I'm completely in favor of making the OCIO configuration files easier
to read and edit.

I have a few specific concerns about YAML, but it's definitely worth
exploring.  Care to take a stab at it?

In defense of XML ...

* It's the 'no format decision' decision. Support is ubiquitous, and
no one ever wonders, "what the hell is this?"  YAML is not nearly as
widely known. Never having looked at YAML before, when I first looked
at your configuration file I was wondering which formatting parts were
important.   But this could be made more obvious with a few tweaks to
the outputter format.

* We've already got the XML code working.

* The ASC CDL defines an xml spec which I would like to support (for
interoperability with other CDL apps),  so we're not going to be be
able to ditch tinyxml.

* This may not be wise in the long term, but I really like how OCIO
has minimal external build dependencies.  (Some day when the windows
port needs to be attacked, this should keep life simple I hope!)
Does OSX have YAML as part of its base installation? Do normal linux
distros?  (I assume Windows doesnt)  Is there a minimal yaml
implementation we could pull internal, similar in spirit to tinyxml?
If so (assuming it can be namespaced properly, and the licence terms
are suitable) I'd love to keep it internal.

I'm not sure that yaml's strong python support is relevant to this
discussion. OCIO serialization is handled on the C++ side, and the
python bindings provide typed interfaces to the transforms.  (I.e., a
CDLTransform is a native python class as opposed to a python dict with
particular key value pairs).   And, I would prefer that folks
manipulating OCIO profiles in python use the native OCIO API rather
than mucking with the serialized representations.  Or is there another
use case I'm missing?

Also, in terms of overall development priorities I wouldn't personally
put this at the top of my list. (I was much more excited about your
adding Houdini lut support, for example). But I can see that making
the format less daunting could be a selling point adoption.

-- Jeremy

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 6:43 PM, Malcolm Humphreys

<malcolmh...@mac.com> wrote:

Are people super into the idea of using xml?

We used xml for nearly everything at RSP, over time it became clear that it's a pretty poor choice for a lot of things.

One of the developers introduced the use of YAML (http://www.yaml.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAML) and it
took off with everyone, it happened again when I recommended it's introduction at DrD (where pretty much
everything was XML). RV has started to use it for it's package descriptions as well.

As I don't think any other apps will actually be writing ocio profiles other than the ocio api, and people will be hand
writing these profiles. I don't see a benefit to using xml for a profile description, if we using as an interchange format
then maybe.

btw. I really don't like file format discussions but I think this would really help ocio profile readability. If people are
into the idea I'm happy to do the leg work to get it to work.

I have attached a small demo python script for you to check out, it mostly shows off how to define your own
custom yaml serialisation. You need PyYaml (http://pyyaml.org/) to run the demo.

Why I like it:
- super simple to parse and serialise objects
- human readable / editable
- easy to define your own custom types
- using yaml in python is so simple

It would be quite easy to have binary data (eg file luts) interweaved inside a yaml file.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAML#Other_specified_data_types
--snip--
picture: !!binary |
 R0lGODlhDAAMAIQAAP//9/X
 17unp5WZmZgAAAOfn515eXv
 Pz7Y6OjuDg4J+fn5OTk6enp
 56enmleECcgggoBADs=mZmE
--snip--

http://www.yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html#id2759572- Relation to JSON
http://www.yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html#id2759732- Relation to XML

