Video Shader App How To

Marwan Y. Ansari
3D Application Research Group
mansari@ati.com
Feb 28, 2003
The purpose of this document is to briefly discuss how to run the Video Shader
application developed by ATI Research, Inc. This document is written for intermediate
through expert users. This document assumes you have DX9 or later from Microsoft
installed on your system. If you do not have DX9 or later installed the app will fail
resulting in bad karma for you and your neighbor.
Getting started
When the app starts no streams are loaded and nothing is rendered. Click on the
File menu to open either
live video (Video Capture Source)
stream from a file (Open File)
an image file (Texture File)
All options are valid on the ATI Radeon 9700 All-In-Wonder, but only the Open
File and Texture option is valid on Radeon 9700s that are NOT All-In-Wonders.
When the stream has started the default shader will be loaded. The default shader
simply displays the contents of the stream without any effects or modifications.
The app starts in windowed mode. This allows users the opportunity to start a
stream before switching to fullscreen mode. Starting new streams is only possible in
windowed mode.
Live Video
If you do not see any video
1) Make sure that your camera is properly connected to your Radeon 9700 AllIn-Wonder adapter and that its turned on.
2) Make sure that you have selected File/Open Capture Source.
3) Either hit Control+I or the I button in the tool bar to cycle through the video
inputs. By default the app comes up on Composite. Hitting Control+I once
will change you to Tuner, hitting Control+I again will put you on S-Video.
Hitting Control+I a third time returns you to Composite.
Using the menu
At stream start time, a menu will be visible on the screen for about 15 seconds.
You may use the up and down arrow keys to select different shader effects. After about
15 seconds the menu will disappear. Pressing almost any key will redisplay it. Hitting the
escape key will clear it.

Fullscreen Mode
You may switch to fullscreen mode by clicking on the 5th toolbar button from the
left (it looks like a TV), or hitting ALT+Enter. The stream you selected will be restarted
from its beginning and the default shader will be loaded after the switch to fullscreen
mode has been completed.
Selecting Shaders and Shader Effects
FullScreen Mode
When running in fullscreen mode you may select one of the shaders from the
menu by choosing up or down arrow. It is also possible to select a shader effect by
selecting F1-F9, F11, or 1-6 on the keyboard. There is no difference between these
quickload keys and the shaders in the menu.
Windowed Mode
When running in windowed mode all the choices above apply plus many more.
When in windowed mode you may right click on the window left of the stream and select
from the pull down menus a shader to insert. This way you can create new effects from
the existing shaders very quickly.
Adding New Shader Files
Consult the document High Level Video Shader Program Layout.doc for
information.
Hot Keys
As mentioned above the FKeys and some number keys will load predefined
shader effects files. Below is a list of other keys that will be needed to run the app:
Control+S Toggle the cycling of shaders. This turns on/off the automatic
switching of shaders. Cycling is turn on by default in Fullscreen mode, and off by default
in windowed mode.
Control+A Toggle the cycling of Transition effects. Under the key F11 is a
shader effect known as Wipe Transitions developed by Chris Oat. There are
approximately 11 different transition effects. To change the transition effects by hand hit
the tab key. Cycling transition effects is turned off by default.
Control+C Snap compositing image. This only effects the Image
Recompositing shader. This shader allows you to snap an image of one scene, then
reposition the camera, and snap a background image (Control+B). You will then see any
changes from the background image appear in sepia tone onto the Composite image. For
example(with the image compositing shader loaded )
1) Point the camera out a window.
2) Hit Control+C that image is now stored as the compositing image.
3) Point the camera somewhere elsepreferably, somewhere where nothing is
moving.

4) Hit Control+Bstore that image as a background image.

5) Now walk into the cameras view.
You should see yourself in Sepia tone in front of the window scene from step 2. If you
do not, click the mouse toward the left side of the video image displayed. That changes
the threshold of what is considered different between the current frame and the
background image.
This method is not perfect but will demonstrate some of the power of the Radeon 9700
All-In-Wonder.
Control+B Snap background image. This image is subtracted from the
currently captured frame when the Image Recompositing or the Image Segmentation
shaders are loaded. The Image Segmentation shader also uses a threshold.
Control+D Dump a screen shot of the current shader. Screen shot will be in the
same directory as VideoShader.exe and will have the name
VideoShaderSnapShot###.bmp.
Control+I Cycles through the input sources. There are 3 choices, Composite
(default), Tuner, and S-Video.
Escape Toggles menu on and off.
Space bar Toggles the preview window so you see what the live feed looks like
before the shaders effect it.
Tab Tab has 2 functions. It will cycle through the transition maps (as mentioned
above) as well as cycle through the 3 Fun House mirrors. Press either F3 or F4 to see the
fun house mirror shaders. Press F11 to see the transition effects.
Control+X Exit.do you really need me to explain this?
ALT+Enter Toggles between fullscreen and windowed mode.
Toolbar buttons
The tool bar buttons in order from left to right:
Toggle Input selection
Play
Pause
Stop
Switch to Fullscreen
Reload ALL Shaders
Reload only currently selected shader in treeview

NOTE: Hitting Reload All Shaders will cause all shader to be unloaded. So after
hitting it, you will need to select your shaders again.
Conclusion
I hope this short document is enough to get you started. If you have questions, my
email address is at the top of this doc. ---Marwan Ansari