Hey hey,
just today someone asked, if I couldn't add a little more interesting image 
content to my music on Youtube. I had been thinking about that before.

Does anyone here know of a text programmable tool that can create abstract 
images from music? Based on some kind of audio analysis perhaps? Can Csound be 
used to achieve that? I was thinking of abstract geometric shapes in varying 
colours. It's been a while since I've seen a desktop audio player app on an 
actual screen, but some of them used to have similar features...

If you can think of something, it could be a Python library, that can load 
audio and produce and save moving images, I'd be grateful.x!

Thanks and best wishes,

Jeanette

-- 
  * Website: http://juliencoder.de - for summer is a state of sound
  * Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rfGrTwz8W7jhC1Jnv7g
  * Audiobombs: https://www.audiobombs.com/users/jeanette_c
  * GitHub: https://github.com/jeanette-c

I saw your smile
Stay with me a while <3
(Britney Spears)

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Hi,

I don't know any out-of-the-box solutions but you can use PIL to draw 
graphics as frames and then string those together into video using 
ffmpeg or similar. I used this synchronised with Csound for a couple of 
experimental videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTTvcESpaq4 ; 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW-Igs75fEE

The image opcodes in Csound 
(https://csound.com/docs/manual/imagecreate.html) could be used 
similarly to create individual frames, but are very low level - not used 
them much.

moviepy (https://zulko.github.io/moviepy/) is a useful python library 
for creating more detailed videos as well but more geared towards 
manipulating existing video.

Also I've created an experimental plugin for SDL graphics within Csound 
- this outputs to the screen rather than a file, but can be quite easily 
used for basic shapes etc.

With all these, there's work to do in mapping audio features to visual 
features though..


On 2025-04-23 00:07, Jeanette C. wrote:
> Hey hey,
> just today someone asked, if I couldn't add a little more interesting
> image content to my music on Youtube. I had been thinking about that
> before.
> 
> Does anyone here know of a text programmable tool that can create
> abstract images from music? Based on some kind of audio analysis
> perhaps? Can Csound be used to achieve that? I was thinking of
> abstract geometric shapes in varying colours. It's been a while since
> I've seen a desktop audio player app on an actual screen, but some of
> them used to have similar features...
> 
> If you can think of something, it could be a Python library, that can
> load audio and produce and save moving images, I'd be grateful.x!
> 
> Thanks and best wishes,
> 
> Jeanette
> 
> --
>  * Website: http://juliencoder.de - for summer is a state of sound
>  * Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rfGrTwz8W7jhC1Jnv7g
>  * Audiobombs: https://www.audiobombs.com/users/jeanette_c
>  * GitHub: https://github.com/jeanette-c
> 
> I saw your smile
> Stay with me a while <3
> (Britney Spears)
> 
> Csound mailing list
> Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
> https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND
> Send bugs reports to
>        https://github.com/csound/csound/issues
> Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here

Csound mailing list
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Hi Richard and S.,
thanks both of your for your suggestions.

@Richard: I've taken a look at PIL (Python Pillow), which comes closest. 
Though I think with that particular interface, I might almost return to 
POV-Ray and work that way. Perhaps not that reactive in the end. :)

@smills: sorry all those are out. Can't use that GUI stuff, which is why I 
particularly asked for text-programmable stuff. I should have made myself 
clearer, in saying that I need something that can be developed and run purely 
from the commandline.

I love the Hydrasynth, though haven't come across the other, even though I'm 
aware of a few video synthesizers, mostly in hardware, they get shown at synth 
events now, which is great in itself.

Best wishes,

Jeanette

-- 
  * Website: http://juliencoder.de - for summer is a state of sound
  * Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rfGrTwz8W7jhC1Jnv7g
  * Audiobombs: https://www.audiobombs.com/users/jeanette_c
  * GitHub: https://github.com/jeanette-c

I believe
We all have one true love
Somewhere in this world <3
(Britney Spears)

Csound mailing list
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Another Csound wasm option to explore is CABLES.gl if you fancy something a bit more visual programming like Pure Data.

Hydrasynth does look quite cool.

I do actually love POV-ray - in a nostalgic and perhaps slightly 
masochistic way!
Incidentally there's a Python interface for it - 
https://github.com/Zulko/vapory - which may be of use.

