[HN Gopher] Ronin - A Lisp-based image processing tool
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Ronin - A Lisp-based image processing tool
Author : Gormisdomai
Score : 242 points
Date : 2020-05-17 11:33 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (100r.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (100r.co)
| [deleted]
| jierenchen wrote:
| This is exceptionally cool. Thanks for sharing and building!
|
| When I'm using Sketch or Movie Maker or Logic or some other GUI-
| based >>x<< editing tool, the thing that keeps going through my
| head is: "Dammit I wish I had the abstraction tools that I have
| as a programmer. It would literally make this task 100x faster."
|
| To me Ronin is some strong validation that all these editing
| tools would be much improved by a human-readable and programmable
| intermediate representation of what you're doing with the GUI.
| The GUI is just an editor for modifying this representation.
|
| John Carmack did some work when he was at Oculus on something
| like this for VR: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydyztGZnbNs
|
| These ideas are all in their infancy, but really excited to see
| people starting to make moves in this field.
|
| Thanks again!
| GuiA wrote:
| They complement each other. There are certain things that I'd
| love to pull up a command line for (e.g. quickly aligning
| dozens of objects using a non trivial heuristic); but on the
| other hand there are plenty of things where the act of visually
| working through it, placing multiple options side by side on
| the canvas, rearranging things by hand etc., helps in solving
| the problem itself.
|
| What would be really nice is if we had a solid set of standards
| for inter operation, such that I could work on the same video
| editing project in After Effects, through the command line,
| through some open source tools someone else wrote... etc.
|
| I have a project right now where I have assets generated in
| Sketch, some other assets generated by Python scripts, all
| feeding into an AE project, the output of which gets fed back
| into some of the Python scripts... I can do great things, but
| it's super kludgy/buggy to work with, and as a software
| engineer see so many trivial ways in which it could all be so
| much faster and more pleasant to work with (e.g. After Effects
| natively only supports very limited JS like scripting, so I
| have to have duplicated Python + AE code... and if the AE
| motion tracker could serialize tracking data for Python...).
|
| I'm not holding my breath because this kind of computing, while
| more aligned in philosophy with the early composable UNIX
| roots, is IMO most entirely incompatible with the state of the
| (creative) software industry/economy (Adobe, like everyone
| else, would like to do as much as they can so that you do not
| give any of your time or money to creative software other than
| Adobe's).
| jierenchen wrote:
| > They complement each other. There are certain things that
| I'd love to pull up a command line for (e.g. quickly aligning
| dozens of objects using a non trivial heuristic); but on the
| other hand there are plenty of things where the act of
| visually working through it, placing multiple options side by
| side on the canvas, rearranging things by hand etc., helps in
| solving the problem itself. > What would be really nice is if
| we had a solid set of standards for inter operation, such
| that I could work on the same video editing project in After
| Effects, through the command line, through some open source
| tools someone else wrote... etc.
|
| The big challenge I see here is a two-way mapping between
| code/representation and GUI. Ronin here has code >> graphics,
| but question is how to have a clean mapping from graphics >>
| code?
|
| > I'm not holding my breath because this kind of computing,
| while more aligned in philosophy with the early composable
| UNIX roots, is IMO most entirely incompatible with the state
| of the (creative) software industry/economy (Adobe, like
| everyone else, would like to do as much as they can so that
| you do not give any of your time or money to creative
| software other than Adobe's).
|
| I do wonder if this is going to be a space that gets
| disrupted. We're already seeing this with smaller players
| like Sketch and Figma going into the image space. Still GUI
| tools, but proves that the barrier to entry isn't quite as
| high.
|
| Is the technical moat for audio and video THAT
| insurmountable? I get that people won't be making the next
| hot music video on open source software right now, but I
| personally could use something dead simple to compose
| together a bunch of screen recordings into a demo video.
