Transferring images

Intended audience: developers, Programming language: c++

Some optimized methods have been written to optimize image transfer between client and server using the attribute DevEncoded data type. All these methods have been merged in a class called EncodedAttribute. Within this class, you will find methods to:

  • Encode an image in a compressed way (JPEG) for images coded on 8 (gray scale), 24 or 32 bits
  • Encode a grey scale image coded on 8 or 16 bits
  • Encode a color image coded on 24 bits
  • Decode images coded on 8 or 16 bits (gray scale) and returned a 8 or bits grey scale image
  • Decode color images transmitted using a compressed format (JPEG) and returns a 32 bits RGB image

The following code snippets are examples of how these methods have to be used in a server and in a client. On the server side, creates an instance of the EncodedAttribute class within your object

1  class MyDevice::Tango::Device_4Impl
2   {
3       ...
4       Tango::EncodedAttribute jpeg;
5       ...
6   }

In the code of your device, use an encoding method of the EncodedAttribute class

1  void MyDevice::read_Encoded_attr_image(Tango::Attribute &att)
2  {
3       ....
4       jpeg.encode_jpeg_gray8(imageData,256,256,50.0);
5       att.set_value(&jpeg);
6  }

Line 4: Image encoding. The size of the image is 256 by 256. Each pixel is coded using 8 bits. The encoding quality is defined to 50 in a scale of 0 - 100. imageData is the pointer to the image data (pointer to unsigned char)

Line 5: Set the value of the attribute using a Attribute::set_value() method.

On the client side, the code is the following (without exception management)

 1     ....
 2     DeviceAttribute da;
 3     EncodedAttribute att;
 4     int width,height;
 5     unsigned char *gray8;
 6 
 7     da = device.read_attribute("Encoded_attr_image");
 8     att.decode_gray8(&da,&width,&height,&gray8);
 9     ....
10    delete [] gray8;
11    ...

The attribute named Encoded_attr_image is read at line7. The image is decoded at line 8 in a 8 bits gray scale format. The image data are stored in the buffer pointed to by gray8. The memory allocated by the image decoding at line 8 is returned to the system at line 10.