Detect Wallpaper applications running on os x? - objective-c

I am trying to detect if any Wallpaper type application is running on system and try to close them.
For example, Mechanical Clock 3D Lite for 10.8 is one of the apps which run as wallpaper for system. Is their any way to detect such applications?

This question, Programmatically check if a process is running on Mac, might lead you in the right direction. Essentially you find a list of currently running processes and check if that application name exists within it.

Related

Program won't start before stop the program frist?

I'm a newbie using LabView for my project. So I'm developing a program that gathers data from sensors that attach in the DAQmx board and also a spectrometer from STS-VIS ocean optic. At the first developing, I combine both devices in one loop inside the same flat structure, but I got an error saying: "The application is not able to keep up with the hardware acquisition." I cannot get the data showing on the graph for both devices, but it was just fine if I run it separately. And I found the solution saying that I need to separate both devices in a different while loop process because it may have different buffer size (?). I did it and it worked that all the sensors are showing in each graph. But the weird thing is, I need to stop the program first at the first run, then run it again for the second time for getting the graph showing in the application. Can anyone tell me what I did wrong and give me a solution? Due to the project rule I cannot share my Vi here publicly, but if anyone interested to help, I'd like to share it personally. Thank you.
you are doing right thing but you have to understand how Data acquisition work in LabVIEW and hardware.
you can increase hardware buffer Programmatically using property node or try to read fast as possible then you dont need two separate loop.
NI
I work currently with a NI DAQmx device too and became desprate using LabView because there is not good documentation and/or examples. Then I started to use Python which I found more intuitively. The only disadvantage is that the userinterface is not so easily generated, but for this one can use the QT Designer (open source programm avaiable online).

C++ ide to run on an embedded linux device

I am putting together a very simple device for developing C++ applications on the go. Something like a a psp, size wise, with a small keyboard to write code and LCD screen for the output. This device has also a DVI out, so I can output to screen too.
Now, I am looking for a very lightweight C++ IDE for X11 (the device runs on a Linux variant of OpenEmbedded); something that is able to work decently on both the DVI monitor but mainly on the small lcd screen (it is a 4.3 inch screen with a 480x272 resolution).
I am aware that anything under 1024x768 is just pure joy for pain lovers, but the device will be used only in particular situations; when a laptop/netbook is not feasible.
While using the DVI out, I have no problems running Gnome, the screen is big enough to allow me to work comfortably. the problem is that it won't scale very well on the 480x272 screen.
The first idea was to use nano and g++, without even loading X11, but I need to have something with code completion and a minimal UI to do the standard operations (build, run, debugging step by step, breakpoints), if possible. The memory is not that big (256 Mb), so the smaller the IDE, the better it is.
What would you suggest, other than the approach via text editor and g++ ? I am new to the embedded linux world, I use Eclipse on Ubuntu, but that one is incredibly huge and on such small device would just kill it. On Windows I would use Dev-C++, while on Mac I use either code:blocks or Xcode, but I don't really need all these features for the device.
Thanks in advance
I had the same problem, developing on an ODroid (http://hardkernel.com) running Linux on an ARM processor. For a while I used Netbeans, but it was too heavy, so I finally gave up and wrote my own open source IDE for the purpose.
https://github.com/amirgeva/coide

Kinect hangs up suddenly after working pretty well a few seconds. How can I fix it?

