SmartArt - AD405 - Drew Browning

PD/GEM

(Pure Data and Graphics Environment for Multimedia)

Pure Data (PD) is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video and graphic processing. It is also known as a dataflow programming language or patcher language because data flows through virtual patch cables like early analog synthesizers. "Real-Time" means that, in contrast to most programming environments where a text is first entered that must be separately processed by the computer before obtaining a result, changes in a Pd program can be made "live" or during a performance. PD is open-source software that runs on the three major operating systems (Windows, Mac OS and Linux) as well as many others including handheld devices. Written by Miller Puckette in the late ‘90s, PD is now maintained and developed by him and others in the spirit of free (as in Libre) software.

To install PD/GEM I recommend pd-extended because it includes GEM along with many other useful external libraries:
http://puredata.info/downloads

Manuals (included in the install):
PD: Pd console (main Pd window)> Help > Html ...
GEM: Pd console > Help > Browser ... > Gem/ > manual/ > index.html

Tutorials:
I recommend Ben's Interactive PD Tutorial - Intro to PD and Gem for the uninitiated.

http://www.ekran.org/pd/Interactive-Tutorial.tgz

There is also an extensive built-in interactive tutorial (Pd but not GEM) at: Pd console > Help > Browser ... > Manuals > 0.Intro/ +pager.pd

GEM primer – good detailed info on resolution, coordinate space and transformation hierarchy.

http://puredata.info/community/projects/software/gem/documentation/tutorial/primer/GEMtutorial.pdf

Many beginning and advanced tutorials.
http://puredata.info/docs/tutorials

Help:

Of course the most important resource for learning PD/GEM is the built-in help system. Right click on the background of any Pd canvas and select 'help' from the pop-up to see a list (glossary) of all the built-in objects and their function. Right-click on any object, choose help and a help patch will appear.

Pd-extended's built-in Help Browser (Pd console > Help > Browser ... ) lets you explore hundreds of example patches for PD and GEM objects as well as many included external library objects.

The PD-list Archives (answers to your questions from users by searching or subscribing to the list)
http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/

Abstractions:

In addition to the many external libraries there are collections of abstractions the users have written to make using PD easier. Here are two that you may find useful:

EHU abstractions - ehu is a set of patches to manipulate video/audio in real time with PD.

http://www.ixi-audio.net/content/body_backyard_pd.html

PDMTL abstractions - Pure Data Montreal Abstractions is a group of abstractions that make Pure Data a lot easier to use by grouping abstractions by their functions rather than their author and classifying many popular abstractions and externals through a unified help system.

http://wiki.dataflow.ws/PdMtlAbstractions

Save externals and abstractions, not included in pd-extended, to the user-specific folder or global folder as recommended by:

http://puredata.info/docs/faq/how-do-i-install-externals-and-help-files-with-pd-extended

Resource Links:

PD FAQ

http://puredata.info/docs/faq

GEM FAQ

http://gem.iem.at/documentation/faq

PD manual (online)

http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/Pd_documentation/

GEM manual (online)

http://gem.iem.at/documentation/manual/manual