Introduction to OSCulator

Remote controls, Touch-enabled surfaces or even weight sensors, all of these are controllers that can be used to create. During the last few years, a lot of progress has been achieved with respect to the availability of those technologies, thanks to the development of computer processing power¹⁾. Because they are often cheap or easily found in stores²⁾, a whole new class of possibilities has emerged, rendering the interaction with the computer and its surrounding devices much more tangible.

There is however a problem with this growing number of solutions: complexity. While the novice user is left with what is available³⁾, the experienced one will have access to more powerful tools, but will require to reinvent the wheel every time he needs to use a new type of controller.

OSCulator is a software that connects the controllers with production devices, designed to be flexible and user friendly.

• It solves simple problems without extensive configuration⁴⁾, but can be used to control a distributed network of computers as well, such as in a large artistic installations.
• It doesn't have a steep learning curve because the same principles are applied consistently throughout the software.
• It is stable and robust.
• It benefits from an ever growing user base.

Open Sound Control (OSC) is a protocol for communication among computers, sound synthesizers, and other multimedia devices that is lightweight and leverages current networking technologies. As an attempt to simplify the vast problem of inter-connectivity, the choice of using the OSC protocol has been made ; even more, only a subset of it is really used.

Almost all parameters used in OSCulator are numbers ranging from 0.0 to 1.0⁵⁾

TouchOSC or the Lemur also adopt the same convention, just as all the devices natively handled by OSCulator.