For games like DOTA 2 which can be run with different graphics API's such as DX9, DX11, Vulkan, I have not been able to come up with a viable solution to checking which of the API's its currently using. I want to do this to correctly inject a dll in order to display images over the game.
I have looked into manually checking what dll's the games have loaded,
this tool for example: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/listdlls
however, in the case of DOTA, it loads in both d3d9.dll and d3d11.dll libraries if none is specified in launch options on steam. Anyone have any other ideas as to how to determine the correct graphics API used?
In Vulkan, a clean way would be to implement a Vulkan Layer doing the overlay. It is slightly cleaner than outright injecting dlls. And it could work on multiple platforms.
In DirectX, screencap software typically does this. Some software adds FPS counter and such overlays. There seems to be open source with similar goals e.g. here: https://github.com/GPUOpen-Tools/OCAT. I believe conventionally the method is to intercept (i.e. "hook" in win32 api terminology) all the appropriate API calls.
As for simple detection, if it calls D3D12CreateDevice then it likely is Direct3D 12. But then again the app could create devices for all the APIs too and proceed not to use them. But I think the API detection is not particularly important for you if you only want to make an overlay; as long as you just intercept all the present calls and draw your stuff on top of it.
Related
My goal is as follows: I have to read in a video that is stored on the sd card, process it frame for frame and then store it in a new file on the SD card again，In each image to do image processing.
At first I wanted to use opencv for android but I did not seem to be able to read the video
here.
I am guessing you already know that doing this on a mobile device or any compute limited devices is not ideal, simply because video manipulation is very computer intensive which translates to slow execution and heavy battery usage on many devices. If you do have the option to do the processing on the server side it is definitely worth considering.
Assuming that for your use case you need to do it on the mobile device, then OpenCV on Android will now allow you to read in a video and access each frame - #StephenG mentions this in his answer to the question you refer to above.
In the past, functionality like this did not get ported to the Android OpenCv as the guidance was to use ffmpeg for frame grabbing on Android devices.
According to more recent documentation, however, this should be available for Android now using the VideoCapture class (note I have not used this myself...):
http://docs.opencv.org/java/2.4.11/org/opencv/highgui/VideoCapture.html
It is worth noting that OpenCV Android examples are all currently based around Eclipse and if you want to use Studio, getting things up an running initially can be quite tricky. The following worked for me recently, but as both studio and OpenCV can change over time you may find you have to do some forum hunting if it does not work for you:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/35135495/334402
Taking a different approach, you can use ffmpeg itself, in a wrapper in Android, for tasks like this.
The advantage of the wrapper approach is that you can use all the usual command line syntax and there is a lot of info on the web to help you get the right parameters.
The disadvantage is that ffmpeg was not really designed to be wrapped in this way so you do sometimes see issues. Having said that it is a common approach now and so long as you choose a well used wrapper library you should at least have a good community to discuss any issues you come across with. I have used this approach in a hand crafted way in the past but if I was doing it again I would use one of the popular examples such as:
https://github.com/WritingMinds/ffmpeg-android-java
I need to render video from multiple IP cameras into several controls within the client application.
On top of the video, I should be able to add some OSD such as timestamp and camera name.
What I'm trying to do has nothing to do with 3D since we're talking about digital video with some text on it.
Which API is more suitable for this purpose? Direct3D or Direct2D?
Performance should also be a consideration here.
It used to be that Direct2D was a poor choice for Windows Phone (if you care about that system) because it wasn't supported, but Win Phone 8.1 has it now, so less of an issue.
My experience with D2D was that it offered fast, high quality 2D rendering, and I would say it is a good choice.
You might want to take a look at this article on Code Project. That looks appropriate for your purposes.
If you are certain you only need MS system support, then you're all set.
Another way to go would be a cross platform system like nanovg, which offers nice 2D rendering and would work on a Mac. Of course, you'd need to figure out how to do the video part on non windows systems.
Regarding D3D, you could certainly do it that way, but my guess would be it would make some things trickier to do. Don't forget you can combine the two as well...
There seems to be a lot of conflicting information out there. It might be that support has increased recently, or changes to adobe.com/air have made some information difficult to find - but I can't track down a definitive list of things to avoid.
I know that actionscript won't run in loaded SWFs, I know that some people say that filters and blendmodes and halo components won't work. I've also read many posts saying they will (at least that blendmodes will, and that halo will run, but slowly so still use spark)
I have a large amount of AS3 code to plan for upgrading to work on iOS, but at the moment I have no idea what things will break (or what things will break when those things have been fixed!)
Is there a list of unsupported APIs, or iOS dos and don'ts?
Thanks
:S
First, yes. Externally loaded SWF's will not run. You can however embed SWF's/SWC's into your project and include them inside of your package.