I tried using "Kinect for Windows" on my Mac. Environment set-up seems to have gone well, but something seems being wrong. When I start some samples such as
OpenNI-Bin-Dev-MacOSX-v1.5.4.0/Samples/Bin/x64-Release/Sample-NiSimpleViewer
or others, the sample application start and seems working quite well at the beginning but after a few seconds (10 to 20 seconds), the move seen in screen of the application halts and never work again. It seems that the application get to be unable to fetch data from Kinect from certain point where some seconds passed.
I don't know whether the libraries or their dependency, or Kinect's hardware itself is going wrong (as for hardware, invisibly broken or something), and I really want to know how to detect which is it.
Could anybody tell me how can I fix the issue please?
My environment is shown below:
Mac OS X v10.7.4 (MacBook Air, core i5 1.6Ghz, 4GB of memory)
Xcode 4.4.1
Kinect for Windows
OpenNI-Bin-Dev-MacOSX-v1.5.4.0
Sensor-Bin-MacOSX-v5.1.2.1
I followed instruction here about libusb: http://openkinect.org/wiki/Getting_Started#Homebrew
and when I try using libfreenect(I know it's separate from OpenNI+SensorKinect), its sample applications say "Number of devices found: 0", which makes no sense to me since I certainly connected my Kinect to MBA...)
Unless you're booting to Windows forget about Kinect for Windows.
Regarding libfreenect and OpenNI in most cases you'll use one or the other, so think of what functionalities you need.
If it's basic RGB+Depth image (and possibly motor and accelerometer ) access libfreenect is your choice.
If you need RGB+Depth image and skeleton tracking and (hand) gestures (but no motor, accelerometer access) use OpenNI. Note that if you use the unstable(dev) versions, you should use Avin's SensorKinect Driver.
Easiest thing to do a nice clean install of OpenNI.
Also, if it helps, you can a creative coding framework like Processing or OpenFrameworks.
For Processing I recommend SimpleOpenNI
For OpenFrameworks you can use ofxKinect which ties to libfreenect or ofxOpenNI. Download the OpenFrameworks packaged on the FutureTheatre Kinect Workshop wiki as it includes both addons and some really nice examples.
When you are connecting the Kinect device to the machine, have you provided external power to it? The device will appear connected to a computer by USB only power but will not be able to tranfer data as it needs the external power supply.
Also what Kinect sensor are you using? If it is a new Kinect device (designed for Windows) they may have a different device signature which may cause the OpenNI drivers to play-up. I'm not a 100% on this one, but I've only ever tried OpenNI with an XBox 360 sensor.

Getting started with image processing on Mac OS X

I recently moved from a PC to a MacBook Pro. I'm starting to go through tutorials on Objective-C and developing in Cocoa. I do a lot of image processing algorithm development work (pixel by pixel manipulation) in my day job so I'd like to get create a test image processing app or two for OS X. I'm struggling to figure out where to start - let's say I want to create a simple application (that I could reuse) like the following:
load an image from an open file option within a file menu
display this within the GUI.
Click a button to apply pixel by pixel processing
Update the displayed image
Save the processed image from the save option within the file menu
Any pointers or links would be most appreciated.
Thanks
Other info:
I'm pretty familiar with OpenCV within Linux - haven't looked at using it within Objective-C/Cocoa/Xcode environment yet though - not even sure if this would be a good idea?
I guess it would be nice to use GPU acceleration as well, but I'm not familiar with OpenGL/OpenCL - so I might have to put that one on the long finger for the moment.
As you are looking at the Apple platform, you should look into the CoreImage framework - it will provide you most of pre-baked cookies ready to be consumed in your application.
For more advanced purposes, you can start off with openCV.
Best of luck!!
As samfisher suggests, OpenCV is not that hard to get working on the Mac, and Core Image is a great Cocoa framework for doing GPU-accelerated image processing. I'm working on porting my GPUImage framework from iOS to the Mac, and it's entirely geared around making accelerated image processing easy to work with, but unfortunately that isn't working right now.
If you're just getting started on the Mac, one tool that I can point out which you might overlook is Quartz Composer. You have to download the separate Graphics Tools package from Apple's developer site to install Quartz Composer, because it's no longer shipped with Xcode.
Quartz Composer is a graphical development tool that lets you drag and drop modules, connect inputs and outputs, and do rapid development of some fairly interesting things. One task it's great for is doing rapid prototyping of image processing, either using Core Image or OpenGL shaders. I've even heard of people using OpenCV with this using custom patches. You can easily connect an image or camera source into a filter chain, then edit the filters and see live updates as you work on them, without requiring a compile-run cycle.
If you want some sample QC projects to play with, I have a couple of them linked from this article I wrote a couple of years ago. They both do the same color-based object tracking, with one using Core Image and the other OpenGL shaders. You can dig into that and play around to see how that works, without having to get too far into writing any code.

How to determine if an application is using the GPU

I'm looking for a way to determine how to know whether an application is using the GPU with Objective-C. I want to be able to determine if any applications currently running on the system have work going on on the GPU (ie: a reason why the latest MacBook Pros would switch to the discrete graphics over the Intel HD graphics).
I've tried getting the information by crossing the list of active windows with the list of windows that have their backing location stored in video memory using Quartz Window Services, but all that does is return the Dock application and I have other applications open that I know are using the GPU (Photoshop CS5, Interface Builder), that and the Dock doesn't require the 330m.
The source code of this utility gfxCardStatus might help....