“Every child is an artist. The problem is how
to remain an artist once we grow up.” - Pablo Picasso

My three-and-a-half year old daughter Grace loves to draw. She loves to paint. She loves to glue small things onto paper. And she loves to do lots of it. She’s quite the artist. It’s my job to find a place to display each masterpiece when it’s done. In fact, the ritual of displaying the artwork is more important to the artist than the colour of construction paper, paint, or crayon used in its creation. Each piece must be prominently displayed. And the look of pride on the young artist’s face is priceless and worth all the fridge real-estate you can muster. However, after a while this can pose a bit of a problem. Not every piece can win that coveted spot on the fridge. You think they don’t notice when you rotate out the old stuff, but they get wise to you after a while. We’ve expanded to cupboard doors, and any surface that can withstand masking tape.

Before: Our Fridge

Somewhat by accident, I discovered a fun way to avoid having to stick pictures to the ceiling and floor and still allow the artist to display her wares proudly. Last weekend when my wife was away on business Grace, armed with a stack of white computer paper and some highlighters, went into a zone and created about 30 masterpieces in a half hour. Out came the fridge magnets and tape.After she went to bed, I decided to scan a handful of these gems and post them to our Flickr account so my wife could see them. Then, considering my line of work, I decided to give it run in our software, Touchpoint Gallery. I thought it would be fun to see her art on the walls of a virtual art gallery. It was cool to see something other than photos there, so I set it as the default screen saver and went on to something else.

After: Grace’s Grand Gallery

The next day Grace walked past the computer on her way to tackle a bag of cotton balls and some glue. Her reaction was priceless. Her face lit up and she yelled, “Daddy! My bugs!” The Touchpoint Gallery screen saver had kicked in. Well, that was a show stopper. There were her masterpieces proudly displayed on the walls of a virtual art gallery. She thought it was the coolest thing. Even though she doesn’t really know what an art gallery is (okay, maybe better parents would have taken her to the Guggenheim by now) she does know that mommy and daddy put the really special pictures in frames and hang them on the wall. No fridge action for the Matisse print.

If you’d like to give this a try, here’s how. Just so you know, the real thing can be run full screen and is a lot clearer than the video clip.

1. Scan your kid’s artwork: The first thing you need to do is get your kid’s artwork into digital form. This can mean scanning or possibly taking a quick shot with your digital camera (glued macaroni doesn’t scan particularly well). If you end up using your camera try to find an area with lots of natural light so you don’t have to use a flash. A tripod or a well placed stack of books to set the camera on can be invaluable here. If you need to use a flash, shoot slightly off-angle to avoid the flare being visible on your paper, foil, or cotton ball subject.

2. Download Touchpoint Gallery: Click here to download and install Touchpoint Gallery for free. You will be redirected to a download page. Click ‘Try Free’ then come back here for more instructions. Click here if you need help downloading and installing. If you’re really stuck, leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you.

3. Use Touchpoint Gallery to display the artwork: Here’s where the fun begins. Put the scanned artwork into your MyPictures folder. Run Touchpoint Gallery by double clicking the desktop icon. Click ‘okay’ when the first screen comes up. Then you should see the Main Screen as shown below:

Click on ‘Create or Edit Gallery’ to get to this screen:

Click ‘NEW’. You will then see this screen:

Using your child’s name, follow the settings shown above. Then click ‘okay’. Another screen will appear. Click ‘okay’ there as well. That will bring you back to the Main Screen:

Click ‘View Gallery’ and enjoy the show. If you have other images in your My Pictures folder that you don’t want to have appear, consult the user guide to see how to get pictures in from different sources including any other folder on your computer, or your Flickr account. None of it is tough, and we’re here to help if you need it.

If virtual art galleries don’t do it for your kids, you can try some of the other Templates available in our library.

So give it a try, and enjoy. It’s a lot of fun and your kids will love it. When you try this, we want to hear your story. Leave your comments below!

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This past fall, research firm IDC released a study that indicated more than half of all businesses on earth use open source software. Touchpoint Studios is one of those businesses. We use open source technologies for everything from software development and quality assurance to our web presence and community support. What follows is a roll call of all the open source technologies that we use to operate and to develop our flagship product, Touchpoint Gallery.

Ogre
Rendering Engine

Ogre is the graphics rendering engine in Touchpoint Gallery. This is what allows us to utilize your computer’s graphics card to display your digital photography in a rich 3D environment. Ogre’s object-oriented API fits in nicely with our own and provides the flexibility we need to do things like define our own render window and swap in and out entire 3D scenes on the fly. It does all this while maintaining a high level of performance, which allows us to deliver a smooth frame-rate and thus an exceptional user experience. They also have one of the most helpful communities I have ever encountered in software development.

Python
Scripting Language

Much of the inner workings of Touchpoint Gallery are written in the Python programming language. We have embedded Python as a scripting language within the app. With the help of another open source tool, SWIG, we have been able to bridge our C++ API with our Python API. This saves us a lot of time during development since we don’t have to recompile the code every time we make a change. It also allows us to deliver add-ons to the application after shipping and without requiring you to reinstall, such as new Templates or Picture Sources.

