osc-kreuz 1.5.0

A tool for routing incoming OSC messages to different renderers for spatial audio

OSC-kreuz

The osc-kreuz serves as a central interface for OSC messages in a multiclient spatial rendering environment. It automatically translates incoming OSC messages to match the expected formats of the rendering engines and distributes it to all connected clients including UI Clients and Data clients for automation data.

Installation

Install with pip:

pip install osc-kreuz

On our machines osc-kreuz is installed systemwide using:

meson setup -Dversioned_install=true --wipe build
meson install -C build

when using the versioned_install flag the installation of multiple different versions of the osc-kreuz is possible, see here

OSC-Paths

On port 4455 (default value) the osc-kreuz listens on a number of paths for position changes, gain changes and special properties for the wfs system. For most paths there exists a version of the path, where the index of the source that is changed is included in the path, and one where the index is sent as the first OSC argument.

Additionally there is the config port (4999) for the subscription protocol and full copying of all outputs with the debug mode

Positional Data

Positional Data can be sent to the following paths, where [position_format] is a placeholder for a string describing the positional format, see Supported position formats:

OSC-Path	Argument Types
/source/[position_format]	i[f...]
/source/pos/[position_format]	i[f...]
/source/position/[position_format]	i[f...]
/source/[source_index]/[position_format]	[f...]
/source/pos/[source_index]/[position_format]	[f...]
/source/position/[source_index]/[position_format]	[f...]

Special Properties

These Properties for the WFS system can be set using the following paths, where [property] is one of the currently supported properties, doppler, planewave, angle:

OSC-Path	Argument Types
/source/[property]	if
/source/[source_index]/[property]	f

Gains

Gains can be set individually for each rendering system, [rendering_system] can be either the name of the rendering system, or for some special rendering systems also an alias (ambi or ambisonics for the rendering system ambi, wfs or wavefieldsynthesis for the rendering system wfs).

There exists also a special path, where gains for the different rendering systems can be set by the index of the rendering system, starting from 0, in the order the rendering systems are declared in the config, these are the first three in the table.

OSC-Path	Argument Types
/source/send/spatial	iif
/send/gain	iif
/source/send	iif
/source/send/[rendering_system]	if
/source/send/[rendering_system]/gain	if
/send/[rendering_system]	if
/send/[rendering_system]/gain	if
/source/[rendering_system]	if
/source/[rendering_system]/gain	if
/source/[source_index]/send/[rendering_system]	f
/source/[source_index]/send/[rendering_system]/gain	f
/send/[source_index]/[rendering_system]	f
/send/[source_index]/[rendering_system]/gain	f
/source/[source_index]/[rendering_system]	f
/source/[source_index]/[rendering_system]/gain	f

Direct Sends also have an endpoint /source/send/direct, but it is not really used at the moment.

Subscription Protocol

Subcription-Port: 4999

The Subscription Protocol enables Applications to subscribe to the osc-kreuz.

The connection is initialised by a subscricption request from the client which is followed by a regular ping-message from the osc-kreuz that must by answered by a pong-message in order to keep the subscription alive. Source-Position and gain messages should be sent to port 4455 and the subcription-messages to port 4999.

Subscribe

A client can subscribe to all position and gain messages e.g. a viewer-client during production process. Subcriptions and pong messages should be sent to port 4999.

The connection is initialised via: /osckreuz/subscribe s i [s i i] where the parameters are client_name (string), client_port (int), coordinate_format (string), source_index_in_osc_path (int, allowed values are 0 and 1), min_update_intervall (int, in ms) The last three arguments are optional and are set to '"xyz" 0 10' by default. e.g. /osckreuz/subscribe my_cool_viewer 55123 xyz 1 10 will send source-position messages to the subscribing client as follows:

• For Position /source/1/xyz fff with a max. rate of 100Hz (every 10 ms).
• For gains e.g. /source/1/ambi f

for now, direct sends and attributes always send the source index as a parameter.

If sourceIndexInOscPath is set to zero, the following paths are used:

• Positional Data: /source/[coordinateFormat] i[f...]
• Renderer Gains: /source/send iif (source_index renderer_index gain)
• Direct Send Gains: /source/direct iif (source_index send_index gain)
• Attribute: /source/attribute isf (source_index attribute_name value)

The ip-Address of the client is retrieved automatically from the udp-packet by the OSC-Router.

ping-pong

The osc-router regularly sends the message /osckreuz/ping 4999 to all subscribed clients which should be answered (to port 4999) with /osckreuz/pong uniqueClientName The uniqueClientName has to be the same as in the subcription message. If the client does not answer to the ping message it will be erased after a certain time.

