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Calculus/layered windows Fun > Transparent Video in GUI?

 
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Guest
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:24 am    Post subject: Calculus/layered windows Fun > Transparent Video in GUI? Reply with quote
... found this interesting article

Quote:


A while ago, a group from the University of North Carolina published a paper detailing a system they called FaceTop that makes use of transparent video streams for use in collaboration environments. By using transparent video over the desktop, the participant can view a video stream of the other participant while at the same time being able to read the contents of their desktop and look at items on their desktop that the other participant is referring to.

FaceTop makes use of MacOS X's Quartz composition engine to compose the video stream with the other desktop windows and apply the relevant transparency during composition. Windows has offered support for transparent top-level windows since the release of Windows 2000 using layered windows. For more details on this support for layered windows, see the following MSDN article.

At the time that the FaceTop paper was published, I was working on a video capture and playback system for aerial surveillance work. So my plan was to see how easy it would be to implement some of the basic features of FaceTop, i.e., transparent video playback that would allow you to watch the video and still allow you to see and interact with your desktop at the same time.

I finally got round to writing up a brief article describing the application I knocked up a year ago to implement a basic FaceTop application. Take a look at the CodeProject article for more details and to download the source code.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/audio-video/TransparentDesktopVideo.aspx?fid=184588&df=90&mpp=25&noise=3&sort=Position&view=Quick&select=1566648#xx1566648xx



It is unclear how that code works.... Is anyone able to demonstrate a video running inside a GUI with transparency effect? Smile
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ahklerner



Joined: 26 Jun 2006
Posts: 1219
Location: USA
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 2:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
maybe add layered windows to the title to attract Lexikos or tic
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Guest
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
If anyone with Moderator rights would do that, it would be great
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engunneer



Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 6804
Location: Pacific Northwest, US
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I edited the title. In the future, please fill in some username, or better yet, register with the forum (you could then edit your own posts). If the title edit I made is not good, post again to let me know.
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GUEST_NoLoggedIn
Guest
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
It looks good, thank you E.
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acoder



Joined: 17 Jul 2008
Posts: 1
Location: Earth
PostPosted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hey, is it actually really possible to design Windows to do this? I have never seen this transparency layered video-gui done before on a windows machine...., and I have been wondering about this

for example:


run this code, while play some video in Windows Media Player

Code:

Gui, Show, w100 h100 x0 y0, TEST_OVERLAY
WinSet, Transparent, 100, TEST_OVERLAY


Now, try to move the GUI over the running video in windows media player You'll note the transparency of the GUI is lost!

Does anyone know how to keep the transparency?


...I think that demo looks like a cool thing though... would be interested if anyone can perform this feat. Smile
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Guest
PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:16 am    Post subject: Re Reply with quote
This wont help the entire idea, but might help for something at least?
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic33722.html
Just thought ide share anyways.
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acoder-NLI
Guest
PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 9:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hello there... Thanks for the link there. I did try that with Windows Media Player. However the transparency layer for this windows control seems totally unaffected. Anyone else want to chime in on this issue why this is happening using traditional Transparency settings, and what might be a workaround? It seems the guys described on the story above knew something, and got something windows based to work, unless that was a practical joke/illusion/fake page...

If not, I assume there must be some clever way to construct a GUI to have special properties which gives it semi-transparency over a running video.... or perhpas unlock something in windows that would enable a running video control to be semi-transparent. This would be neat so I can run video conferencing sessions, and see my work underneath to improve my performance. Even on my 1650x1050 screen, it gets real crowded and I don't like clicking & moving windows around constantly.

If anyone can show a running example of this it would be quite exciting. Very Happy
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