mutter/doc/cookbook/textures.xml
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<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
<chapter id="textures">
<title>Textures</title>
<epigraph>
<attribution>the author of the epigraph</attribution>
<para>a short epigraph</para>
</epigraph>
<section id="textures-introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>introduction</para>
</section>
<section id="textures-drawing-with-cairo">
<title>Drawing 2D graphics onto a texture</title>
<section>
<title>Problem</title>
<para>You want to draw 2D graphics inside a Clutter application.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Solution</title>
<para>Create a ClutterCairoTexture, then draw onto the Cairo context
it wraps using the Cairo API:</para>
<informalexample>
<programlisting>
ClutterActor *texture;
cairo_t *cr;
guint width, height;
width = 800;
height = 600;
texture = clutter_cairo_texture_new (width, height);
cr = clutter_cairo_texture_create (CLUTTER_CAIRO_TEXTURE (texture));
/*
* write onto the Cairo context cr using the Cairo API;
* see <ulink url="http://cairographics.org/manual/">the Cairo API reference</ulink> for details
*/
cairo_move_to (cr, 0, 0);
cairo_line_to (cr, 800, 600);
cairo_stroke (cr);
/* does the actual drawing onto the texture */
cairo_destroy (cr);
</programlisting>
</informalexample>
<para>Here's a <ulink url="http://cairographics.org/tutorial/">useful
Cairo tutorial</ulink> if you want to learn more about the Cairo API
itself.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Discussion</title>
<para>A ClutterCairoTexture is a standard ClutterActor, so it can be
added to ClutterContainers (e.g. a ClutterStage or ClutterGroup),
animated, resized etc. in the usual ways.</para>
<para>Other useful operations:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>To draw on part of the texture:</emphasis>
use <function>clutter_cairo_texture_create_region</function> to
retrieve a Cairo context for the region you want to draw on.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>To clear existing content from a texture:</emphasis>
use <function>clutter_cairo_texture_clear</function>.</para>
<para>You may need to do this as the texture reuses the same
Cairo context each time you call
<function>clutter_cairo_texture_create</function> or
<function>clutter_cairo_texture_create_region</function>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>To resize the Cairo context wrapped
by a texture</emphasis>, use
<function>clutter_cairo_texture_set_surface_size</function>.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<section>
<title>Drawing pages from a PDF onto a ClutterCairoContext</title>
<para>Other libraries may provide an API for writing onto a
Cairo context; you can make use of these APIs on the exposed
Cairo context of a ClutterCairoTexture. For example, you
can use the poppler-glib API to display pages
from a PopplerDocument inside a Clutter application:</para>
<informalexample>
<programlisting>
<![CDATA[
#include <poppler/glib/poppler.h>
/* snipped setup code (as above) */
/*
* cast to CLUTTER_CAIRO_TEXTURE, as the functions
* used below require that type
*/
ClutterCairoTexture *cc_texture = CLUTTER_CAIRO_TEXTURE (texture);
clutter_cairo_texture_clear (cc_texture);
gchar *file_uri = "file:///path/to/file.pdf";
guint page_num = 0;
double page_width, page_height;
PopplerDocument *doc;
PopplerPage *page;
GError *error = NULL;
doc = poppler_document_new_from_file (file_uri, NULL, &error);
page = poppler_document_get_page (doc, page_num);
poppler_page_get_size (page, &page_width, &page_height);
cr = clutter_cairo_texture_create (cc_texture);
/* render the page to the context */
poppler_page_render (page, cr);
cairo_destroy (cr);
]]>
</programlisting>
</informalexample>
<para>Note that if the page is larger than the Cairo context,
some of it might not be visible. Similarly, if the ClutterCairoTexture
is larger than the stage, some of that might not be visible. So you
may need to do some work to make the ClutterCairoTexture fit
inside the stage properly (e.g. resize the stage), and/or some work
to make the PDF page sit inside the Cairo context (e.g. scale the PDF
page or put it inside a scrollable actor).</para>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section id="textures-aspect-ratio">
<title>Maintaining the aspect ratio when loading an
image into a texture</title>
<section>
<title>Problem</title>
<para>You want want to load an image into a texture
and scale it, while retaining the underlying image's aspect ratio.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Solution</title>
<para>Set the texture to keep the aspect ratio of the
underlying image (so it doesn't distort when it's scaled); use
the actor's request-mode property to set the correct
geometry management (see the discussion section); then
resize the texture along one dimension (height or width).
