Producing Vector Graphics Movies with something like Nodebox or Processing

Question

I like the idea of Nodebox and Processing, and would like to generate movies to visualize some data/algorithms. However, Nodebox exports extremely bloated Quicktime files with frame by frame images, and Processing only exports Java applications. I want to be able to export movies that don't take a Gigabyte a minute of disk space. Perhaps something like SVG animations or Actionscript which stores the vector graphics definition of the animation rather than frame images would be better. Is there a framework that is as easy to program as Nodebox and Processing and can export "lean" movies?

Answer 1

Have you tried the MovieMaker library that ships with Processing ?

Also, it should be fairly simple to save multiple frames using saveFrame(). This is option have a couple of advantages:

1. If your sketch crashes at some point, you still have all the frames up to that point (unlike writing a .mov file)
2. It's fairly simple to put the frames back into a video file, but you also have control over playback speed and can easily do a bit of editing if needed.

You can try to a sequence of PDF file using createGraphics() to get vector output, but I'm not sure how stable/feasible this option is.

Answer 2

They are changing the way this works moving towards 2.0 too, as they are moving to GSVideo over Quicktime...

Daniel Shiffman posted about it recently on his blog, but it's the only place I've heard about any changes to post-2.0 tactics (though he IS part of the inner circle, I know) You can find that post at

http://www.shiffman.net/2011/12/28/night-8-rendering-out-as-image-sequence/

Also, if you are on OSX, you can try Syphon ? See info here

https://forum.processing.org/topic/syphon-integration-with-processing