Dimensional Data

What is Computer Vision? According to Ballard and Brown in 1982, Computer Vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the human visual system can do. At 19th CERN School of Computing, T. S. Huang states that Computer Vision has a dual goal. From the biological science point of view, Computer Vision aims to come up with computational models of the human visual system. From the engineering point of view, computer vision aims to build autonomous systems which could perform some of the tasks which the human visual system can perform (and even surpass it in many cases). These two goals are intimately related. The properties and characteristics of the human visual system often give inspiration to engineers who are designing Computer Vision systems. Conversely, Computer Vision algorithms can offer insights into how the human visual system works. Sub-domains of Computer Vision include scene reconstruction, object detection, event detection, video tracking, object recognition, 3D pose estimation, learning, indexing, motion estimation, visual servoing, 3D scene modeling, and image restoration (Morris, 2004). Why use Python for Computer Vision? Easy to use Open source Python has become the language of scientific computing Easy for visualization and debugging It can be directly integrated with web frameworks (as well as GUIs) Delphi adds Powerful GUI Features and Functionalities to Python In this tutorial, we’ll build Windows Apps with extensive Computer Vision capabilities by integrating Python’s Computer Vision libraries with Embarcadero’s Delphi, using Python4Delphi (P4D). A small disclaimer: we have used some publicly-available images for the fair-use purposes of education so we can teach you how face recognition works. The copyright of the images remains with the owner and we acknowledge the source and their ownership. P4D empowers Python users with Delphi’s award-winning VCL functionalities for Windows which enables us to build native Windows apps 5x faster. This integration enables us to create a modern GUI with Windows 10 looks and responsive controls for our Python Computer Vision applications. Python4Delphi also comes with an extensive range of demos, use cases, and tutorials. We’re going to cover the following… How to use OpenCV, Mahotas, Face Recognition, EasyOCR, and Keras Python libraries to perform Computer Vision tasks All of them would be integrated with Python4Delphi to create Windows Apps with Computer Vision capabilities. Prerequisites Before we begin to work, download and install the latest Python for your platform. Follow the Python4Delphi installation instructions mentioned here. Alternatively, you can check out the easy instructions found in the Getting Started With Python4Delphi video by Jim McKeeth. Time to get Started! First, open and run our Python GUI using project Demo1 from Python4Delphi with RAD Studio. Then insert the script into the lower Memo, click the Execute button, and get the result in the upper Memo. You can find the Demo1 source on GitHub. The behind the scene details of how Delphi manages to run your Python code in this amazing Python GUI can be found at this link. Open Demo01.dproj. How do I perform Computer Vision with OpenCV on Windows? OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision Library) is an open-source Computer Vision and Machine Learning software library. OpenCV was built to provide a common infrastructure for […]

Frits F.M. de Mul started programming with ALGOL in 1965. He submitted his showcase entry (Montcarl Application Suite) for the Delphi 26th Showcase Challenge and we had a talk with him about his many years of programming experience. Take a look at his website for more information about the applications and software. When did you start using RAD Studio Delphi and have long have you been using it? I started with ALGOL, DELPHI’s predecessor, during my M.Sc.-project in 1965/66 on neutron physics, where I got a lot of measurement data. The University’s first computer was a Telefunken TR4 mainframe, to be fed with paper tape an (later) punch cards.  This was one of the very first computers in the country, and I had account nr. 10. For my Ph.D.-work in early 70’s I shifted to FORTRAN, which was more convenient (faster) at that time, although functions and procedures were hard to handle, and the output was cumbersome. No plotters were present in those days. In late 70’s I switched to Pascal, later Turbo Pascal, on writing a lot of (stand-alone) programs; part of those are mentioned on my site (see above). And now, with DELPHI, since I am retired, I also use TMS Web Core for web applications. What was it like building software before you had RAD Studio Delphi? ALGOL and FORTRAN were limited in possibilities and cumbersome to handle. First, I had to use punched taper tape and later punch cards. When you had to made corrections, it was possible to manually make extra holes, and even repair holes, but you had to learn and use the 8-bit codes for all characters. Then the tapes or cards had to be delivered manually to the computer building, and a few days later you got your results (provided you did not make punch-typing or syntactic errors). But frequently the computer got stalled…. Nevertheless, all that punchwork made excellent confetti! How did RAD Studio Delphi help you create your showcase application? Viewing the history, DELPHI – as successor to TURBO PASCAL – offered lots of improvements; most important of course was it built-in logic and Object Programming. Since I always make Computational-Physics programs, DELPHI offers many possibilities. I tried to use PYTHON, but I found Delphi much more attractive, due to its simple but adequate logical structure and lack of superfluidal options. For instance, the PYTHON world has gone much too far in incorporating a lot of options for arrays. These look nice at first sight, but normally programmers will use a limited set of convenient options only, and the rest is discarded. With DELPHI you can easily make all those options offered by other platforms yourself, in case you need those. What made RAD Studio Delphi stand out from other options? As mentioned above, DELPHI remains THE most logical language, with great backward compatibility. There are many built-in options, but no superfluidal ones. Its syntax has a complete WYSIWYG structure. This is a great advantage compared with C++ or PYTHON, which at first sight look handy, but you have to learn what is behind a lot of statements. Therefore my wish to developers: keep it simple and staightforward! What made you happiest about working with RAD Studio Delphi? The most happy – I think – is working with Forms, and […]

