About

FTM is a shared library for Max/MSP providing a small and simple real-time object system and optimized services to be used within Max/MSP externals.

The main purpose of FTM is the representation and processing of sound, music and motion capture data in Max/MSP extending the data types processed and exchanged by the Max/MSP objects.

FTM is based on the FTS server of the jMax project and distributed under the Lesser GNU Public License (LGPL).

The sources of FTM are available via [CVS at SourceForge.net]

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Data Structures

FTM allows for static and dynamic creation of complex data structures. The following classes are currently implemented and documented:

mat	...	matrix of arbitrary values
dict	...	dictionary of arbitrary key/value pairs
track	...	sequence of time-tagged values
fmat	...	matrix of floats
bpf	...	break point function
tuple	...	immutable array of arbitrary values
scoob	...	score object (note, trill, rest, etc.)
midi	...	midi event

FTM objects can contain references to other FTM objects. A simple garbage collector handles transparently the destruction of dynamically created FTM objects referenced by multiple elements of a patch.

Static FTM objects are created in a patcher using a dedicated Max/MSP external called ftm.object. They can be named within a local or global scope and marked persistent to be saved within the patcher. FTM provides a serialization mechanism to recursively save the content of objects and the contained objects.

example of a static FTM object in a Max/MSP patcher

FTM externals can refer to FTM objects and dynamically create objects. FTM objects can be sent in lists or as single values using a dedicated FTM object message.

While basic operations of FTM objects are implemented as methods of the FTM classes, more complex interactions with FTM objects use operators in form of Max/MSP externals.

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Operators

FTM comes with an extended message box - the ftm.mess external - which integrates classical Max message syntax with FTM names, infix expression evaluation, function calls and method invocation including return values.

examples of the FTM message box

Apart from ftm.object and ftm.mess, FTM includes a set of externals implementing basic functionalities such as iteration, playing, interpolation, etc. and the conversion between FTM objects and Max values or lists.

operating on FTM objects (the MIDI parsing objects convert a MIDI byte stream into a stream of FTM MIDI events)

Operators specific to a certain field of applications are assembled to separate object sets such as Gabor for sound analysis/resynthesis and MnM for mapping and recognition techniques.

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