If no arguments given, creates an input object for an unspecified format. You then need to use the "open" command to link a format handler to it. If arguments given, the "open" command is immediately called with those arguments. Remember that most formats produce Dim[rows,columns,3] grids with 0-255 values. (Most.) This is the command that gives a particular resource to a [#out] object. This is done through a "format" (there is a list of formats in this manual). The other arguments depend on the chosen format. The format may be a file format or a protocol or a hardware device, etc. The format called "file" is a special shortcut that autodetects the type of file (by name suffix) and picks up the appropriate handler. This is a shortcut for "open file" followed by a filename. The filename must contain a dot, else it will be seen as a handler name. close may be necessary if you operate on "/dev/video", which can only be read by one at a time. otherwise it's usually not necessary. selects one picture from a multi-picture format and then does the same as a bang. selects one picture from a multi-picture format, to be displayed by the next bang. sends a grid through the outlet. the grid may be the result of reading from a file, acquiring from a device, capturing from the screen etc. this is format-specific. most formats produce grid(rows columns {red green blue}). In formats that read from a file, reading another picture will continue if there are several pictures in the same file, but if the end of file is reached instead, it will rewind and send the first picture again. see section "External Picture Formats". Obsolete. the word "option" is optional now. rewinds to beginning of file if applicable. controls the automatic looping of movies. frame number of frame just sent, for formats that have frame numbers. tried to read a frame that does not exist (signals end of file) If no arguments given, creates an output object for an unspecified format. You then need to use the "open" command to link a format handler to it. If arguments given, the "open" command is immediately called with those arguments. Remember that most formats expect dim(rows,columns,3) grids with 0-255 values. (Most.) This alternate way to create an [#out] automatically calls "open window" and "out_size rows columns". This is the command that gives a particular resource to a [#out] object. This is done through a "format" (there is a list of formats in this manual). The other arguments depend on the chosen format. The format may be a file format or a protocol or a hardware device, etc. The format called "file" is a special shortcut that autodetects the type of file (by name suffix) and picks up the appropriate handler. This is a shortcut for "open file" followed by a filename. The filename must contain a dot, else it will be seen as a handler name. this is format-specific. most formats expect grid(rows columns {red green blue}). In formats that write to a file, sending a 2nd picture overwrites the first. see section "External Picture Formats". closes the file. usually not necessary. Obsolete. Omit the word "option" now. when status=1, current time (unix clock) and time since last frame-end are printed in the console. when status=0, it is off. default is 0. rewinds to beginning of file if applicable. will overwrite the previous data. ... sent when a complete grid has been received.

This object class only works with a X11-based version of Pd. (e.g. on Linux, BSD, but not MacOS X).

Similar to [#out window], except it creates an inset in the patch you put it in, and a scaled version of the picture appears in the inset. It also emits the same messages as [#out window] and automatically scales cursor position according to the current scale factor. The scale factor is decided automatically.

All other methods are as in [#out window].

This will process the "position" messages emitted by [#out] or [#peephole] in useful ways. y,x coords of a click y,x coords of a drag (any button is kept pressed) y,x coords of an unclick y,x coords of a move (no button is pressed) button 1 status button 2 status button 3 status wheel difference: -1 = roll up; 1 = roll down. Works about like [#in videodev] except you can right-click-open it to access all of the camera settings visually.

Subformat P6 only. Max-number can only be 255 (24-bit RGB).

opens the specified file, taken from the current directory. same but for .ppm.gz files values 0-255

Support for RGB non-progressive

opens the specified file, taken from the current directory. RGB-24

Support for RGB non-progressive

opens the specified file, taken from the current directory. Y-8 (greyscale) YA-16 (greyscale and transparency) RGB-24 (colour) RGBA-32 (colour and transparency)

Support for .mov files.

This format supports frame-seek and frame-tell.

Uses the HW-QuickTime library aka QuickTime4Linux (libquicktime.so). There is also a variant on the same library and that project is just called LibQuickTime.