After looking to binding expressions and how they can link to components, let’s move to the component aimed for managing binding expressions. In recent blog posts I covered Delphi’s RTL core expression engine and components binding. Now we can make an additional step and look into a key component for the entire bindings architecture, called BindingsList. A binding list is a collection of different types of bindings expressions, managed in the designers. In other words, the expressions and component bindings I defined in source code in the last blog post, can be fully defined in the designers (and wizards) of the BindingsList component. Just drop a component of this type to a form plus a few visual components (in my example two edits, a spin edit and a progress bar — see image below). The BindingsList component has a designer which allows to define a collection of bindings. Each binding can be picked using one of the many available options (way too many to explore in this article and primarily focused on data source and data field bindings). The two basic options I’m going to use here are TBindExpression and TBindExprItems. After you select one of those bindings, let’s say a TBindExpression, you need to interact with two different design surfaces to work on the expression: on one side you can configure the expression properties in the Object Inspector, like the SourceComponent and the ControlComponent (the term use to refer to the target control) and the related expressions; on the other by double clicking on the expression in the BindingList editor you can open us a special expression designer, which in turn has additional items editors and viewers: In the image above, you can see that I connected the expression to a source and target control, but I still haven’t defined an expression. This can be as simple as a single property name or a more complex combination of values and expressions and can be configured in the Object Inspector expressions properties for the binding or on the special designer displayed above. The designer also offers the option to evaluate and inspect different expressions. Going back to the expressions, we can simply use Value and Position for the Spin Edit and the Progress Bar, respectively. Notice the binding expression has a direction (by default, source to control) that can be reversed or can also be bi-directional. I’ve used a bidirectional expression for the two edit boxes, so that typing in any of them copies the content to the other. In this second example, I’ve used a TBindExprItems binding (but a regular expression would have been enough). This is a more complex binding, in which you specify source and control (as above) but define a collection of clear and format expressions, which can involve multiple properties of the controls. In this example, the mapping is Text to Text (bidirectional) as you can see below: With all of this, the only Delphi code that’s needed in the application is a call to re-evaluate the bindings when the value of the source changes. This is easily done by handling the OnChange events of the various controls and triggering a general update of the bindings for the current control (the Sender): TBindings.Notify(Sender, ”); TBindings.Notify(Sender, ”); This is the very simple application in action: Now you might be wondering where all of this configuration settings end up… but […]

