployable, you can connect to ardour using the gnu-tool ''socket''.  Here's an annotated example session:

  #
  # $ socket -v -ls 30000
  #
  # load session
  SAOS019/tmp/a25/a25.ardour
  #
  # create new video-track "TTTT"
  INIT004TTTT
  # rename "TTTT" to "NAME"
  MVIT004TTTT004NAME
  # insert a new marker-track (just testing)
  INMT005VNAME004NAME
  # add a new video-scene/group to the video-track
  INIG004NAME007myscene
  # add an image to the video-scene
  #   Track  Scene     Chunk
  #   |      |         |      start     duration
  #   |  +   |  +      |  +   |         |
  INII004NAME007myscene004myID00000000000000048000
  #
  # ardour asks:
  #
  # "RQID004NAME007myscene004myID066" 
  #      |  +   |  +      |  +   | 
  #      |      |         |      preferred height
  #      Track  Scene     Chunk 
  #
  #
  # reply - header
  #   Width
  #   |  Height
  #   |  |  SPP
  #   |  |  |  Data len
  #   |  |  |  | 
  RDID00800600300000000000000000000000000000144
  # expect "RT1" from ardour.
  # now send image data - here: 144 bytes 
  000...000 (repeat)
  

Note: ardour-0.99.3 expects ''SPP=4'' and //RGBA// image data. The patched ardour2 can handle //RGB24// and //RGBA32//.

====== external resources ======

  * http://subversion.ardour.org/svn/ardour2/branches/2.0-ongoing/gtk2_ardour/ardour_image_compositor_socket.h
  * http://animix.sourceforge.net/anicomp/images/anicomp_preview_2.png
  * http://sourceforge.net/projects/animix/
  
{{tag>FLOSS JACK Video Development}}