Ostrich Flash Lets Flash Designers and Developers Easily Capture Motion in a Webcam with Just Flash

Ostrich is a set of open source Adobe Flash classes that lets designers and developers easily capture Web cam motion – from even the cheapest of Web cams – and use that motion as a gesture interface or art pieces.  For instance, activating buttons or having effects follow your motion, etc.

Please see the videos available in the video link above that show Ostrich in use and discus the ActionScript code.  The code section provides a quick look at the code which is something like below:

// make an OstrichCamera object            
 myCamera = new OstrichCamera();    
 addChild(myCamera);            

 // make an OstrichCursor object (there are more parameters available)
 myCursor = new OstrichCursor(myCamera); 
 addChild(myCursor);  

That’s it. Now a cursor follows video motion.  This is really cool technology and has been around at least as long as Toronto’s David Rokeby premiered his very nervous system back in the 80’s of making music with gestures.  Toronto’s Gesture Tek is a world leader in gesture technologies with patents also stemming back to the 80’s.  The technique of using difference blend modes on successive Web cam frames was shown by Grant Skinner in Flash 8 a few years back at an FITC conference in Toronto.  Many thanks to these pioneers.  Various modifications and additions have been made in the Ostrich classes so enjoy!