Learning Processing: A Beginner's Guide to Programming Images ...

196 Learning Processing
Many of the chapters that follow will require the explicit use of external Processing libraries, such as video,
networking, serial, and so on. Documentation for these libraries can be found on the Processing web site
at http://www.processing.org/reference/libraries/ . Th ere, you will fi nd a list of libraries that come with
Processing , as well as links to third party libraries available for download on the web.
12.2
Built-in Libraries
Using a built-in library is easy because there is no installation required. Th ese libraries come with your
Processing application. Th e list of built-in libraries (full list available at above URL) is not terribly long
and all but a few are covered in this book as listed below.
• Video —For capturing images from a camera, playing movie files, and recording movie files. Covered
in Chapters 16 and 21.
• Serial —For sending data between Processing and an external device via serial communication.
Covered in Chapter 19.
• OpenGL —For rendering a sketch with graphics acceleration. Covered in Chapter 14.
• Network —For creating client and server sketches that can communicate across the internet.
Covered in Chapter 19.
• PDF —For creating high resolution PDFs of graphics generated in Processing . Covered in Chapter 21.
• XML —For importing data from XML documents. Covered in Chapter 18.
Examples specifi cally tailored toward using the above libraries are found in the chapters listed. Th e
Processing web site also has superb documentation for these libraries (found on the “ libraries ” page). Th e only
generic knowledge you need regarding Processing built-in libraries is that you must include the appropriate
import statement at the top of your program. Th is statement will automatically be added to the sketch if you
select SKETCH → IMPORT LIBRARY. Or, you can simply type the code in manually (using the import
library menu option does not do anything other than just add the text for the import statement).
import processing.video.*;
import processing.serial.*;
import processing.opengl.*;
import processing.net.*;
import processing.pdf.*;
import processing.xml.*;
12.3
Contributed Libraries
Th e world of third party (also known as “ contributed ” ) libraries for Processing resembles the wild west.
As of the writing of this book, there are 47 contributed libraries, with capabilities ranging from sound
generation and analysis, to packet sniffi ng, to physics simulations, to GUI controls. Several of these
contributed libraries will be demonstrated over the course of the remainder of this book. Here, we will
take a look at the process of downloading and installing a contributed library.
Th e fi rst thing you need to do is fi gure out where you installed Processing . On a Mac, the application
is most likely found in the “ Applications ” directory, on a PC, “ Program Files. ” We will make this
assumption, but have no fear if you installed it somewhere else ( Processing can be installed in any directory
and will work just fi ne), just replace the path listed below with your own fi le path!
Once you have determined where you installed Processing , take a look inside the Processing folder. See
Figure 12.1 .