Now, when an image is loaded into the texture, the image is
scaled to fit the set height or width; the other dimension
is automatically scaled by the same factor so the image fits
the texture:</para>
<informalexample>
<programlisting>
<![CDATA[
ClutterActor *texture;
texture = clutter_texture_new ();
clutter_texture_set_keep_aspect_ratio (CLUTTER_TEXTURE (texture), TRUE);
/*
* this setting means the height of the scaled image is based on its width;
* it's not strictly necessary to set this, as this is the default
*/
clutter_actor_set_request_mode (texture, CLUTTER_REQUEST_HEIGHT_FOR_WIDTH);
/* set the width, which causes height to be scaled by the same factor */
clutter_actor_set_width (texture, 300);
clutter_texture_set_from_file (CLUTTER_TEXTURE (texture),
"/path/to/image.jpg",
NULL);
]]>
</programlisting>
</informalexample>
</section>
<section>
<title>Discussion</title>
<para>The request mode for an actor determines how
geometry requisition is performed; in this case, this
includes how scaling is applied if you change the actor's
width or height. There are two possible values for
request-mode:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>If set to <emphasis>CLUTTER_REQUEST_HEIGHT_FOR_WIDTH</emphasis>
(the default), changing the width causes the height
to be scaled by the same factor as the width.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If set to <emphasis>CLUTTER_REQUEST_WIDTH_FOR_HEIGHT</emphasis>,
changing the height causes the width to be scaled by the
same factor as the height.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>In the example above, the texture is set to keep its
aspect ratio then fixed to a width of 300 pixels; the
request-mode is set to CLUTTER_REQUEST_HEIGHT_FOR_WIDTH. If a
standard, photo-sized image in landscape orientation were
loaded into it (2848 pixels wide x 2136 high), it would be scaled
down to 300 pixels wide; then, its height would be scaled by the
same factor as the width (i.e. scaled down to 225 pixels).</para>
<para>With request-mode set to CLUTTER_REQUEST_WIDTH_FOR_HEIGHT,
you would get the same effect by setting the height first;
then, computation of the width for the scaled image would be
based on the scaling factor applied to its height instead.</para>
<para>You can work out which side of the source image is longest using
clutter_texture_base_size() to get its width and height. This can
be useful when trying to scale images with different orientations
to fit into uniform rows or columns:</para>
<informalexample>
<programlisting>
<![CDATA[
gint width;
gint height;
clutter_texture_get_base_size (CLUTTER_TEXTURE (texture), &width, &height);
]]>
</programlisting>
</informalexample>
<para>Note that if you explicitly set the size (both width and height)
of a texture with clutter_actor_set_size() (or
with clutter_actor_set_width() and clutter_actor_set_height()), any
image loaded into the texture is automatically stretched/shrunk to
fit the texture. This is the case regardless of any other settings
(like whether to keep aspect ratio).</para>
<para>Also note that a texture won't try to fit itself inside the bounds of
its parent container: so if it's bigger than its container, only part
of it may be visible.</para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="textures-image-loading">
<title>Loading image data into a texture</title>
<section>
<title>Problem</title>
<para>You want to display an image inside a Clutter
application.</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Solution</title>
<para>Create a ClutterTexture directly from an image file:</para>
<informalexample>
<programlisting>
<![CDATA[
ClutterActor *texture;
GError *error = NULL;
gchar *image_path = "/path/to/image";
texture = clutter_texture_new_from_file (image_path, &error);
if (error != NULL)
{
// handle error
}
]]>
</programlisting>
</informalexample>
<para>Or create a texture and set its source to an image
file:</para>
<informalexample>
<programlisting>
<![CDATA[
ClutterActor *texture;
GError *error = NULL;
gchar *image_path = "/path/to/image";
gboolean loaded;
texture = clutter_texture_new ();
/*
* returns FALSE if file could not be loaded or texture
* could not be set from image data in the file
*/
loaded = clutter_texture_set_from_file (CLUTTER_TEXTURE (texture),
image_path,
&error);
if (error != NULL)
{
// handle error
}
]]>
</programlisting>
</informalexample>
</section>
<section>
<title>Discussion</title>
<para>Bear the following in mind when loading images into a
texture:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>An image load may fail if:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The file does not exist.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The image format is unsupported: most of the
common bitmap formats (PNG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, XPM)
are supported, but more exotic ones may not be.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Whether you're creating a texture from an image file,
or loading an image from a file into an existing texture,
you should specify the filesystem path to the file, rather
than a URI.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<section>
<title>Synchronous vs. asynchronous image loading</title>
<para>The code examples above show the simplest approach:
loading an image into a texture synchronously. This means that
the application waits for each image to be loaded before continuing;
which is acceptable in this case, but may not be when
loading images into multiple textures.</para>
<para>Another approach is to load data into textures
asynchronously. This requires some extra set up in your code:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Call g_thread_init() (from the GLib library) prior
to calling clutter_init(), so that a local thread is used
to load the file, rather than the main loop. (Note that
this is not necessary if you're using GLib version >= 2.24,
since GObject initializes threading with the type system.)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Set the texture to load data asynchronously.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Connect a callback to the texture's load-finished
signal to handle any errors which occur during loading,
and/or to do extra work if data loads successfully.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>The code below shows how to put these together:</para>
<informalexample>
<programlisting>
<![CDATA[
/* callback to invoke when a texture finishes loading image data */
static void
_load_finished_cb (ClutterTexture *texture,
gpointer error,
gpointer user_data)
{
GError *err = error;
const gchar *image_path = user_data;
if (err != NULL)
g_warning ("Could not load image from file %s; message: %s",
image_path,
err->message);
else
g_debug ("Image loaded from %s", image_path);
}
int
main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
/* initialize GLib's default threading implementation */
g_thread_init (NULL);
clutter_init (&argc, &argv);
/* ... get stage etc. */
ClutterActor *texture;
GError *error = NULL;
texture = clutter_texture_new ();
/* load data asynchronously */
clutter_texture_set_load_async (CLUTTER_TEXTURE (texture), TRUE);
/* connect a callback to the "load-finished" signal */
g_signal_connect (texture,
"load-finished",
G_CALLBACK (_load_finished_cb),
image_path);
/* load the image from a file */
clutter_texture_set_from_file (CLUTTER_TEXTURE (texture),
image_path,
&error);
/* ... clutter_main () etc. */
}
]]>
</programlisting>
</informalexample>
</section>
<section>
<title>Other ways to load image data into a texture</title>
<para>While it's useful to load image data into a texture directly
from a file, there are occasions where you may have image data
in some other (non-file) format:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Various GNOME libraries provide image data in GdkPixbuf
structures; clutter-gtk has functions for
creating or setting a texture from a GdkPixbuf:
gtk_clutter_texture_new_from_pixbuf()
and gtk_clutter_texture_set_from_pixbuf() respectively.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If you have raw RGB or YUV pixel data, ClutterTexture has
clutter_texture_set_from_rgb_data() and
clutter_texture_set_from_yuv_data() methods for loading it.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
</section>
</section>
</chapter>