Debug functions

Port: 4999

A copy of all outgoing osc-messages from the osc-kreuz can requested by sending: /osckreuz/debug/osccopy ipAddress:port with ipAddress and listening port of the receiving machine e.g. /osckreuz/debug/osccopy 192.168.3.2:55112 The debug-osc messages contain the name of the target as well as ip-address and port. To deactivate this send a message without target address: /osckreuz/debug/osccopy

With the message /osckreuz/debug/verbose i a verbosity level can be set which activates console printing of incoming and outcoming messages as well as further information. Set verbosity to 0 when to stop console output which can significantly slow down the system.

Configuration

The configuration is done using a YAML-Config file, an example config file can be found in example_configs.

global config

the global-Section of the Config contains general settings:

Setting	Description	Default
ip	ip address the osc-kreuz listens on	127.0.0.1
port_ui	Highest Priority listen-port intended for GUI applications	4455
port_data	lower priority port for listening to automated clients. pauses listening when data is received on inputport_ui	4007
port_settings	used for connection requests and debug functions	4999
number_sources	number of source audio channels	64
max_gain	max gain for the audiorouter	2
number_direct_sends	number of direct send channels	46
send_changes_only	only send when source data has changed,	true
data_port_timeout	when data is received on the ui port, the data port is paused for this timeout, in seconds, set to 0 to deactivate	2
render_units	available render units in this system	["ambi", "wfs", "reverb"]
room_scaling_factor	All incoming position changes are multiplied by this factor. this allows using the same control panel in differently sized rooms	1
room_name	only used for CWonder emulation, name of the current room	"default_room"
room_polygon	only needed for CWonder emulation. List of points describing the WFS-System layout. each point is represented by a list containing its x, y and z coordinates as floats. for example room_polygon: [[0,0,0], [1,0,0], [0,1,0]]	[]

Receivers

This Section of the config contains a list of clients that receive updates from osc-kreuz. common settings are:

Setting	Description	Default
type	Type of the receiver, you should probably use audiomatrix
hostname	target host, can be a hostname or an ip address, used in conjunction with port
port	Port of the target host
hosts	can contain a list of hostnames and ports, allows sending updates to multiple receivers of the same type
updateintervall	time (in ms) to wait between subsequent update bundles
dataformat	format the positional data is sent in. supports a lot of different formats	xyz

Audiomatrix

This Receiver type is intended for use with the Audio Matrix, but can be configured in a flexible way in order to be used for many different receivers. what makes it powerful is an additional option, paths, for configuring the osc paths the target listens on. paths contains a list of osc paths with the following configuration options:

Setting	Description
path	OSC-Path
type	type of data that is sent to this path, options are gain and position
renderer	only used when type=gain, choose renderer whose gain is sent to this path
format	only used when type=position, chooses the datatype of the positional data sent to this path

Data is sent to clients with the index of the source as the first parameter, followed by the positional or gain data.

Supported position formats

Currently, 2 different coordinate systems are supported: cartesian and spherical coordinates.

For cartesian coordinates, the format string can contain any of the letters x, y and z. For spherical coordinates, the letters a, e, d are allowed. A suffix of rad tells the osc-kreuz that azimuth or elevation should be in radians, otherwise they are in degrees. If only one of the spherical coordinates is required, azim, azimuth, elev, elevation, dist, distance are also valid position formats.

Some examples of valid position format strings are listed in the following table:

Position Format String	Datatypes of Data	Comment
xyz	fff
xz	ff
y	f
aed	fff
aedrad	fff
distance	f
elevrad	f
azimuth	f

Development

For Development it is recommended to install the python package in a virtual environment.

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

then it can be run using

osc-kreuz
# To Check Command line options use
osc-kreuz --help

Releasing

Releases are published automatically when a tag is pushed to GitHub.

# Set next version number
export RELEASE=x.x.x

git tag -a $RELEASE -m "Version $RELEASE"

# Push
git push --tags

About

The osc-kreuz was originally developed as part of the SeamLess Suite, then named OSC-Router.