how works "Interpret Data as Image" node ?

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Hi everybody,

I’d like to learn how to use the “Interpret Data as Image” node. It seems it can creats random glitchty image.
Could someone exlain it to me please ?
I read already the manual but I don’t understand what kind of data it’s possible to input to the node.

thanks in advance

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If you click on the Interpret Data as Image node’s Data input port, the popover shows that it has a data type of Binary Data. In Vuo, Binary Data represents raw bytes, the way information is stored in a file or in memory. That’s the abstract definition. For the practical definition, all you really need to know is that you can connect this port to any output port of type Binary Data.

If you search the node library for “binary data”, the first result is the Fetch Data node, so let’s start with that. With Fetch Data -> Interpret Data as Image, you can make a glitchy image from the bytes of any file. InterpretData-file.vuo (2.22 KB)

Another node that comes up in the search is Make Data from Bytes. This is a nice one because it lets you convert numbers to bytes — so, anything you can convert to numbers, you can then convert to an image. For example, audio samples. InterpretData-audio.vuo (3.96 KB)

Or you can make a patterned image using math, like Make Points along Line or Calculate List. InterpretData-math.vuo (4.85 KB)

If you broaden the node library search to “data”, you’ll see some additional nodes that output Binary Data, such as Receive Serial Data and Convert Text to Data. You could also connect those to Interpret Data as Image.

Maybe others in the community can give examples of how they’re using Interpret Data as Image.

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Here’s a cut down example of using it for carefully constructed raw files.
Part of a project where the user could adjust the attractors colours.

Archive.zip (145 KB)

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By the way, some useful extensions to this node

  • Other datatypes such as 16bit ints … I suggest much more common than 2 byte floats. A “normal” 4 byte float.
  • Signed and unsigned
  • Little or big endian option
     
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Hi Jaymie,
thanks for all your explainations and vuo files.
I’ll check them all :)

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