On 2025-04-23 13:53, Jeanette C. wrote:
> Hi Richard and S.,
> thanks both of your for your suggestions.
> 
> @Richard: I've taken a look at PIL (Python Pillow), which comes
> closest. Though I think with that particular interface, I might almost
> return to POV-Ray and work that way. Perhaps not that reactive in the
> end. :)
> 
> @smills: sorry all those are out. Can't use that GUI stuff, which is
> why I particularly asked for text-programmable stuff. I should have
> made myself clearer, in saying that I need something that can be
> developed and run purely from the commandline.
> 
> I love the Hydrasynth, though haven't come across the other, even
> though I'm aware of a few video synthesizers, mostly in hardware, they
> get shown at synth events now, which is great in itself.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Jeanette
> 
> --
>  * Website: http://juliencoder.de - for summer is a state of sound
>  * Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rfGrTwz8W7jhC1Jnv7g
>  * Audiobombs: https://www.audiobombs.com/users/jeanette_c
>  * GitHub: https://github.com/jeanette-c
> 
> I believe
> We all have one true love
> Somewhere in this world <3
> (Britney Spears)
> 
> Csound mailing list
> Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
> https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND
> Send bugs reports to
>        https://github.com/csound/csound/issues
> Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here

Csound mailing list
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Send bugs reports to
        https://github.com/csound/csound/issues
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Hey hey,
just today someone asked, if I couldn't add a little more interesting image content to my music on Youtube. I had been thinking about that before.

Does anyone here know of a text programmable tool that can create abstract images from music? Based on some kind of audio analysis perhaps? Can Csound be used to achieve that? I was thinking of abstract geometric shapes in varying colours. It's been a while since I've seen a desktop audio player app on an actual screen, but some of them used to have similar features...

If you can think of something, it could be a Python library, that can load audio and produce and save moving images, I'd be grateful.x!

Thanks and best wishes,

Jeanette

Hi Richard,
thanks for the Python POV-Ray library. that might really be the way forwards. 
So I can combiine two things that I know. I see why you might remember it with 
some frustration. But if you want to do some graphics design while being blind 
- or as close as makes no difference - POV-Ray is absolutely ACE! :)

Best wishes,

Jeanette

-- 
  * Website: http://juliencoder.de - for summer is a state of sound
  * Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rfGrTwz8W7jhC1Jnv7g
  * Audiobombs: https://www.audiobombs.com/users/jeanette_c
  * GitHub: https://github.com/jeanette-c

I believe
We all have one true love
Somewhere in this world <3
(Britney Spears)

Csound mailing list
Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
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Ah great, I am glad that may be helpful.
And yes, I can absolutely understand, while 3D modelling has moved to be 
quite visual in design, for text scene description and scripting, 
POV-Ray is fantastic!


On 2025-04-23 15:10, Jeanette C. wrote:
> Hi Richard,
> thanks for the Python POV-Ray library. that might really be the way
> forwards. So I can combiine two things that I know. I see why you
> might remember it with some frustration. But if you want to do some
> graphics design while being blind - or as close as makes no difference
> - POV-Ray is absolutely ACE! :)
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Jeanette
> 
> --
>  * Website: http://juliencoder.de - for summer is a state of sound
>  * Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rfGrTwz8W7jhC1Jnv7g
>  * Audiobombs: https://www.audiobombs.com/users/jeanette_c
>  * GitHub: https://github.com/jeanette-c
> 
> I believe
> We all have one true love
> Somewhere in this world <3
> (Britney Spears)
> 
> Csound mailing list
> Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
> https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND
> Send bugs reports to
>        https://github.com/csound/csound/issues
> Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here

Csound mailing list
Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND
Send bugs reports to
        https://github.com/csound/csound/issues
Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here

Hi Luis,
thanks for the example. Do you know how you could run Processing on the 
commandline? The OSC control is a nice feature.

Best wishes,

Jeanette

-- 
  * Website: http://juliencoder.de - for summer is a state of sound
  * Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rfGrTwz8W7jhC1Jnv7g
  * Audiobombs: https://www.audiobombs.com/users/jeanette_c
  * GitHub: https://github.com/jeanette-c

I believe
We all have one true love
Somewhere in this world <3
(Britney Spears)

Csound mailing list
Csound@listserv.heanet.ie
https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CSOUND
Send bugs reports to
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