Builder

The VisionAppster Builder is an IDE for building vision apps that can be run on the VisionAppster Engine and sold in the VisionAppster Store.

First steps

Start the VisionAppster Builder from the start menu of your desktop environment. The Builder will open with a new project that contains an empty processing graph.

To create a functional processing graph you need to add some tools. The “Tools” menu at the top lists installed tools. Type in a search term to find tools by their name. To add a tool, drag and drop it on the workspace. Here, we’ll create a very simple graph that produces a monochrome version of an input image.

Drag and drop a tool from the tool menu to the processing graph.

Click the tool to reveal its parameters. The parameters listed above the tool are inputs and those below it are outputs. The parameters with a colored dot are connectable. In most tools all connection points are initially gray. The color codes are as follows:

Gray

Optionally connectable, currently not connected.

Green

Connected

Red

Required, but not connected.

Click a tool to show and hide its parameters.

Clicking a connection point starts adding a new connection or removes an existing one. We’ll not add connections here but set the input parameters manually. Let’s start editing the image input by clicking its value (Image, 0×0):

Click a value to open a pop-up editor or display.

Find a suitable test picture from your disk and close the pop-up window by clicking the × at the upper right corner.

The app is ready to run. Press F5 to start it. If you prefer a mouse, you can also use the execution controls on the status line.

When the app starts, the input values will be sent to the tool, which processes them. As a result, the image output changes. To see the output image, you can either click the value or drag and drop it on the workspace. We’ll do the latter to keep the display open.

Drag a value on workspace to open a permanent editor or display.

Now, if you make changes to the parameters of the tool, the output display will update automatically to display the effect. Try this by clicking the value of the hue input parameter. Use the slider to adjust the color.

Change parameters and see the effect immediately.

If the graph does heavy calculations, automatic updating may slow down the Builder. You can disable the feature by clicking the circular arrow button on the status line.

Automatic updating can be disabled on the status line.

Save the project (“File” → “Save as…”) as “Monochromatizer”.

Save the project with a descriptive name.

Now, you are ready to create an API.