c++graphicscinder

Graphics for C++ cross-platform music making software

EDITED, see below

I need an library to display graphics of music notation on a music making software. It will be Sibelius-like: Basically the user creates the sheet music and the app sends midi output.

I'm not looking for an library to display music notation, as for various reasons i must implement it myself. Also, the library i'm looking for must be cross-platform (should run at least on Windows and Linux).

The graphics will be vector-based or drawn with functions like "line(point1, point2);"

(Before continuing let me state that i'm new to C++ and most of my experience is with interpreted languages - PureData and Processing, mostly)

Now to the question:

  1. I've found Cinder. You think Cinder is sutiable for the task? If no, you might skip 2 and 3.
  2. I don't have experience with OpenGL. I couldn't actually figure out if Cinder uses OpenGL exclusively or if it uses it only on demand. My doubt here is, when using OpenGL libraries my application will only be able to run on computers with dedicated graphics cards?
  3. Cinder doesn't have the hability to create GUIs like Qt or GTK+. Is it possible to integrade Cinder in another window, created by Qt/GTK+/SDL/etc ? I want something like Sibelius, where you have normal GUI (buttons, menus, etc) integrated in the notation graphics window.
  4. If Cinder is not a good option, what might you recommend for that specific application needs? OpenCV? SDL? SFML?

EDIT:

I see this was marked as off-topic. Sorry, i'm new here. I've seen some posts asking for this kind of recomendation so i thought it was okay. Well, i will try to be objective and straight-forward

Question:

I need to draw music notation graphics, but i don't want to deal with low-level stuff (like Cinder, SDL, SFML, Ati-Grain). So, what are the other technologies available? That is, what are the other options?

Solution

  • What you are describing is a LOT of work and something impossible for someone with limited programming experience such as yourself. C++ is neither an easy language nor a language that forgives.. it's not just about learning the syntax (as is the case with processing or similar languages with automatic garbage collection) - it's also about managing memory and other resources, invariants, etc - leaving aside the complexities of linkage, compilation, etc: in turn this prerequisites that you have a thorough understanding of how computers work at a lower level.

    Anyway, I'll try to answer your questions:

    1. You could do this with cinder - this would probably mean having to re-invent the wheel - but you can do. I wouldn't say, however, that cinder is really suitable for such a task. This is meant for accelerated 2D/3D computer graphics. What you want is some more generic GUI library (maybe QT?). Regarding midi-support, you'll probably have to rely on some other library for this anyway.

    2. Most computers these days do support openGL. Again you don't really need openGL for what you want to do.

    3. Yes you can do this in theory - but it won't be easy and it's not really necessary for what you want to do.

    4. OpenCV definitely NOT. This is for image processing - i.e. raster graphics - you need vector graphics. Let aside that OpenCV's Highgui is really slow on certain things so you'd have to use some other library for rendering anyway. I have no experience with the other libraries. My suggestion would be to either use some interpreted language such as python, luaAV or maybe SuperCollider (which does have built-in midi support by the way) which is far easier than C++, or to search for some open-source music-notation alternative (if there any) -> you can always build something of your own upon an existent code-base - reinventing the wheel is not necessary...