Convert text to Ledtriks format

**boarder3** · 10-04-2009, 10:00 AM

This is exactly what i have been asking for is image converter. Please give me step by step i really need to add this to my display.

**mmulvenna** · 10-04-2009, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by Michael Sullivan

You then do not need to worrie about base64 as you can read directly from the image as this is what I do and you can animate a large image like a banner by creating a picturebox and read the pixels in and then shift the image 1 pixel across or up and then read the pixels again.
If you want you can do full frame animation by loading in different images 1 after the other.

What I do for my 48 x 32 panel is download 32 x 32 christmas icons and load then into an icom editor and convert it to black on white, then tell the software to read in each pixel and if it is black switch that led on.

Cheers
Michael.

Please give us the details. Great idea. Thanks

**mheuer** · 10-06-2009, 03:13 PM

I made a small program written in C, using GTK, to see if this was possible.

It successfully read an image, and exported an animated .led file Vixen can play back.

I can try to tidy up the program a little if any one is interested (I'm not sure if it will work for your purposes yet), if not, the code might help for saving/opening vixen files, which could be useful if you want to manipulate the animation in Vixen too.

Really hope this helps,
Mike.

**budude** · 10-06-2009, 03:18 PM

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "read an image"? The snapshot you showed looks similar to what you can do with the Vixen LEDTriks editor already so the real key will be the image import part of it. Can you provide a before/after snapshot of the imported image and resultant LEDTriks display?

This will be very useful if it takes in jpg/gif images!

**mheuer** · 10-06-2009, 03:40 PM

Yep its a real image in its pure form.

Any image file type that the GtkImage widget supports, is supported by this program.
So that's pretty much all image types

.

Here's some screen shots.
One of the real input ".png" image.
And some screen shots to show the image scrolling, being read externally in Vixen.

I might release some source code and binaries in a day or so after I clean up the code a bit if anybody is interested.

Thanks,
Mike.

**budude** · 10-06-2009, 03:55 PM

There is definite interest - probably from every single LEDTriks user here... :mrgreen:

To be completely greedy :oops: - it would be great if it could do some batch processing also. My original goal was to take a small video (mpeg, avi, etc) and gather snapshots periodically (say every second) and convert those files into a .led file. As I've indicated previously - I'm not expecting HD quality video from this - it will probably be pretty bad - but depending on the video it might be acceptable with some editing...

**mheuer** · 10-06-2009, 04:09 PM

Thanks.

Right now I'm trying to set it up where you can choose different effects like, the of selection a single image for each frame (like video), and the ability to scroll a single image in different directions (scrolling text, etc).

I'll definitely look into batch processing once I get things somewhat stable. That is a good idea.

The live video pictures might be a little tricky though, because the program needs a certain threshold to detect the on/off for pixels. But it should be interesting to try though

.

I really appreciate the ideas!

**budude** · 10-06-2009, 04:46 PM

In my code (CMD line based...) I entered a threshold value to determine that point where I would turn on/off the bits. It depended so much on the incoming image colors/contrast that a static value just would not work.

**boarder3** · 10-06-2009, 05:36 PM

Could you please send me that program you wrote i would love to test out.

**mheuer** · 10-06-2009, 06:30 PM

I'll probably post it here in a day or so.

Although I was able to test it's basic features today (loading data, etc.), the user interface features are not in a usable state just yet.

I hope to have it ready really soon.

Thanks,
Mike.