|
| > I have a project right now where I have assets generated in
| Sketch, some other assets generated by Python scripts, all
| feeding into an AE project, the output of which gets fed back
| into some of the Python scripts... I can do great things, but
| it's super kludgy/buggy to work with, and as a software
| engineer see so many trivial ways in which it could all be so
| much faster and more pleasant to work with (e.g. After
| Effects natively only supports very limited JS like
| scripting, so I have to have duplicated Python + AE code...
| and if the AE motion tracker could serialize tracking data
| for Python...).
|
| Whatcha making in AE?
| disconcision wrote:
| re: two-way mapping: see sketch-n-sketch
| (https://ravichugh.github.io/sketch-n-sketch/) for another
| effort in this vein
| snidane wrote:
| The author was recently featured in a brilliant Future of Coding
| pocast, providing some highly inspiring ideas.
|
| #44 - Making Your Own Tools: Devine Lu Linvega
| https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/044
|
| #45 - Orca: Devine Lu Linvega
| https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/045
| gtsnexp wrote:
| Excellent interviews.
| pavlov wrote:
| Lisp has a long history in computer graphics. It was particularly
| popular in the 1980s.
|
| There was Symbolics, a manufacturer of Lisp workstations
| (sometimes also remembered as the first company to register a
| .com domain).
|
| Symbolics had a Lisp-programmable 3D graphics suite that seems to
| have been fairly successful at the end of the decade. Here's a
| video from 1989: https://youtu.be/gV5obrYaogU
|
| The video doesn't seem to show any Lisp though.
|
| On the 2D side, the immensely popular AutoCAD adopted Lisp as its
| expansion language in 1985.
|
| Autodesk founder John Walker explains the decision in this
| contemporary memo "Why Lisp":
| https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/e5/
| nikofeyn wrote:
| ----
| Jtsummers wrote:
| The date is below the title next to the author: February 5,
| 1985.
| nikofeyn wrote:
| ----
| dqv wrote:
| I think the GP means contemporary as "at the time".
| pavlov wrote:
| Right, I meant the memo was contemporary with the
| decision.
| dqv wrote:
| It looks like the fourth edition was released in February
| 1994. And the product release history's latest dates don't go
| later than 1994.
| angleofrepose wrote:
| I've been following Ronin and the author for a few years now from
| a distance. As I have said in other threads on hn about this
| work, the theme and ethos are so consistent and thorough they
| just slap you in the face. You know exactly what is going on with
| Ronin, Oscean, Orca and it is a pleasure to see such clear
| manifestation of intent.
|
| Ronin in particular is the most fascinating piece of this network
| to me. I was hooked by the (broken) version 1.0 when I first
| found it a couple years ago and played around a bit with fixing
| it. It played well with a few other key influences in my life and
| I've been playing around with similar--albeit prototype--systems
| ever since.
|
| To name one stand out feature. I have been playing around with
| generative design/creative coding/coding art for a while now and
| I seem to be on an edge of the domain. My work lately has been
| increasingly taking a set of starter points, so to speak. I have
| shapes or layouts in my head that I want to run through the
| generative process, but I am distinctly starting with these hard
| coded values.
|
| Ronin provides direct manipulation on the canvas with `$`
| prefixes in the code. If you type `$point`, then click on the
| canvas, "$point" is replaced with code representing that point.
| The simplicity of this interface for writing code that heavily
| involves numbers in context (ie on their domain) is an
| inspiration. There are probably a couple of names for this
| connectivity, but one might be bi-directional evaluation.
| Manipulations in code yield the canvas, and manipulations on the
| canvas yield code.
|
| There's a lot going on here, xxiivv.com
|
| And some fun to be learned by poking through git commits. If you
| know Orca, (was popular here a while back) it didn't start as a
| music generation system.
|
| Edit:
|
| Ronin tutorial video, 5:22. First 30s tease the original version
| I saw. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgAWGh1s9zg
|
| Old version tutorial/demo 4:09 :
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gifzjhyBwOc
| lisper wrote:
| It sounds very cool, but I hit a brick wall almost immediately
| when I tried to use it: how do I run a script? The tutorial
| video says you type cmd-R but that just reloads the page when
| you're running it in Firefox.