YAML
--snip--
ocs_profile_version: 1
resource_path: luts
luma_b: '0.0722'
luma_g: '0.7152'
luma_r: '0.2126'
role_compositing_log: lgh
role_scene_linear: lnh
strictparsing: true
displays:
 Film1D: !Display {colorspace: vd8, device: sRGB}
 Log: !Display {colorspace: lg10, device: sRGB}
colorspaces:
 dt8: !ColorSpace
  bitdepth: 8ui
  description: null
  family: vd8
  gpuallocation: uniform
  gpumax: 1
  gpumin: 0
  isdata: false
  to_reference:
  - !File {interpolation: null, src: diffusemult.spimtx}
  - !ColorSpaceTransform {dst: lnh, src: vd8}
 lg10: !ColorSpace
  bitdepth: 10ui
  description: lg10 converts from scanned film to the show linear reference space.
    This is a custom conversion based on several Kodak acquisition stocks. All three
    color channels have the same response and there is no cross talk. This transform
    has a shoulder and toe compensation. This 10bit uiint version is used for DI
    deliveries.
  family: lg
  gpuallocation: uniform
  gpumax: 1
  gpumin: 0
  isdata: false
  to_reference:
 lnh: !ColorSpace
  bitdepth: 16f
  description: The show reference space. This is a sensor referred linear representation
    of the scene with primaries that correspond to scanned film. 0.18 inthis space
    corresponds to a properly exposed 18% grey card.
  family: ln
  gpuallocation: lg2
  gpumax: 6
  gpumin: -15
  isdata: false
  to_reference: null
 vd8: !ColorSpace
  bitdepth: 8ui
  description: vd8 is an 8 bit sRGB like,2.2 gamma, conversion to and from the reference
    colorspace. This is a 1-d representation does not include any subtractive color
    mixing or crosstalk compensation. This is commonly used to interchange files
    between internal and external vendors. This is used as the interchange space
    for final images on direct to video or television products.
  family: vd8
  gpuallocation: uniform
  gpumax: 1
  gpumin: 0
  isdata: false
  to_reference:
  - !File {interpolation: linear, src: vd10.spi1d}
--snip--

XML
--snip--
<ocioconfig version="1" resourcepath="luts" strictparsing="true" luma_r="0.2126" luma_g="0.7152" luma_b="0.0722" role_scene_linear="lnh" role_compositing_log="lgh">
   <display device="sRGB" name="Film1D" colorspace="vd8"/>
   <display device="sRGB" name="Log" colorspace="lg10"/>
   <colorspace name="lnh" family="ln" bitdepth="16f" isdata="false" gpuallocation="lg2" gpumin="-15" gpumax="6">
       <description>The show reference space. This is a sensor referred linear representation of the scene with primaries that correspond to scanned film. 0.18 in this space corresponds to a properly exposed 18% grey card. </description>
   </colorspace>
   <colorspace name="lg10" family="lg" bitdepth="10ui" isdata="false" gpuallocation="uniform" gpumin="0" gpumax="1">
       <description>lg10 converts from scanned film to the show linear reference space. This is a custom conversion based on several Kodak acquisition stocks. All three color channels have the same response and there is no cross talk. This transform has a shoulder and toe compensation. This 10bit uiint version is used for DI deliveries.</description>
       <to_reference>
           <group>
               <file src="lg10.spi1d" interpolation="nearest" />
           </group>
       </to_reference>
   </colorspace>
   <colorspace name="lg16" family="lg" bitdepth="16ui" isdata="false" gpuallocation="uniform" gpumin="0" gpumax="1">
       <description>lg16 converts from scanned film to the show linear reference space. This is a custom conversion based on several Kodak acquisition stocks. All three color channels have the same response and there is no cross talk. This transform has a shoulder and toe compensation. This 16bit uiint version is used for DI deliveries in the rare case where this is requested. </description>
       <to_reference>
           <group>
               <file src="lgf.spi1d" interpolation="nearest" />
           </group>
       </to_reference>
   </colorspace>
   <colorspace name="lgh" family="lg" bitdepth="16f" isdata="false" gpuallocation="uniform" gpumin="-0.2" gpumax="1.615">
       <description>Converts from scanned film to the show linear reference space. This is a custom curve based on several Kodak acquisition stocks. All three color channels have the same response and there is no cross talk. This transform has a shoulder and toe compensation. This floating point version of the conversion that includes a large range of over-shoot and under-shoot values. This allows for colortiming offsetsto be applied and reversed out losslessly. For internal use only. </description>
       <to_reference>
           <group>
               <file src="lgf.spi1d" interpolation="linear" />
           </group>
       </to_reference>
   </colorspace>
   <colorspace name="vd8" family="vd" bitdepth="8ui" isdata="false" gpuallocation="uniform" gpumin="0" gpumax="1">
       <description>vd8 is an 8 bit sRGB like,2.2 gamma, conversion to and from the reference colorspace. This is a 1-d representation does not include any subtractive color mixing or crosstalk compensation. This is commonly used to interchange files between internal and external vendors. This is used as the interchange space for final images on direct to video or television products. </description>
       <to_reference>
           <group>
               <file src="vd10.spi1d" interpolation="linear" />
           </group>
       </to_reference>
   </colorspace>
   <colorspace name="dt8" family="dt" bitdepth="8ui" isdata="false" gpuallocation="uniform" gpumin="0" gpumax="1">
       <description> </description>
       <to_reference>
         

...

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