Technology

CGMax is designed for use on the Microsoft Win32 platform. Along with the Blackmagic DeckLink supporting libraries, the application uses a number of Microsoft technologies to provide powerful and reliable character generating capabilities. Microsoft Windows provides a powerful and reliable 32-bit platform for working with Graphics and Multimedia, along with a number of supporting technologies from Microsoft, which makes it an ideal platform for developing CGMax.

BlackMagic DeckLink Libraries

The DeckLink libraries are a framework produced by Blackmagic design for working with the Blackmagic Decklink series. These libraries provide software developers with a flexible interface for exploiting the powerful capabilities of the Blackmagic DeckLink card series.

DirectShow

DirectShow is a multimedia framework produced by Microsoft to perform various operations with media files. The DirectShow API provides software developers with a Component Object Model (COM) based extensible, filter-based framework for manipulating a number of multimedia formats.

DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of APIs desgined for working with Graphics and Multimedia. The Direct3D API, which is the Graphics interface within the DirectX collection.

Windows GDI

GDI refers to the Microsoft windows graphics device interface.In simple terms it is a set of libraries that helps with drawing on the Windows OS.In other terms this is an interface to represent graphical objects and transform them into output devices.GDI is capable of handling tasks like drawing lines and curves,rendering fonts and handling palettes.

GDI Plus is the successor of of GDI.It is an improved 2D graphics environment.GDI Plus offers enhanced graphics capabilities such as alpha blending ,antialiasing,texturing

Tracker

Tracker is used to move,resize graphics objects along a surface.Depending on the coordinates that the mouse is focused,tracker is activated.In order to move a particular graphic object,first it should be selected.Then either resizing or moving of object can be done.Resizing has to cooperate with an interpolation mechanism.

Interpolation

Interpolation works by using known data to estimate values at unknown points.Interpolation is a method to increase of decrease a number of pixels in an image.For scaling images several algorithms can be used.Depending on the sophistication of the algorithm ,resulting image quality is changed.

Video Streams

Video is a sequence of still images of a certain scene. The number of still images taken per second should be a considerable amount, in order to get a smoothly running video. Video technology is the key area in the television industry.

Alpha Blending

Alpha blending is the process of superimposing an image over another image to create the appearance of partial transparency. Alpha blending is used extensively by character generators when superimposing characters over the live video.