libopendrop

libopendrop is a real-time music-reactive graphics system in the lineage of MilkDrop and ProjectM. It is a platform for procedural image-making under the pressure of a live audio signal: the same general problem as writing a demo on inadequate hardware, pointed at visual music rather than a finished picture.

Presets can be authored in C++ and GLSL without being trapped in an inherited shader model, and the library will make arbitrary GL draw calls. That flexibility is the point. I wanted a graphics instrument I could take seriously as a medium — fast enough, correct enough, and simple enough to keep the constraint in the image rather than in the host software.

The project has since been evolving toward an open-source backend for translating TouchDesigner work into portable applications on embedded Linux. The through-line is the same: a renderer that can leave the desktop and still behave like an instrument.

This is not an exhibited artwork. It is infrastructure for making one.