Module System

Luminancer is a video instrument that is designed for use in live performances. Adhering to the design philosophy of early image processors it is created as an instrument for radical digital expression. For people that can wield cutting edge technology for personal aesthetic, religious, intuitive, comprehensive, and exploratory growth.
The luminancer video processor is an analog modeling digital video processor in which video flows through a pipeline of processing modules before being displayed. The pipeline is a selection of processing modules that are represented in the menu system as if they were laid out left to right in a modular synthesizer rack system.

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**Source Module**

The source module streams yuv420 video frames. Video can be from live video cameras or pre recorded media.

**High-pass Luminance Filter**

The luminance filter tests each pixel for their brightness and pixels that are darker than the threshold are rejected. In the alternative dark mode it’s the bright pixels that are rejected. This module also combines the feedback buffer with the resulting image is also loaded and a set decay is applied to the feedback pixels.

**Color Generator**

The color generator alters the color of the frame passed to it. Bright mode exaggerates the colors. The strobe setting the cycles through a prismatic sequence of colors. In the pulse setting the pixels are altered between full black and full white. The resulting image from this module is copied to the feedback buffer to be recycled back into the pipeline.

**Blend Module**

The blending module combines the results of the previous module with the raw video frame.

**Feedback Buffer**

This buffer is re-inserted into the processing pipeline to create temporal persistence of the previous processing units. This creates a loop between live video and it’s processed output

**Geometry Transformer**

This module will alter the shape of the frame buffer. It uses geometric affine transformations translation, scale, and rotation to alter the screen space of the feedback buffer. This is what creates the classic fractal behavior of video feedback. A good exploration of this effect can be seen here Space-Time Dynamics in Video Feedback or Amazing Video Feedback

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Diagram

           +---------------+
           |Video          |
           |Stream         |
+------+   +---------------+
|Raw   <-----------|
|Frame |   +-------v-------+
+--+---+   |High+pass      |     +--------------+
   |       |Luminance      |     |Geometry      |
   |       |Filter          <----+Transformer   |
   |       +-------+-------+     +-------^------+
   |               |                     |
   |       +-------v-------+             |
   |       |Color          |     +-------+------+
   |       |Generator      +---->|Feedback      |
   |       |               |     |Buffer        |
   |       +-------+-------+     +--------------+
   |               |
   |       +-------v-------+
   |       |Blending       |
   +------>|Module         |
           |               |
           +-------+-------+
                   |
           +-------v-------+
           |Display        |
           |               |
           |               |
           +---------------+

reference hardware:

• Sandin Image Processor (IP)
• Chromachron
• Chromaton 14
• EMS Spectre
• VSYNTH
• Paik-Abe Video Synthesizer
• Fairlight Computer Video Instrument