Chicago Brick: the Google Chicago Video Wall Software

Quick Start

To use this software, first download and install deno.

Next, clone the repo to your machine:

$ git clone https://github.com/google/chicago-brick.git

Then, to run the server in 1x1 mode with the gears module:

chicago-brick$ ./bin/run_1x1.sh -m gears

This should open a Chrome window to http://localhost:3000/?config=0,0,1920,1080. You should be able to see some gears rotating. If you don't see that, try running the npm install command again.

Or, to run the server in 2x2 mode with the gears module:

chicago-brick$ ./bin/run_2x2.sh -m gears

And open the client windows like so:

chicago-brick$ ./bin/start_2x2_clients.sh

You should be able to see the same thing with four browser windows instead.

You can play with different modules by substituting the gears argument with other names from chicago-brick/config/demo-playlist.json or from the various brick.json files within the demo_modules folder.

Geometry

The wall server needs to know the shape of the screens that make up the wall. At the moment, this shape must be a single polygon, though it can be concave. By default, the wall assumes that it's going to display on a 1920x1080 screen. To change this, you can use the --use_geometry flag to specify the shape in a turtle-like langauge. You can also specify the points in a JSON-formatted file and use the --geometry_file flag to pass the path to the file.

Modules

A chicago brick module is responsible for showing control across the wall. Modules are stored in a directory and contain a brick.json file with metadata about the module. The directory also contains the client and server parts to the module, which are executed on the clients or server respectively. These parts can be written in TypeScript or JavaScript, though TypeScript is strongly preferred. See examples in demo_modules.

The server learns about modules that can be shown via the --module_dir flag, which is scanned for any brick.json files. Playlists are only allowed to reference modules that the wall knows about.

Playlist

A playlist defines the order in which the wall should play modules. The playlist consists of layouts, each of which refers to either a specific list of modules or a pre-defined collection of modules. The layout will randomly select among its set of modules and play each for the specified module duration. After the layout duration expires, the next layout is shown. For example:

{
  "playlist": [
    {
      "modules": ["gears", "slither"],
      "duration": 600,
      "moduleDuration": 60
    },
    {
      "modules": ["matrix"],
      "duration": 600,
      "moduleDuration": 600
    }
  ]
}

Contributing

We welcome contributions of new modules and of improvements to the wall software itself! See the CONTRIBUTING file for some stuff you need to complete before you contribute.

Hopefully, this gets you developing!

– Chicago Brick Team