Pure Data and Gangplank

Pure Data

This article is still under construction.

It´s used in many contexts and for many different purposes. One way of using it is controlling lights within a network, receiving and sending data from and to sound, video, sensors... Incoming data is treated in pure data, sent through a light interface (Lanbox, BitWizard DMX Interface etc.) to lamps. Or: light values are sent to and influence sound and video.

If you want to know more about Pd in general, follow this link [[1]]

Here´s my personal view:

I see working with Pd as landscaping: There´s data coming in and you translate/transform it into a format you can handle, send it in different directions, built gates which open and close in different directions, if you want depending on a certain condition - may it be time (open this gate every other minute) or a value (open this gate if the incoming data is above one, keep it closed if it´s below), or you say go this way if the value is below 1, go that way if the value is above one...this is a very basic example of a very complex and powerful programming language.

versions of pure data

There´s different versions of Pd: Pd Vanilla, Pd-Extended (not maintained anymore), Pd L2ork, PurrData

abstractions

In order to communicate with the lanbox from Pd Olivier Heinry, Bruno Pocheron and Annegret Schalke wrote abstractions. The lanbox abstractions is a Pd library containing patches which are implementing most of the hex commands with which you can control the lanbox.

There are f.ex. abstractions to connect to the lanbox, to go to a certain cue step, to make a layer setting, to set the transparency of a layer to a certain value etc.

You can find and download the lanbox abstractions here: Abstractions

patches

A patch is a piece of you program in Pd. In consists of Pd objects, abstractions, and connection between them. You will write a patch specifically for the needs of your project, or you re-use an old one or parts of an old one you or somebody else wrote. You could see Pd as a construction kit for your patches.

You can download patches here