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Plugins, Extensions, and Tools Development

Selected software applications that showcase my work related to development of extensions to software packages.
To see more of my work in this field, plese drop me a line.

eLearning Objects Framework


Many a times I face a need to capture my knowledge to transfer it to others. Any such knowledge-content includes images, text, sound, animation and video. I searched for many alternatives to building contents fast. However, could not find the best fit. Flash is great - but require significant learning curve. PowerPoint is easy to use - but has a poor audio support.
So as a poor's man solution to eLearning Objects creation, here is what i created for myself.
Left side image shows eLearning Object structure. My eLearning objects contain -
  • Narration Sound
  • Slide Images
  • Time Synchronization Information
  • Meta Data
    • Name Of eLearning Topic
    • Description Of eLearning Object & Contents
    • Author Name
    • © Copyright Information
The audio is compressed using iLBC (internet low bitrate compressor) and image formats generally is PNG or JPG. However, you can use BMP, GIF as well. The time sync is produced using another tool I have developed.

The effect is a good content with reasonable document size and a free tool to build contents! :)

All components are packed into a single document - so that shipping becomes straight forward. The player application parses this elearning Object (eLOB) and plays back the contents. You can download the player using following link.

Download eLOB Player Setup (526 KB)

Once player is installed the documents with *.elob extension will be associated with it. And they will appear with this icon. You can double click them in explorer to begin playback. You find loading time to be a little longer (due to audio decompression), I am working on it, yet!

Alright, so we talked quite a bit about eLearning Objects and etc. What about seeing it in action? So if you have downloaded the setup from above link, following ara some eLearning Objects you playback. Right click and "Save As ...".
So enjoy these eLearning Objects for a while before I post more!

Round Corners Tool


Round cornered images look nice. Beautification that these images provide to your presentation, or web page, or albums, is quite interesting. Instead of requiring heavy image editing software, I thought of creating a simple, small footprint tool myself.

First version, as usual, was not very good, but it helped achieve the goal to some extent. This version did not have anti-aliasing features. You can download it here. It has support for loading PNG, JPG, GIF, and BMP formats.



Download Binaries.

Non Anti-Aliased Version.


Corner magnified 4x -- Observe jagged finish.

Anti-Aliased Version.

Download Anti-Aliased Version Binaries.

Corner magnified 4x -- Observe smooth finish.
Download Anti-Aliased Version Binaries. The anti-aliased version uses AntiGrain library developed by Maxim Shemanarev. This version supports only BMP files as of now. As soon as I get some time, I plan to add support for more formats - PNG, JPG, and GIF. Both versions allow copying images onto clipboard, so that you can paste them into your presentations, documentations, or any other image editing tools.

In case you wondered -- who the guy in above images is - he is Ray Vecchio, a detective in my all time favorite due South. due South had super captivating story, and you can find all about due South here.


Virtual Dub Plugin : Video Footer


I always wanted to have some tagging (footer text) done for my home made videos & learning contents. Then I came across Virtual Dub video software. Virtual Dub is a powerful video (AVI) editing tool. It has its own C++ Filter SDK that allows developing custom plugins for Virtual Dub. So I built a plugin that would allow user to "stamp" the footer text for any video. See video snapshot here.


Example: Footer Text Added to Video.

Usage Guide




Screenshot: Configuration of Virtual Dub Plugin.

Download Virtual Dub Plugin and extract it in \Plugins.

Virtual Dub is available here - http://www.virtualdub.org/.