Kinect and OpenFrameworks

Introduction to OpenFrameworks

OpenFrameworks was developed by Zach Lieberman, Theo Watson, Arthur Castro, and Chris O'Shea, along with help from collaborators at Parsons, MediaLabMadrid and Hanger Center for the Arts. OpenFrameworks, or oF, is a framework, which is a collection of code created to help you do something in particular. Some frameworks are designed to work with databases, others are designed for working with internet traffic. Frameworks don't provide you with an environment, but with the code that you can use to create your own programs. openFrameworks handles tasks that use C++ and OpenGL. C++ is the low-level functional programming language and OpenGL is the language that processes and renders 2D and 3D graphics.

Since openFrameworks is just a collection of code, it is platform independent. Supported IDEs for OpenFrameworks are Code::Blocks on all platforms, Visual C++ 2008 and Visual C++ 2010 on Windows and XCode on the Mac. To use OpenFrameworks, download the latest release from www.openframeworks.cc

Be aware that OpenFrameworks uses relative addressing to call files and frameworks so you must follow the installation instructions to get your files compiled and up and running.

oF is a framework for artists and designers working with interactive design and media art. Because the underlying language is so flexible and low level, you can create features with oF that you can't with Processing.

When to use oF

  • To make a project that renders a lot of 3D graphics
  • To make a project that uses a computer vision library like OpenCV
  • To make a project with Arduino


openFrameworks does not have an IDE. To use it, you must use an IDE that is platform dependent. The openFrameworks website (www.openframeworks.cc) will have the most up to date information about setting up on different platforms.

Mac OSX

To use openFrameworks on the Mac, you can work within XCode.


oF is a C++ library that was built with the intention of making C++ easier to use.