| angleofrepose wrote:
| It's probably fair to say this software isn't the most user
| friends as a result of its continuous change. In chrome and
| firefox Control-Enter runs the web app version I find here:
| https://hundredrabbits.github.io/Ronin/
| maxerickson wrote:
| It seems the keyboard shortcuts are shown in the menu.
| GuiA wrote:
| Check out acme/plan9. Lots of similar
| cursor/content/programming synergies.
|
| There are entire parallel end user computing universes out
| there that we have barely scratched the surface of.
| angleofrepose wrote:
| There is a plan9 and acme demo on YouTube which is eye
| opening. One idea that has captured me is the idea that end
| users ought to be able to create custom UIs. This appears to
| be a foundational principle of plan9, the way all text is
| able to be executed. Another avenue for this idea are ZUIs as
| originally envisioned. Individual clipboard state can be
| reified as buttons in the UI, any formatting or pens or fonts
| can also be manifested in the interface and selected with
| something along the lines of the "eyedropper" tool present in
| many applications.
|
| edit: video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M
| "A Tour of the Acme Editor" by Russ Cox
| taeric wrote:
| Sounds a lot like some of the macro tools in Emacs, all
| told. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/e
| macs/Ed... has the general vision of showing so keyboard
| interactions. I don't know why this couldn't include mouse
| events.
| angleofrepose wrote:
| I agree, thanks for pointing me to that info page. I
| would bet that keys representing functions probably
| evolved simultaneously with the first computer
| typewriters, they've been around forever and are
| "obvious" to some degree. Making functions apparent in
| menus is also probably synonymous with the first non
| text-based GUIs. I don't know enough about the history of
| toolkits, but as far as I can tell that area of
| development is nowhere near mainstream today.
|
| I have been reading Sutherland's Sketchpad thesis, and it
| struck me that no aspect of the system was unavailable to
| the user. By itself, this isn't entirely unusual, I think
| the same could be argued for emacs or linux in various
| ways or even of software when code is available etc. The
| unique aspect of this universal control with regard to
| sketchpad is that it was a graphical system. Controls for
| the graphics and viewport were essential, and reflected
| by the development of the first oop principles of
| master/instance and recursive expansion of arbitrary
| material in the workspace. Of multiple viewport movement
| controls (physical dials too!) and focus-selection
| zooming.
|
| It is easy to imagine extensions of sketchpad with
| graphical macros. Of savable viewport state, of non-
| euclidean jumps between locations on the digital "paper".
|
| It's funny to me that most clever things I enjoy about
| vim seem like they could fit right into a graphical
| system like sketchpad. `mkview`, marks, folds, repeat
| operations, contextual movement or selection like
| accessed via combinations of `[{(`.
|
| Infinite canvas artboards are fantastic workspaces, but
| lack even the basic "focus shifting ability" of a few
| stacks of paper on a desk, taped on a wall, or strewn
| across the floor.
| taeric wrote:
| The thing I like about the best parts of vim and emacs is
| how much it feels like a conversation with the computer.
| Such that it natural lends itself to interacting with
| completed things. Indeed, "ciw" only works if you have a
| completed "word" to change.
|
| Notebooks are usually tons and tons of fragments. Such
| that a precise dialog with them feels very difficult. I
| agree it would be awesome, but I have yet to see
| something that doesn't just harken to the ultimate
| failures of graphical programming languages. Neat for
| performance style programming. But needing a ton of
| rehearsal to get a performance.
| throwaway-alpha wrote:
| The author is a reasonable person. The community is as
| poisonous as hell. Two people in the slack group made many to
| leave. Nothing has been done yet. A few years ago, they removed
| a friend of mine. Because the two men turned their eyes on them
| like the malicious Sauron.
|
| The output is interesting. Remove yourself as far as possible
| from the community.
| amelius wrote:
| Isn't this just SVG but with different syntax?
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