NSIS
Installer

When it’s time to package up Touchpoint Gallery, we make an installer using NSIS. Thanks to yet another helpful community and a wealth of plugins, NSIS lets you make Windows installers that do just about anything you want them to. It also fits seamlessly into our automated build process, which is a huge time-saver when you’re making multiple builds per day.

Subversion
Version Control

Our code and assets sleep soundly at night in the Subversion version control system. Truth be told, I’ve been using SVN for about 5 years now and have never had a single problem with it. No lost commits, no corrupt databases, none of the problems that my developer friends complain about with other proprietary systems. The TortoiseSVN Windows shell extension puts all of SVN’s client functionality into your Windows context menu, making it as easy to use as Windows Explorer. And like NSIS, it fits seamlessly into our automated build process.

Mantis
Bug Tracking

When we find bugs in our products (a rare occasion to be sure), we record and track them using Mantis. It took all of a couple minutes to install and is easy to maintain. It has an easy-to-use interface as well as all the features we need to effectively communicate bug information with each other: email notifications, RSS, file attachments, etc. I’ve used a couple of other bug tracking systems in the past, both open source and proprietary. None have been as effective with a price tag like Mantis has.

LAMP
Server Platform

We use a Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP platform on our servers for the same reasons that most people do. It’s easy to maintain, stable, fast, flexible, cost-effective and provides the ideal framework to run many of the other open source solutions which we have adopted. Brick Tamland sums up our feelings on LAMP in 3 words:

WordPress
Blog

What you are reading now was published using WordPress blog software. When it was time to start the blog, we needed a solution that was easy to implement and it had to be customizable so it would fit in our site’s template. It had to be easy to administer and easy for everyone to use. WordPress meets all of these requirements and then some.

MoinMoin
Wiki

We use MoinMoin for our internal knowledge base. It features an easy to use GUI editor so we don’t have to fuss with wiki markup. File attachments is also important to us for sharing types of data other than raw text. And because it is written in Python, it is very easy to extend and customize.

phpBB
Forum

With the help of phpBB, we recently opened forums for users to socialize and discuss all things Touchpoint. phpBB is the most commonly used forum software on the internet, so you’ve no doubt seen it around. Like many of the other open source solutions we picked, it was easy to get up and running, is easy to maintain and it fit into our site’s template. They also have a large, supportive community which has produced countless useful mods and plugins.

phplist
Newsletters

We manage our mailing lists and send newsletters using phplist. It has a super simple installation and enabled us to customize the sign-up form on our site. It also has a terrific GUI for editing HTML messages in the browser (FCKeditor to be precise). Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to receive regular updates.

As you can see, open source software has played an integral role in the day to day operations of Touchpoint Studios. And in turn, we will jump at the opportunity to give back to the open source community whenever possible. In the meantime, we will continue to look to the open source community first for cost-effective solutions.

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When my daughter was born four years ago, our new digital camera and I had to become friends. Fast. I didn’t have any experience as a photographer, or any time to learn the craft, yet I still had to find ways to get those perfect once in a lifetime shots. Through trial and error I found a system that works for me. While I’m sure I’m not blazing any new trails here, these are the guidelines I’ve used to get shots my family and friends enjoy:

1. Say No to Shutter Lag: Get a fast camera. Shutter Lag is the enemy when your subject matter won’t sit still. I started with a Panasonic DMC LC20. After my daughter started getting a bit more mobile I graduated to a Canon EOS Digital Rebel. It’s hard to find shutter lag stats published even in independent reviews. Try out the camera in the store if possible, and pick a moving target. I had a friend rotate slowly. I snapped a shot when he was facing the camera. If the picture was of his profile or the back of his head, I know I had to keep looking.

2. Say Yes to Storage: Get a memory card for your camera with as much storage capacity as possible. I use 1GB and that allows me to take about 160 shots before I have to transfer photos from my camera to my computer. Be sure you have a fresh memory card for each new outing. Pick up a memory card reader to speed up the process. You need to clear your card frequently so you don’t want comparatively slow USB cable transfer speeds getting in the way. And don’t cheat by using a low resolution or low quality image setting. Use the highest quality and resolution you can.

3. No Film, No Fear. Take a Lot of Shots: Those precious moments come and go quickly. Get them even if the framing and zoom are not perfect. That can be fixed later. However, be sure to learn how to properly use your auto focus. Very out of focus images are something you can’t fix after the fact.

4. Go Deeper. Find the Hidden Gems: Once you’ve transferred your images to your computer, review them carefully to find the shot within the shot. If you’ve taken enough shots, the gems will be there. You’ll need a decent digital image editing software package with and easy to use cropping tool. ACDSee 9 Photo Manager is a good tool at a good price.

5. Shed Unwanted Pixels. Crop Crop Crop: Cropping your photos creatively allows you to get a fantastic shot out of some not so fantastic raw material. Once you’ve found a part of a photo you like, crop away the extra stuff. Highlight the subject matter and reveal shots that would have been missed if you took too much time setting up before hitting the shutter release.

Now that you’ve spent so much time and energy getting your shots just right, you want to have a special way to show them off. Give Touchpoint Gallery a spin and let us know what you think. Download here for free.

Images courtesy of Flickr

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