Some versions of those libraries may include support for different codecs, and some also may support entirely different wrapper formats such as AVI.

On Macintosh, Apple QuickTime is used instead, but several of the following messages may not be available.

Allowed values are at least: raw, jpeg, png, mjpa, yuv2, yuv4. Some other values may allowed, depending on the version of the library and which codec plugins are installed. Must be set before the first frame is written. only applies to [#out]. Choosing a codec is important because codecs influence greatly the speed of encoding, the speed of decoding, the size of the written file, and its fidelity to the original content. Note that there exist other Apple-QuickTime codecs that are not supported by HW-QuickTime. Sets special codec-specific settings. For example: "parameter jpeg_quality 75" Sets the framerate of the file. This is not used by GridFlow when reading a file, but other programs usually care. Allowed values are rgb, rgba, bgr, bgra, yuv, yuva. Normally you don't need this. Forces a window size when writing. Usually this has to be used after setting the framerate and codec and before setting the codec-parameters. (Strange. Sorry.) forces a window size when reading. this is a workaround for a problem in HW-QuickTime.

support for .mpeg files

this format supports frame-seek and frame-tell.

Two different libraries are available for dealing with MPEG files. Those have different details, capabilities and quirks.

In any case, GridFlow does not support importing audio from those files.

If you use the HeroineWarrior library, you may open several mpeg files at once, but not with the GregWard library.

Libraries may scream error messages in a rude way.

By opposition to PPM and TARGA, this format driver only allows a single MPEG stream per file (you cannot "cat" several MPEG files together).

Supports Rewind and Frame Select.

opens the specified file, taken from the current directory.

This is GridFlow's special file format. This is the only I/O format that can hold anything that the [#store] object can.

This is the picture format that would support TCP connections if that feature actually worked. More on this later.

opens the specified file, taken from the current directory. same but for .grid.gz files output will be as 32 bit signed integers. output will be as 8 bit unsigned integers. cancels "headerless" (and back to reading .grid) instead of reading .grid files with header, will read raw data, faking a .grid header to itself. It will use the hereby specified dimension list, as well as two other settings: type and endian.

When writing "raw" data, a file may be considered a long string of base 256 digits (called bytes), but different computers have different conventions for dealing with them:

  • big: A number will be written starting with the biggest digit. This is the natural way on the Macintosh, Sun, Amiga, and so on.
  • little: A number will be written starting with the smallest digit. This is the natural way on the Intel 386/Pentium.
  • same: A number will be written in whichever way is more natural on this computer. The natural way is slightly faster to handle. This is the default setting.
  • Video4Linux-1 devices, RGB-24 only. Variable picture size.

    We have been testing it using cards of the BT-848 family, such as Miro DC10plus and Hauppauge WinTV, using the bttv.o linux driver. Also we have been testing using Logitech QuickCam (and similar Labtec hardware), but don't use the qce-ga driver, which is buggy and obsolete: the qc-usb works better.

    Some hardware doesn't support RGB, so you may have to select a YUV colorspace (see below) and then use [#yuv_to_rgb]. Don't forget to also do [# min 255] and [# max 0].

    If for some reason there's a bug that causes a driver to produce BGR instead of RGB, so that red and blue are swapped, you can swap them back by filtering through a RGB-BGR converter, such as [#inner * + 0 {3 3 # 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0}].

    color adjustments:

    gets a specific attribute. a message is sent through right outlet. valid attributes are: brightness, hue, colour, contrast, whiteness. gets all attributes.

    other options:

  • mmap: This is the normal (and fast) way of transferring pictures from the camera.
  • read: Some cameras/drivers only support this instead of mmap.
  • In case of mmap, the extra numeric argument sets the queue length in number of frames, so you can select an appropriate tradeoff between efficiency and latency. Allowed values are: RGB24, YUV420P. Use this if your driver doesn't support RGB24. sets the input size, especially when using a video digitalizer device.

    supports 15,16,24,32-bit truecolor displays

    now also support 8-bit indexed displays, using a private colormap configured as 3:3:2 RGB. When using 8-bit you can specify the "use_stripes" option to use a completely different color scheme involving R,G,B diagonal stripes, a kind of 6:6:6 RGB spread over three pixels.

