Flowbox - new image processing tool

danilo2

Hello Polycount!
I'm a former FX TD - after quitting my job, I've started a project called Flowbox. I would love to share some information with you

We’re making a new tool for processing images. We believe that our novel approach will speed-up your work and make your workflow more flexible.

Flowbox FX refines the node-based approach. It offers a global repository of nodes for image composition, analysis and processing and allows you to fully use the power of your hardware with automatic CUDA/OpenCL acceleration.

We’re going to release a closed alpha soon. Everyone who’s interested in our product — please let us know by signing up on our website.

Visit: http://flowbox.io

I will be glad to answer your questions in this thread or via mail: wojciech [at] flowbox.io or contact [at] flowbox.io

Best regards,
Wojciech Daniło
Flowbox co-founder

Stromberg90

Maybe show some more images, also looking at the site it seems like it's a ios app is that the case?
Try and explain why this is better than competing programs, not clear at the moment.

I'll sign up for it because I like testing new stuff.

danilo2

@Stromberg90 - please also look at the page http://flowbox.io/landing.php - there is no ipad to distrub you We are randomly showing pages to people - the light and dark one to see which one is "nicer" to you.
There are some images also We will provide more screenshots in the near future

Answering your question - right now Flowbox allows to process still images, but in the near future (probably up to alpha release) it will support processing sequences of them. It works right now on Linux, Darwin and Windows. We are focusing on these platforms at the moment, but Flowbox is designed to work also on mobile devices (like tablets, etc) - it consists of GUI and a Server, which can be run on the same device or can be distributed - GUI on thin client, like ipad and Server on some "bigger" machine.

We have created a new dataflow programming language - Luna - which has got 2 representations - textual and visual one. (Yes, it is a real programming language). While connecting nodes, our compiler is analysing the flow, optimizing it and producing efficient binaries, which are processing images, automatically distributing the computations across available CPU cores and GPU.

Flowbox is a data processing platform - it allows you to process any data in a visual way (you can write nodes to process for example sound, 3D graphics, drive simulations etc). Right now we are focused on Flowbox FX, which is Flowbox with nodes allowing for image composition and processing.

I hope I've answered your question. If you've got further questions, feel free to ask me

Computron

So, its like Nuke but for still images? Can you show some examples of what workflow benefits this would present?

ceebee

danilo2 wrote: »

it allows you to process any data in a visual way (you can write nodes to process for example sound, 3D graphics, drive simulations etc).

This is probably the most interesting thing for me personally, and I imagine for a lot of other artists here. We already have plenty of ways to process images, including other node-based editors. What would be more beneficial is something that makes it easier for artists to produce other things like audio, sound effects, simulations, etc built specifically for game developers in mind. Especially with indie teams trying to produce tons of different things but with people only experienced in certain aspects of development and a limited budget.

I doubt this is the direction you're going in as it seems to be focusing more on encroaching on The Foundry's collection of software but I hope I'm wrong and you're trying something new. In any case good luck man, nice to see people experienced taking on their own projects.

Eric Chadwick

I'm interested. Sounds a bit like Filter Forge, Substance, etc. node-based tools. I like where you're going with your ideas there ceebee, could be a very cool way to go. Maybe it's early enough for them to listen, we'll see.