Web is basically operational using HTTP requests and responses. In this mechanism, the client always initiates the connection. There is a timeout period after which the server discards the connection. Once discarded, the client must initiate a new connection. This is OK with normal web applications but for real time communication this is not enough. A system called HTTP long polling was developed to try and overcome this problem. With this implementation, the server keeps the connection open until new data arrives. This is used in GMail chat. But in this case, server resources are blocked through the connection. What are WebSockets? Websockets solve the above problem by allowing the server and client to send messages at any time. With Websockets the communication begins a HTTP request and then upgrades to connection to Websockets using the TCP protocol connection for communication. What is WebRTC? Unlike Websockets, WebRTC doesn’t relay data through a server. It sends data between browsers or devices. It supports sending and receiving video, audio and generic data. It’s a real-time communication method. It’s a part of the HTML5 specification which is supported by most modern web-browsers. How do I find easy to use WebRTC components for Delphi? ESEGECE offers an easy to use component set for Websockets and all of its other protocols including WebRTC. You can get these components from this link: https://www.esegece.com/websockets/download How do I setup a WebRTC server using SGC components? You can easily setup a WebRTC server using these components. Step 1: Add a new “TsgcWebSocketServer” component and open bindings. Add new binding and set the server IP and the port (For Eg: IP: 127.0.0.1 / Port: 80). Step 2: Add a new “TsgcWSPServer_WebRTC” and set the server as the “TsgcWebSocketServer” component we added earlier. Step 3: Activate the “TsgcWebSocketServer” server component and you have a WebRTC server. Now you can open your web-browser, then open the server IP, and there you should find your WebRTC client. Where can I find Delphi Websockets demos? The ESEGECE Delphi WebSockets Components come with many demo applications for different protocols including the WebRTC. Inside the demo folder you can find the “WebRTC_Protocol” the which is a WebRTC implemented video chat demo application. Also you can access their web demos from this link: https://www.esegece.com:2053/webrtc The fun isn’t all reserved for Delphi developers – ESEGECE Websocket components are also available for RAD Studio C++ Builder. Why not download a copy of RAD Studio and try the websocket demos for yourself?

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.NET is one of the most popular frameworks for building powerful desktop and web applications. But it hasn’t received any new update since 2019. Is the framework REALLY dead? Should you look for alternative solutions for developing applications in 2021? In this post, you will find all the details. What is .NET framework? .NET is a full-stack platform for building and running server-side applications on Windows. It is compatible with different languages, including C#, F#, and Visual Basic. You can use it to create desktop, web, mobile, and IoT applications. Is .NET framework really dead? Back in 2019, Microsoft announced that the .NET 4.8 would be the last release of .NET framework. Also, the company declared that the successor of .NET Core 3.0 would be known as .NET 5.0. In other words, .NET Core would replace the .NET framework. Eventually, .NET 5.0 was rolled out in November 2020. With .NET 5.0, Microsoft aims to transform the .NET and .NET Core into a new cross-platform framework. However, there are some drawbacks. The developers have been using ASP.NET Web Forms for years to build dynamic web UIs. It is no longer supported on .NET 5.0. Instead, you will have to use Blazor. Even Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), the traditional communication framework for Windows, is deprecated. So, you will be forced to use alternative solutions, like gRPC or CoreWCF. Overall, Microsoft is unifying .NET and .NET Core frameworks by making drastic changes. So, you can no longer use the key features like the way you do with the original full-stack platform. In this sense, the .NET framework is dead. Microsoft’s controversial move on .NET framework had infuriated a large number of developers around the world. They feel that there is a significant gap between release and stability in the products of the software development giant. One of the Y Combinator users, known as @TheRealDunkirk, vividly described the issue: My problem with these kinds of Microsoft technology evangelism articles/videos is that it always seems like Microsoft has juuuust gotten their new hotness to work, and is telling the world that it’s awesome, and ready for production. Then you go to implement it, and as soon as you leave the perfect world of their demo, it all falls apart, and THEN you find out the docs were written for the beta version, and no longer apply, so you’re left guessing at the right invocation signature for the method you need. What is the best alternative to .NET framework? There are different alternatives to .NET framework, including Node.js, Django and Laravel. However, the best one is Delphi. Unlike .NET framework, it is providing new releases and support for more than 26 years continuously. Why Delphi is the best alternative to .NET framework? Safe Future: Delphi has been evolving since 1995. It is being updated constantly. There is no possibility of seeing it abandoned anytime soon. .NET Compatibility: Delphi supports a compiler and a base class for .NET framework. So, you can build native .NET applications with the same class library and IDE. High Performance: Delphi is super-fast. Similar to .NET framework, it is well suited for graphics and math-intensive application development. GUI Designing Made Easy:  Delphi supports a powerful GUI designer, which makes the process of creating amazing interfaces pretty straightforward Well Documented: Delphi supports comprehensive […]