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Raster Inputs and Outputs

The number of raster inputs and outputs must be defined in the ufoProcessDefine user function. For each input or output, the library function ufoProcessRasterInDefine or ufoProcessRasterOutDefine must be called to define its identification and suggested working component combination. This can be RGB, RGB-Alpha, Alpha, or any.

If an input does not need to be connected for the effect to work, then ufoProcessSetRasterInOptional should be called to set it to optional. The default selection state for the optional input can be set with ufoProcessSetRasterInOptionalDefault.

UFO processes can support input and output rasters of nine different pixel types:

• 8-bits per component. Component range is 0 to 255.

• 16-bits per component. Component range is 0 to 16383 (14 bits).

• Floating point 32-bits per component. Component range is 0.0 to 1.0.

By default, the rasters supplied to the inputs and outputs can be of any of the supported raster types. There are generic pixel access functions, described later, which can be used to set and get RGB, RGB-Alpha, or Alpha normalized (0.0 to 1.0) component values, generating sensible results regardless of a raster's actual type. These functions are fine for many one-off or mathematically-intensive effects.

However, in the majority of cases, direct pixel access using pointers to pixel structures and using integer arithmetic will increase rendering performance, and may be necessary. In this case, the UFO code will probably only support a narrow subset of the entire possible combinations of input and output pixel types that may get connected to it. There are two ways to specify how input and output pixel type combinations may be converted to a combination that the UFO code supports. The recommended method is by supplying the ufoProcessSpecifyConvertPixelTypes user function. The pixel types of the rasters that will be supplied to the UFO process inputs and output are passed as arguments. If you would like the application to pre-convert the input rasters or supply a different type output to be converted after rendering, then the pixel type arguments should be changed.

Alternatively, although not recommended any more, the combinations of input and output pixel types supported by the UFO rendering code can be defined using ufoProcessSetPixelTypeCombinations. This allows multiple specifications of the desired pixel types for each input and output.

Some of the values used to describe desired pixel type values can indicate no specific pixel type or any pixel type of a specific component type. The full set of available values to specify a supported pixel type are:

• To specify any pixel type

• To specify any pixel type of a component type

• To specify an actual pixel type

   ufoRGB8PixelType
   ufoA8PixelType
   ufoRGBA8PixelType
   ufoRGB16PixelType
   ufoA16PixelType
   ufoRGBA16PixelType
   ufoRGBFPixelType
   ufoAFPixelType
   ufoRGBAFPixelType

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