1 Topic by joan

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The last experimental version (0.8.8) introduced the Observational references feature. (menu Image > Observational references)
Even though it's certainly still a bit rough around the edges, I think it has a massive potential.

In a nutshell, it allows you to use arbitrarily complex drawings as overlays on the video. The primary usage would be as a guides for motion analysis.

It is open and extensible :
- It uses the SVG standard. Meaning you can create your own shapes in popular SVG editors like Inkscape.
- Extensible: you simply drop a .svg file in the "guides" directory of Kinovea program files folder, and it will be automatically listed in the menu next time you start.

This also means that you can take the existing files in the folder, and modify them to suit your needs.

Now you will see that the collection of included Observational references for this first version is somewhat limited. There is a protractor, a foot diagram, a full skeleton (which takes time to load…), and some others.
Each sport will probably have an ideal frame of reference to use during motion analysis. A geometric canvas that quickly tells you what you need to know.

And this is where you turn this into a killer feature big_smile

- Suggest new shapes to be created.
- Create new shapes and share them with the world.
- Adapt existing shapes to other usages or for your specific needs.
- etc.

If it works, I will host a repository of these .svg files on the site so everyone can benefit from the work of other users, build upon it, adapt it, etc.

Right now, to get this started:
- Give feedback on the feature itself. How can it be improved ?
- Suggest new shapes to be added or start to create your own with (for example) Inkscape.

2 Reply by podomac

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Very interesting and as you say with great potential.

Would be interesting if you could create folders in (menu Image > Observational references)
Goniometers;
Arrows;
Bones ;
            Arms
            Limbs
            Foot
And others,  each can customize your menu.

good tool Joan!

3 Reply by joan (edited by joan 2010-06-17 19:59:29)

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Yes you're right, good idea smile
It will allow the user to better organize by grouping related shapes together.
Sharing several shapes will also be more convenient if you can group them under a single folder and just copy that folder.

4 Reply by joan

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I have just addressed this. Now the sub directories structure under "guides" will be mapped to menus and sub menus (unless a given directory doesn't have any .svg file).
I don't know if Kinovea will have several directories by default, but the possibility is there for the user as a start.

5 Reply by Alexander

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For some reason my *.svg-files saved into the "guides"-folder don´t show up on the menu? The files were made with Inkscape.
I plan to create eventspecific (hurdles, long jump...) directories with comparable technical pictures made of original videofootage?

6 Reply by joan

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Even after you restart Kinovea ? Can you see the others ?
What happens if you make a copy of an existing file, can you see the copy ?

When building the menu, no deep scanning of the file is done, so anything with an .svg extension should show up…

7 Reply by joan

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Hmm, looking at the code I can see that the function is only looking for ".svg" files with the extension in lowercase. So if your files are ".SVG" for example, it won't find them.
Is that what's happening ?
I'll fix this for next version.

8 Reply by Alexander

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The extensions are lowercase *.svg. Copied files don´t work either? The files moved to or saved from Inkscape to guides/    just don´t show when I start Kinovea...:(

9 Reply by joan

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Hmm… And you can see the original ones, right ?

Can you remind your OS version ? Windows 7 ? And are you running as administrator or normal user ? (Will try to reproduce the context)

10 Reply by Alexander (edited by Alexander 2010-08-23 09:21:12)

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I´am using Vista. All the original *.svg´s are there... I am a running it as a normal user.  The filelist shows, when I check it from my Filemanager. Just not in Kinovea.

11 Reply by joan

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The only thing I can think of right now is the file virtualization thing. When trying to write to a critical location (like "Program Files") the system detects you are a non-privileged user and actually pushes your changes to a special location under your own user files directory. It may does that transparently for you from the Windows File Explorer, but the files wouldn't be added to the right folder from Kinovea point of view.
(I'm not sure that's actually what is happening though).

If we could validate this hypothesis, I guess the best strategy then would be to use the Application data directory to store the user's .svg instead. (currently done for color profiles files)

Do you have anything under "C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Kinovea\" ?

12 Reply by Alexander

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No. I opened the "protractor.svg with Inkscape and saved it as "protractor1.svg" - Kinovea couldn´t find it. But when I saved it without changing the name, then everything was OK.

13 Reply by joan

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Hi,
Can you walk me through this again, I can't wrap my mind around the issue. This is what I do:
- I close Kinovea.
- I Go into "Program Files > Kinovea > guides".
- right click on protractor.svg > select Copy.
- then Paste in the folder : a dialog box pops up "Destination folder access denied", You'll need to provide administrator permission…" I click continue.
- Other dialog box "Do you want to allow the following program…" > I click yes.
- the new file is created "protractor - Copy.svg". (108KB).
- I reopen Kinovea, launch a small video.
- Then I can see the "protractor - Copy" entry in the menu.

As far as I understand, the only way for the file not to be displayed in the menu would be that it's actually not really in the Program files folder, eventhough the file explorer makes us think so.
I don't have a Vista machine so this was done under 7.

14 Reply by joan

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Alexander, (or any one that had this issue)

Do you still reproduce this defect?
The program has to be restarted after the new file is added in the "guides" folder.
What about files added in sub directories?

ref: bug219.

15 Reply by Alexander

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Hello Joan.
I found out that the "lost" pictures were those that I had directly saved to the subdirectory /guides   from ex. Inkscape. If I made a *.svg-file and moved it/dropped it to the subdirectory, then the files would show up in Kinovea.