As far as Flex components, stay away from Halo. You should use Flex 4.6 and stick to components with mobile skins. I recommend downloading Tour de Flex http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/tourdeflex.html to get an idea of whats available.
As far as blend modes go, I'm not really sure. I haven't used them in mobile yet. However filters are supported but they are expensive. For drop shadows on rectangles there is something called RectangularDropShadow. This is actually a component and therefor less expensive. However it can only be used on rectangular groups.
You should have access all of the AIR API's. You will however be restricted when using some of File related classes since I don't believe you can leave your Appliaction Storage Directory.
One big performance tip I can give is to use AS3 over MXML whenever possible, ESPECIALLY when creating item renderers. Use BitmapImage over Image whenever possible, again especially in item renderers. Use cacheAsBitmap whenever you have images that don't change often. And stay away from any Flex component that doesn't have a mobile skin.
You may also want to read up on View and destruction policies.
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex-mobile-development-tips-tricks-pt1.html
This link also has some more performance tips
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex-mobile-performance-checklist.html
Our software produces a lot of data that is georeferenced and recorded over time. We are considering ways to improve the visualisation, and showing the (processed) data in a 3D view, given it's georeferenced, seems a good idea.
I am looking for SO's recommendations for what 3D libraries are best to use as a base when building these kind of visualisations in a Delphi- / C++Builder-based Windows application. I'll add a bounty when I can.
The data
Is recorded over time (hours to days) and is GPS-tagged. So, we have a lot of data following a path over time.
Is spatial: it represents real 3D elements of the earth, such as the land, or 3D elements of objects around the earth.
Is high volume: we could have a point cloud, say, of hundreds of thousands to millions of points. Processed data may display as surfaces created from these point clouds.
From that, you can see that an interactive, spatially-based 3D visualisation seems a good approach. I'm envisaging something where you can easily and quickly navigate around in space, and data will load or be generated on the fly depending on what you're looking at. I would prefer we don't try to write our own 3D library from scratch - for something like this, there have to be good existing libraries we can work from.
So, I'm hoping for a library which supports:
good navigation (is the library based on Euler rotations only, for example? Can you 'pick' objects to rotate around or move with easily?);
modern GPUs (shader-only rendering is ok; being able to hook into the pipeline to write shaders that map values to colours and change dynamically would be great - think data values given a colour through a colour lookup table);
dynamic data / objects (data can be added as it's recorded; and if the data volume is too high, we should be able to page things in and out or recreate them, and only show a sensible subset so that whatever the user's viewport is looking at is there onscreen, but other data can be loaded/regenerated, preferably asynchronously, or at least quickly as the user navigates. Obviously data creation is dependent on us, but a library that has hooks for this kind of thing would be great.)
and technologically, works with Delphi / C++Builder and the VCL.
Libraries
There are two main libraries I've considered so far - I'm looking for knowledgeable opinions about these, or for other libraries I haven't considered.
1. FireMonkey
This is Embarcadero's new UI library, which is only available in XE2 and above. Our app is based on the VCL and we'd want to host this in a VCL window; that seems to be officially unsupported but unofficially works fine, or is available through third-parties.
The mix of UI framework and 3D framework with shaders etc sounds great. But I don't know how complex the library is, what support it has for data that's not a simple object like a cube or sphere, and how well-designed it is. That last link has major criticisms of the 3D side of the library - severe enough I am not sure it's worthwhile in its current state at the time of writing for a non-trivial 3D app.
Is it worth trying to write a new visualisation window in our VCL app using FireMonkey?
2. GLScene
GLScene is a well-known 3D OpenGL framework for Delphi. I have never used it myself so have no experience about how it works or is designed. However, I believe it integrates well into VCL windows and supports shaders and modern GPUs. I do not know how its scene graph or navigation work or how well dynamic data can be implemented.
Its feature list specifically mentions some things I'm interested in, such as easy rotation/movement, procedural objects (implying dynamic data is easy to implement), and helper functions for picking. It seems shaders are Cg only (not GLSL or another non-vendor-specific language.) It also supports "polymorphic image support for texturing (allows many formats as well as procedural textures), easily extendable" - that may just mean many image formats, or it may indicate something where the texture can be dynamically changed, such as for dynamic colour mapping.
Where to from here?
These are the only two major 3D libraries I know of for Delphi or C++Builder. Have I missed any? Are there pros and cons I'm not aware of? Do you have any experience using either of these for this kind of purpose, and what pitfalls should we be wary of or features should we know about and use?
We currently use Embarcadero RAD Studio 2010 and most of our software is written in C++. We have small amounts of Delphi and may consider upgrading IDEs, but we are most likely to wait until the 64-bit C++ compiler is released. For that reason, a library that works in RS2010 might be best.
Thanks for your input :) I'm after high-quality answers, so I'll add a bounty when I can!
