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Working with ArrayBuffers

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Introductory Reading

The PointerType's section of the TypeConversion page explains the fundementals and that this is possible (specifically the second example).

Summary

ArrayBuffers are simply byte arrays. In js-ctypes this is a ctypes.uint8_t.array(###) (ctypes.unsigned_char are also ctypes.uint8_t).

A feature discussed in bug 732936 shows the possibility to use.

Based on work: https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/js/src/ctypes/CTypes.cpp#3080

Based on work: https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/js/src/vm/ArrayBufferObject.cpp#1301

Demo 1 - Image Data

This demo describes how to transfer a byte array pointed by ctypes.uint8_t.ptr to ImageData of canvas. This demo is based on the fact that the ImageData returned from CanvasRenderingContext2D.getImageData is a Uint8ClampedArray view for an ArrayBuffer.

Here is a basic example of getting and setting Uint8ClampedArray and ArrayBuffer of ImageData.

// context is a CanvasRenderingContext2D of some canvas
var imageData = context.getImageData(x, y, w, h);
var array = imageData.data; // array is a Uint8ClampedArray
var buffer = imageData.data.buffer; // buffer is a ArrayBuffer

// incomingBuffer is a TypedArray
var imageData2 = context.createImageData(w, h);
imageData2.data.set(incomingBuffer);

Say we have a byte array pixelBuffer, you needed to put create ImageData out of it, the data property of this holds an array of byte's.

We start with this:

// pixelBuffer is a pointer to a RGBA pixel buffer of 400x400 image.
pixelBuffer.toString(); // "ctypes.uint8_t.ptr(ctypes.UInt64("0x352e0000"))"

var imgWidth = 400;
var imgHeight = 400;
var myImgDat = new ImageData(imgWidth, imgHeight);

Method 1: Passing ArrayType CData to Uint8ClampedArray.prototype.set

Now one method is to get into a js-ctypes array and then set it into the ImageData like this:

// Cast pointer to array, to pass to Uint8ClampedArray.prototype.set.
var casted = ctypes.cast(pixelBuffer.address(), ctypes.uint8_t.array(myImgData.data.length).ptr).contents; // myImgDat.data.length is imgWidth * imgHeight * 4 because per pixel there is r, g, b, a numbers
casted.toString(); // "ctypes.uint8_t.array(640000)([45, 66, 135, 255, 99, 86, 55, 255, .......... ])"
myImgDat.data.set(casted);

The ctypes.cast takes a couple of milliseconds, however, the myImgDat.data.set takes up to 800ms for a size of 52,428,800 (which is image size of 1280 x 1024 pixels) so for the size of 640,000 it takes about 98ms.

Method 2: Manually Handled

Another method is to handle it manually:

var casted = ctypes.cast(pixelBuffer.address(), ctypes.uint8_t.array(myImgData.data.length).ptr).contents; // myImgDat.data.length is imgWidth * imgHeight *4 because per pixel there is r, g, b, a numbers

/** METHOD A **/
for (var nIndex = 0; nIndex < casted.length; nIndex = nIndex + 4) { // casted.length is same as myImgDat.data.length
    var r = casted[nIndex];
    var g = casted[nIndex + 1];
    var b = casted[nIndex + 2];
    var a = casted[nIndex + 3];

    myImgDat.data[nIndex] = r;
    myImgDat.data[nIndex + 1] = g;
    myImgDat.data[nIndex + 2] = b;
    myImgDat.data[nIndex + 3] = a;
}


/***** OR DO THE BELOW WHICH USES THE .set METHOD *****/

/** METHOD B **/
var normalArr = [];
for (var nIndex = 0; nIndex < cast.length; nIndex = nIndex + 4) { // casted.length is same as myImgDat.data.length
    var r = casted[nIndex];
    var g = casted[nIndex + 1];
    var b = casted[nIndex + 2];
    var a = casted[nIndex + 3];

    normalArr.push(r);
    normalArr.push(g);
    normalArr.push(b);
    normalArr.push(a);
}
myImgDat.data.set(normalArr);

This, however, does not take advantage of the method 1, this manually goes through the array sets the ImageData array. The cast is the same as in the previous method, it takes a couple of milliseconds. However, the manual methods here of A takes ~1300 ms and B ~1400 ms for an array length of 52,428,800 (which is image size of 1280 x 1024 pixels).

Method 3: Transfer byte array by calling memcpy

This method is the recommended way. It takes only a couple of milliseconds for large arrays. Notice how we do not cast the pixelBuffer. Based on https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/js/src/ctypes/CTypes.cpp#3080 passing an ArrayBuffer object to pointer type will pass the pointer to buffer. Based on https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/js/src/vm/ArrayBufferObject.cpp#1301 it returns dataPointer, there is no extra allocation.

var lib;
switch (OS.Constants.Sys.Name.toLowerCase()) {
    case 'winnt':
    case 'winmo':
    case 'winnt': //windows
        lib = ctypes.open('msvcrt');
        break;
    case 'darwin': // mac
        lib = ctypes.open('libc.dylib');
        break;
    case 'freebsd':
        lib = ctypes.open('libc.so.7');
        break;
    case 'openbsd':
        lib = ctypes.open('libc.so.61.0');
        break;
    case 'android':
    case 'sunos':
    case 'netbsd':
    case 'dragonfly':
        lib = ctypes.open('libc.so');
        break;
    case 'linux':
        lib = ctypes.open('libc.so.6');
        break;
    case 'gnu/kfreebsd':
        lib = ctypes.open('libc.so.0.1');
        break;
    default:
        //assume unix
        try {
            lib = ctypes.open(ctypes.libraryName('c'));
        } catch (ex) {
            throw new Error('I dont know where to memcpy is defined on your operating system, "' + OS.Constants.Sys.Name + '"');
            lib.close();
        }
}

try {
    var memcpy = lib.declare('memcpy', OS.Constants.Sys.Name.toLowerCase().indexOf('win') == 0 ? ctypes.winapi_abi : ctypes.default_abi,
        ctypes.void_t, // return
        ctypes.void_t.ptr, // *dest
        ctypes.void_t.ptr, // *src
        ctypes.size_t // count
    );
} catch (ex) {
    throw new Error('I dont know where to memcpy is defined on your operating system, "' + OS.Constants.Sys.Name + '"');
    lib.close()
}

memcpy(myImgDat.data, pixelBuffer, myImgDat.data.length); // myImgDat.data.length is imgWidth * imgHeight *4 because per pixel there is r, g, b, a numbers

lib.close();

See Also

Document Tags and Contributors

 Contributors to this page: Sheppy, rolfedh, Noitidart, arai
 Last updated by: Sheppy,