Resources Tutorial

Dynamic Animation Library

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Resources

This tutorial describes the use of Resources in Dali, currently Image resources.

Overview

Resources in Dali can apply Images or 3D Models.

The common method to access these resources is through Visuals.

Controls then use these visuals to display what is required.

See ImageView tutorial

Loading images

Images are defined by an url which can be local or remote (internet).

The following formats are supported

Supported image formats extentsion
Bitmap .bmp
Gif .gif
Jpeg .jpeg
Khronos Texture .ktx
PNG .png
Mircosoft Icons .ico
WAP Bitmap .wbmp

Controls should process the provoded url and internally create the matching Image visual.

Visual creation will automatically determine if the Image is an N_PATCH, SVG, GIF not regular image from the image data.

Image Properties

Property Name Description
ALPHA_MASK_URL url to an image that will mask the main content image
CROP_TO_MASK Flag to determine if main content image should crop to match mask size
FITTING_MODE By default the image will shrink to fit the desiredHeight and desiredWidth, other modes available
SAMPLING_MODE The type of sampling to be used. Default is Box.
DESIRED_WIDTH The width you would like the Image to be. Affected by FITTING_MODE
DESIRED_HEIGTH The height you would like the Image to be. Affected by FITTING_MOD
SYNCHRONOUS_LOADING If loading should block the execution thread, disabled by Default.
PIXEL_AREA Can be set to display only a portion of the Image
WRAP_MODE_U Define how sampling should behave for u coordinate
WRAP_MODE_V Define how sampling should behave for v coordinate
ATLASING Whether to use the texture atlas to speed up loading times, enabled by default

N-Patch only properties

Property Name Description
BORDER Specifies border values for N-Patch images
BORDER_ONLY Specifies if ONLY borders to be shown for N-Patch images

Animated GIF only properties

Property Name Description
BATCH_SIZE Number of Images to decode before animation starts, Default is 1.
CACHE_SIZE Number of images to keep cached, Can increase or decrease depending on memory avaiable.
FRAME_DELAY Millisecond delay between frames


Synchronous loading has niche uses, eg. ensuring image has loaded before continuing to execute application code, the common use is to connect to the control’s ResourceReady Signal and peform operations at that point.

Caching

Images are automatically cached, if the ATLASING is not disable then may be in an Atlas too.

If an Image (ImageVisual) is added then removed then added to the stage loading times can be reduced by keeping the
visual registered with the control.
This is useful for Control writers and exaplained further in “Creating Controls with Visuals” tutorial.

Reducing Image memory footprint

An application loading images may want to display them at lower resolution than their native resolution.
To support this, DALi can resize an image at load time so that its in-memory copy uses less space and its visual quality benefits from being prefiltered.
DESIRED_WIDTH and DESIRED_HEIGHT can be set to the Image visual and then FITTING_MODE.

The Dali::FittingMode namespace provides 4 algorithms, which can be used to fit an image to a desired rectangle, a desired width, or a desired height.

The fitting modes and suggested use cases are as follows:

Fitting mode Suggested use case
FittingMode::SHRINK_TO_FIT Fit full image inside desired width & height, potentially not filling one of either the desired image width or height with pixels.
FittingMode::SCALE_TO_FILL The image is centred in the desired dimensions, exactly touchingin one dimension, with image regions outside the other desired dimension cropped.
FittingMode::FIT_WIDTH Image fills whole width. Height is scaled proportionately to maintain aspect ratio.
FittingMode::FIT_HEIGHT Image fills whole height. Width is scaled proportionately to maintain aspect ratio.