Interactive and sound installations

Connect sensors, cameras and controllers to sound, video and lights, and run the whole installation unattended on a PC or a Raspberry Pi. Free and open-source, for museums, exhibitions and public spaces.

Download ossia score 3.9.0 Try it in your browser Read the documentation

Free and open-source (GPLv3) · Windows, macOS, Linux, Raspberry Pi and web browser

Installations need software that reacts to visitors, plays for months without supervision, and runs on modest hardware. ossia score is used in museums, exhibitions, art residencies and research labs for exactly that.

What you can do

Sense the audience: depth cameras from the package manager (Orbbec, Intel RealSense, Kinect, Azure Kinect on Windows and Linux, Luxonis OAK), webcams with pose detection and computer vision, Leap Motion, gamepads, Bluetooth LE and serial sensors, Arduino (sensors to OSC).
Tracking systems: PosiStageNet, TUIO, RTTrP and OpenTrackIO.
Sound: multichannel playback, synthesis, VST/CLAP/LV2 plug-ins, Faust, and spatial audio (DBAP, GBAP, control of SpatGRIS, SPAT Revolution and ADM-OSC renderers) (spatial audio, audio).
Video, 3D and lights in the same project (see video and mapping and DMX lighting).
Non-linear behaviour: states, conditions and loops describe how the installation evolves and reacts, instead of a fixed playlist (breaking the timeline).
Run unattended: headless mode with autoplay, Raspberry Pi and embedded Linux (Yocto) support, and standalone branded apps for kiosks (headless mode, Raspberry Pi, custom apps).
Data sonification: play back CSV and HDF5 datasets as sound, light or images.
Electronics: GPIO, PWM, ADC and DAC on Linux boards such as the Raspberry Pi and the Orange Pi.
Location-based pieces: geographic zones drawn as latitude and longitude polygons (geo zones).
Monitoring: a system device reports CPU, GPU, memory, battery and network use of long-running installations (monitoring).
More sensors: LP-Research IMUs, Wacom tablets, raw Linux input devices, CAN bus.
Vision without special hardware: depth from a plain camera, segmentation and multi-person pose (see real-time AI).

A gamepad controlling parameters in ossia score

Installation needs, and how ossia score answers them

What you need	How ossia score does it
A sound or video piece that reacts to visitors	Sensors, depth cameras and computer vision drive states, conditions and loops instead of a fixed playlist.
Video, lights and spatial sound in one piece	One project for multichannel and spatial audio, video, 3D and DMX.
Running for months on affordable hardware	Headless mode with autoplay, Raspberry Pi and embedded Linux, standalone kiosk apps.
Letting artists and technicians adjust the piece without programming	A visual timeline and patcher, with JavaScript, Faust, shaders or C++ for the specific parts.
Integrating a custom application	libossia exposes its parameters to score.

See the gallery for installations made with ossia score.

Download ossia score 3.9.0 Try it in your browser Read the documentation

Free and open-source (GPLv3) · Windows, macOS, Linux, Raspberry Pi and web browser

More ways to use ossia score

Stage and music

Show control — Cues, scenes and timecode for theatre, concerts and events.
Live electronic music — Synths, drum machines, sampler, step sequencers and plug-ins, in sync with MIDI clock, timecode and visuals.
Spatial audio — DBAP, GBAP and trajectories over any loudspeaker layout, up to 1024 channels, and control of spatialisation renderers.
Dance and interactive theatre — Pose detection, depth cameras, sensors and tracking drive sound, video and light, inside cues and scenes.
Contemporary music and live electronics — Interactive scores that wait for the performers, cues from pedals, live processing and spatial sound.

Video and light

Video, mapping and VJing — Video playback, multi-projector mapping, shaders, 3D and NDI, synchronised with sound and light.
DMX lighting and LEDs — Art-Net, sACN and DMX USB with a fixture library, LED pixel mapping, all in sync with sound and video.
Generative art — Shaders, 3D, gaussian splats and live coding, performed live or rendered frame by frame.
Recording and streaming — Cameras, SDI, NDI and SRT in; ProRes or MP4 recording, RTMP streaming and NDI or Spout out.

Spaces and experiences

Museums and exhibitions — Exhibits that run all day without staff, with monitoring, a staff control panel and kiosk apps.
Escape rooms and attractions — Puzzles, props and sensors driving sound, video and lights, with game logic and a game master panel.
Kinetic art and robotics — Motors, pumps and robots written on a timeline, reacting to sensors, in sync with sound, video and lights.

Tools and research

OSC, MIDI and DMX timeline — Automate any OSC, MIDI or DMX parameter on an interactive timeline, with triggers and conditions.
Visual programming — Patch audio, video and interaction with nodes and a timeline, and run your Pure Data patches.
Real-time AI — Pose detection, depth from a webcam, real-time image generation, language models and machine learning by example, run locally.
Protocol bridge — Convert between MIDI, OSC, DMX, MQTT, serial, HTTP and Bluetooth LE, with mapping and filtering, always on.
Research, sonification and biosignals — LSL, HDF5 and CSV data, sonification, biofeedback, and sessions recorded and replayed on a timeline.
Teaching and workshops — One free tool for sound, video, light, sensors and code, on every OS, in the browser and on Raspberry Pi.
Custom apps — Package a project with your own interface as an app for Windows, macOS, Linux or the web.

Lire cette page en français