JASigning Video Generator

The software described on this page is (c) UEA and is for evaluation use only. Please contact the Virtual Humans Group and UEA if you wish to use this facility for other purposes.

JASigning is now able to generate a video of an animation.

But to do this it needs a video generation server application, and the supporting Xuggler video processing library, to be installed on the same computer system as the main JASigning instance in question.

Note that currently, and for the foreseeable future, video files are generated only in the .mov format.

See the Video Generation page for the server application download and instructions on its use (an earlier draft of which are reproduced below).

 

Installing and Using the Video Generation Server

(A) Install Xuggler

• Install the Xuggler library from the Xuggle download page, following the instructions on that page.
  • In particular, make sure that the XUGGLE_HOME environment variable is appropriately defined.
  • NB:
    • On Mac OS X, Xuggler requires the 64-bit version of Java 6;
    • On Windows, Xuggler requires a 32-bit version of Java 5 or Java 6.

(B) Install the JASigning Video Server

• Download the JASigning video generation server ZIP archive, and unzip it in any convenient location.
  • On Mac OS X: check (e.g. using the Java Preferences app) that you have the 64-bit Java SE 6 installed.
  • On Windows:
    • Use a text editor such as Notepad to inspect the run-jas-video-gen-server-win.bat script file and check that its JAVA_X86_HOME setting matches the actual location of your 32-bit Java Runtime Environment installation.
      • The latter can be checked using the 32-bit Java Control Panel, Java tab.
      • To find the 32-bit Java Control Panel on 64-bit Windows systems, select View 32-bit Control Panel Items from the main Control Panel window.
    • If the script's JAVA_X86_HOME setting does not match your installation, then edit your copy of the script file to ensure that it does.

(C) Launch the Video Server

• Use the run-jas-video-gen-server script file appropriate to the platform, Mac or Windows, to launch the server.
  • The server app has a Test button.
  • This runs a test client that attempts to use the server to generate a video file using a set of image files.
  • These files are held in the frames/ subfolder of the download folder.

(D) Use the SiGML URL Player to Generate Video Files

• Once the video generation server is running on the local system, a video of a signing animation can be generated using the JASigning SiGML URL Player app (development version), accessible from http://vhg.cmp.uea.ac.uk/tech/jas/dev/.
  • Use the SiGML URL Player's File->Video Generation... menu item to generate a video of the most recently played signing animation.
  • The SiGML URL Player accomplishes this by transmitting the animation's frame data to the video generation server, which produces the .mov file.
  • The SiGML URL Player should refuse to attempt video generation if it is not feasible, e.g. when there is no current animation, or when the video generation server app is not running.

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