    If you are using Windows or MacOS 10: you will have to install a X11 server. This will emulate Unix display on your OS. (note: Unix systems also need a X11 server, but it's built-in and handles the video driver directly). In the case of MacOS 10 and QNX that both use non-X11 display technology on top of a basically Unix OS, the OS comes with a X11 server, but it may be on a "bundled software" CD.

    synonym of "open x11 here". connects to the default X11 server, according to your environment variable "DISPLAY". connects to a display server on this machine. connects to a remote X11 display server using TCP. Sorry, IP addresses are not supported. Port number will be 6000 plus the display number, because of the X11 standard. resizes the window to the size of the grid; encodes that grid in the display's pixel format; also displays it if autodraw > 0 the values must be in range 0-255, or else they will be "wrapped".

    Destroying the object (or sending "close") should close the window.

    because of the design of Xlib, or if any of the connections involved crashes, then the whole program has to be terminated. (don't you love xlib). Something similar happens if you close any of the windows yourself, but IIRC this could be fixed.

    only one window may be used per connection (to simplify matters; this doesn't reduce flexibility).

    there is an additional argument that may be added to every "open" message; if you don't put it, a new toplevel window is created. if you put "root" then the screen's wallpaper will be used instead (it may fail to work with some popular window managers). You can also put a window number, e.g. 0x28003ff, you may connect to an existing window; you can find out the number of a window by using a tool like xwininfo, part of X11 standard tools.

    changes the window's size, just like sending a grid dim(height,width,3) would. this affects the size of screen captures too. Selects one of the 64 predefined cursors of X11. (Note that if your cursor table has them numbered from 0 to 126 using only even numbers, then those cursor numbers are all doubled compared to the ones GridFlow uses.) This makes the cursor invisible.

    This is emitted every time the cursor moves inside the window connected to this format handler. This is also emitted when the cursor is dragging from inside to outside the window. This is also emitted when a mouse button is pressed.

    The y and x coordinates are relative to the upper right corner of the window. Specific button states may be extracted from the button value by applying [>> buttonnumber] and then checking whether the result is odd. Button numbers normally are:

  • Shift
  • CapsLock
  • Control
  • Alternate
  • NumLock
  • ???
  • Meta
  • ScrollLock
  • Left Button
  • Middle Button
  • Right Button
  • Wheel Up
  • Wheel Down
  • NOTE: This message form may become longer in the future, but the already defined parts will stay the same.

    Similar to position above, but this is emitted when a keyboard key is pressed while this format handler's window is active. Keynames follow the X11 standard, similarly to PureData's [keyname] object. The only exception is that keynames that are digits get prefixed by a capital D so that they don't get mistaken for actual numbers.

    NOTE: This message form may become longer in the future, but the already defined parts will stay the same.

    Same as keypress but when a key gets released instead.

    NOTE: This message form may become longer in the future, but the already defined parts will stay the same.

    The equivalent of format x11 on MacOS 10.x, but with less features (sorry). opens a dim(240,320,3) rgb window (default). Sends image to screen. Window will be resized to fit the image exactly. Opens a dim(240,320,3) rgb window (default). Sends image to screen. Window will be resized to fit the image exactly. Normally "X11" with uppercase X; else consult the AALib manual. You can pass "commandline options" of AALib here. converts a greyscale image to an ascii image and possibly displays it. note that the image is typically downscaled by a factor of 2 by aalib itself. the inverse of "dump". Both together in a loop allow to post-process aalib's buffer before displaying. Goes well with "draw", "autodraw". like X11's autodraw. like X11's draw. produces a Dim[y,x,2] grid whose two channels are ascii character codes and character attributes. Equivalent to "open x11", but this can be set by putting a line like this in the config file: GridFlow.formats[:window] = GridFlow.formats[:x11] (and similarly other aliases can be created too)