PINOL

Pixels In New Optical Languages

A new language for live visuals.

Explore the features  ·  Get started  ·  Build from source

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Every surface is a canvas. Every cue matters.

PINOL brings video, generative visuals, spatial mapping, animation and live control together in one show environment. From a single projection to a multi-output installation, you can design the image and control what happens next—without changing tools.

Built for the show

01 — PLAY Your media, all together. Video, HAP, images, audio, text, live inputs and ISF generators. Layer, group, blend and combine them with effects.	02 — MAP Take the picture beyond the rectangle. Position, scale, rotate, corner-pin and warp with a mesh. Shape content to a surface, crop it with ROI and route it through viewports.
03 — CUE Build the moment. Then recall it. Snapshots, selective presets and sequences with waits, fades and auto-follow. Animate parameters with waveforms, Bézier keys and timelines.	04 — CONTROL Hands on. Eyes up. OSC, OSCQuery, MIDI, keyboard and internal interactions, with Learn, ranges, curves, filters and pick-up or jump takeover.
05 — SYNC Keep the show on time. Time-of-day and transport-based clocks, LTC, MTC and ATC, plus routing to MIDI, audio and supported video destinations.	06 — OUTPUT From preview to projection. Fullscreen output windows, Syphon, Spout, NDI, OMT and Blackmagic DeckLink / UltraStudio—depending on your platform and installed runtimes.

Made to be played live

Build visually. Combine videos, generators, images and effects in layers and groups. Correct color, animate parameters, and transform the composition to fit the space.

Perform with confidence. Store the state of a scene in a snapshot, recall only the values you want with a preset, or build a sequence of cues. Each value can have its own fade and easing.

Connect everything. Learn incoming OSC, MIDI or keyboard controls; shape the response with ranges, filtering and curves; or let one parameter drive another internally. OSCQuery exposes a browsable address tree for your show.

Feed the room. Route viewports to displays and supported video protocols. Use timecode where the show needs to stay in step with other equipment.

Under the hood

PINOL is written in C++17 / Qt 6, with FFmpeg for media decoding, OpenGL 3.3 for rendering and Metal-based output presentation on macOS.

• HAP-aware playback — HAP textures are decompressed and kept GPU-compressed where supported, avoiding an unnecessary full RGBA conversion. HAP Q is the preferred fast path on macOS.
• Hardware-assisted decoding — VideoToolbox on macOS, with D3D11VA / VAAPI paths on supported systems; CPU fallback when needed.
• Multi-stream playback controls — bounded frame queues, shared decoded-frame accounting, upload-buffer budgeting and a shared worker pool for HAP.
• Performance visibility — decoder timing (including p95/p99), missed and skipped frames, latency metrics and a multi-video benchmark.
• Automation and diagnostics — OSC/OSCQuery, a filterable event log, engine tests, fuzz testing and ThreadSanitizer checks in CI.

These are engineering capabilities, not a guarantee of a particular frame rate: performance depends on codecs, resolution, layer count, effects, outputs and hardware.

Get started

Want to try a build? Successful GitHub Actions runs provide downloadable platform archives in their Artifacts section. At present, there are no published GitHub Releases.

macOS	Windows	Linux
Apple Silicon build; a .app in a ZIP	MSVC x64 build; Qt and FFmpeg DLLs included	Ubuntu 24.04 x86_64 archive; runtime packages required
Ad-hoc signed; not notarized	Includes Visual C++ runtime installer	Not yet a self-contained AppImage

Optional NDI, OMT and DeckLink features require compatible vendor runtimes/drivers. Consult the macOS signing notes for distribution details.

Build from source

Requirements: CMake 3.21+, Qt 6.2+, FFmpeg 4+, C++17 and OpenGL 3.3 core. Clone with submodules:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/PixelStereo/Pinol.git
cd Pinol

macOS — Homebrew

brew install qt ffmpeg cmake pkg-config
cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$(brew --prefix qt)"
cmake --build build -j

Run build/Pinol.app. The build is not Developer ID signed or notarized.

Linux — Ubuntu

sudo apt install build-essential cmake pkg-config qt6-base-dev libqt6opengl6-dev \
  qt6-multimedia-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev \
  libswscale-dev libswresample-dev libavutil-dev libasound2-dev
cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j
./build/Pinol

Windows — MSVC 2022

Install Qt 6 (MSVC 2022, including Qt Multimedia), shared FFmpeg and CMake. From an MSVC developer shell:

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="C:/Qt/6.8.3/msvc2022_64" -DFFMPEG_ROOT="C:/ffmpeg"
cmake --build build --config Release

See the CI workflow for the tested toolchain and deployment steps.

Tests, benchmarking and command-line render

Generate media fixtures and run the engine tests:

sh test/make_media.sh
cmake --build build --target pinol_tests
ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure

Render a project from the command line:

Pinol --render out.png --frames 1 --strict project.pinol

Benchmark multiple 4K streams:

cmake --build build --target pinol_bench
sh test/bench_4k.sh build

CI runs platform tests, the HAP/OSC fuzzers and selected ThreadSanitizer suites. See the performance work plan.

Before the doors open

A few important current boundaries:

• Video: HAP Q is optimized for compressed GPU textures. HAP R / HAP HDR may require CPU block decoding on macOS because its OpenGL path lacks BPTC support.
• Audio and control: one stereo program-audio output; MIDI/OSC/keyboard interactions and timecode are available. DMX input is not yet implemented, and ISF audio inputs are currently black.
• Output protocols: NDI / OMT use GPU readback and add latency; DeckLink also buffers frames to the card's clock. Hardware outputs require their vendor software. DeckLink is currently video-only, 8-bit, without keying.
• Network: the OSC/OSCQuery server has no password authentication. In Settings → OSC → Listen on, bind to localhost or a trusted network interface rather than exposing the server to an untrusted network.

For details on dependencies, supported workflows and implementation, browse the source, tests and build workflow.

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Bring the image to life.

PINOL — from the first pixel to the final cue.

Report an issue  ·  Explore the code  ·  View builds

_{Built for projection, installations and live performance.}