I have used GLScene in my 3D geomapping software and although it's not used to an extent you're looking for I can vouch that it seems the most appropriate for what you're trying to do.
GLScene supports terrain rendering and adding customizable objects to the scene. Objects can be interacted with and you can create complex 3D models of objects using the various building blocks of GLScene.
Unfortunately I cannot state how it will work with millions of points, but I do know that it is quite optimized and performs great on minimal hardware - that being said - the target PC I found required a dedicated graphics card capable of using OpenGL 2.1 extensions or higher (I found small issues with integrated graphics cards).
The other library I looked at was DXscene - which appears quite similar to GLScene albeit using DirectX instead of OpenGL. From memory this was a commercial product where GLScene was licensed under GPL. (EDIT - the page seems to be down at the moment : http://www.ksdev.com/index.html)
GLScene is still in active development and provides a fairly comprehensive library of functions, base objects and texturing etc. Things like rotation, translation, pitch, roll, turn, ray casting - to name a few - are all provided for you. Visibility culling is provided for each base object as well as viewing cameras, lighting and meshes. Base objects include cubes, spheres, pipes, tetrahedrons, cones, terrain, grids, 3d text, arrows to name a few.
Objects can be picked with the mouse and moved along 1,2 or 3 axes. Helper functions are included to automatically calculate the top-most object the mouse is under. Complex 3D shapes can be built by attaching base objects to other base objects in a hierarchical manner. So, for example, a car could be built using a rectangle as the base object and attaching four cylinders to it for the wheels - then you can manipulate the 'car' as a whole - since the four cylinders are attached to the base rectangle.
The only downside I could bring to your attention is the sometimes limited help/support available to you. Yes, there is a reference manual and a number of demo applications to show you how to do things such as select objects and move them around, however the reference manual is not complete and there is potential to get 'stuck' on how to accomplish a certain task. Forum support is somewhat limited/sparse. If you have a sound knowledge of 3D basics and concepts I'm sure you could nut it out.
As for Firemonkey - I have had no experience with this so I can't comment. I believe this is more targeted at mobile applications with lower hardware requirements so you may have issues with larger data sets.
Here are some other links that you may consider - I have no experience with them:
http://www.truevision3d.com/
http://www.3impact.com/
Game Development in Delphi
The last one is targeted at game development - but may provide useful information.
Have you tried glData? http://gldata.sourceforge.net/
It is old (~2004, Delphi 7), and I have not personally used the library, but some of the output is amazing.
you can use the GLScene or OpenGL they are good 3D rendering and its very easy to use.
Since you are already using georeferenced data, maybe you should consider embedding GoogleEarth in your Delphi application like this? Then you can add data to it as points, paths, or objects.
I've been reading about Andrew Russell's ExEn project and I'm wondering what the flow would be like for creating a WP7 accelerometer-based game and then porting it to another platform, say iOS. Here's what I hope would happen:
Create fully functional game in XNA, avoiding dependance on device
specific items like the 'back' button.
Run the project through ExEn (I have no idea on how this would
happen), creating fully functional iOS game.
Run game on iPhone.
Sorry for that pitiful outline, but I just don't have a solid high-level view after reading about it.
Also, being software conversion, surely it wouldn't totally work. How would you iron out the wrinkles? I assume you'd have to know iOS or Android fairly well to pin it down.
Anyway, if anyone can move me one step closer I would appreciate it.
ExEn is an implementation of a subset of the XNA API that runs on different platforms (including iOS and Android). Put simply, it makes the classes and methods that you use when writing XNA code available to you on these other platforms. (Plus appropriate instructions, examples, etc.)
When using ExEn, the bulk of your code should simply "just work". However in most real-world cases you will need to write at least some platform-specific code (and probably provide some platform-specific assets). In particular to support different device resolutions, and also in cases where you use XNA features not available in ExEn.
At time of writing, ExEn does not implement the XNA/WP7 APIs for accelerometer support. At some time in the future they may be added (either by me or anyone who wants to contribute a patch). ExEn is distributed as source code, so you could even add the necessary support yourself.
The alternative would be to write platform-specific code for the parts of your game that query the accelerometer. Using ExEn does not prevent you from also using the APIs of the underlying platform.
ExEn (on iOS and Android) runs on top of Xamarin's MonoTouch and Mono for Android products. These two products provide C# bindings for the underlying platform APIs. Also, much like ExEn implements the XNA APIs, Mono implements the .NET APIs. These products also provide you with the tools you need (IDE, compiler, debugger, etc).
So the iOS API that you would use is UIAccelerometer (doc). This is exposed in C# via MonoTouch.UIKit.UIAccelerometer (doc). I'll leave looking up the Android equivalents as an exercise.
You can't expect:
porting a game to other platform and don't modify it.
porting a game with special platform inherent abilities to other platform that lacks this abilities, or vice versa