Kaleidoscope

Note: Image discovery and retrieval is defunct since Chromatik, the web service behind this function, went defunct itself.

Setup

1. Request a Flickr API key and consult the Configuration section on where to put it for Kaleidoscope to find.

2. Similarly request a Google API access key and provide it to Kaleidoscope.

3. Prepare a configuration for Kaleidoscope.

4. Some libraries need to be set up, but I'm not going into that now.

Usage

1. Run KaleidoscopeApp as stand-alone Java application or use the included run IntelliJ configuration.

2. Click the recorder button in the controls window or press I to start recording from the default microphone line; click the recorder button again or press O to stop. The speech in the recorded section is transcribed, the resulting text synesthetised and the synesthetiation result used to search for images with Chromatik.

3. If you're unwilling or unable to speak to Kaleidoscope through a microphone, use the two text fields below the recorder button in the controls window. The upper one is for a message to synesthetise, the lower one for search terms for Chromatik's image search. You can run perform a synesthetiation and image search by having the upper text field in focus and pressing ENTER/RETURN.

4. F11 (Windows/Linux) or ⌘+F (macOS) toggles full screen display of Kaleidoscope.

Configuration

The most convenient way to configure Kaleidoscope is through the integrated configuration editor:

1. Click on the Configuration window tool button at the bottom of the controls window.

2. Double-click the cells in the right column of the configuration table to edit their value. Most importantly, add the required API keys (see below).

Below is a description of some the most important options. All parameters except API keys are optional and have sensible defaults.

• Flickr > access key and Transcription service > API access key

  API access keys for Flickr and Google respectively. If the key is comprised of multiple parts, separate them with a colon (:). Example:

   e0b92403f258c35c6b43d2e21c640f9f:bd7a0f0bcc5dfc25
  

  If the value to of these parameters start with @, the remainder is interpreted as the path to a resource file containing the key, where multiple parts are separated by newline characters.

   e0b92403f258c35c6b43d2e21c640f9f
   bd7a0f0bcc5dfc25
  

  The special parameter value !MOCK results in a mock implementation of the service connectors, that doesn't use the actual service, but returns a valid, pre-recorded result. For Google's speech-to-text service the mock mode can only be set through the key com.google.developer.api.key in the properties file KaleidoscopeApp.properties.

  Note: The above example does not contain a working key, just a randomly generated look-alike.