This article is more than 1 year old

New Google APIs: Point your phone at a telly like a streaming hose of vid

Splatter your digital fluid all OVER than screen

Google has mashed the Processing graphics language into its Cast software, letting visual artists and others with a bent for graphics point their creations at the nearest big-screen TV.

The project even seems to hint at a possible games angle: an Android device like a mobile phone can be used as a controller of the displayed video.

What the Chocolate Factory has done is simple: it's added its Cast Remote Display APIs to the Android port of Processing.

Via Processing for Android, the graphic art language could already run outputs from (for example) a PC on an Android device – but until now, the language lacked remote display capability.

Cast Remote Display APIs filled in that gap: the graphics processing could be handled by the GPUs, CPUs and sensors on a mobe, but shared to a TV.

According to developer program engineer Leon Nicholls, the project was simple enough:

We started with the source code of the current stable release version 2.2.1 of the Processing IDE and compiled it using its Ant build script (detailed instructions are included along with the code download). We then downloaded the Android SDK and source code for the Android Mode 0232. After some minor changes to its build config to support the latest Android SDK version, we used Ant to build the Android Mode zip file. The zip file was unzipped into the Processing IDE modes directory.

After outlining the details of changes made to specific applets, services and events, Nicholls notes that “Most of the new code is contained in the PresentationService and RemoteDisplayHelper classes. Your mobile device needs to have at least Android KitKat and Google Play services version 7.5.71.”

The API work also includes interactivity – the mobe can be used as a controller of the video on the TV, using touch gestures. Google has posted a demonstration video to YouTube here. ®

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