Imagine.md

Imagine

An unique and eccentric source of voltage, gates, and triggers using an image. You can think of it as a sequencer or an image sampler.

See also: All pachde-One modules

Load an image and generate voltages, gates, and triggers as the image is scanned by a read head. Click on the image to set the position of the read head. Drag to scrub.

To get started, try out the images available with the factory presets. Or, download the Imagine-Demo-1 patch from patchstorage.

See what others are doing for === vcp challenge #77: imagine ===. (thanks, ablaut!)

Features

• Theme options and UI tweaking in the module menu.

• All knobs are clicky knobs. Click on a knob to increment the value by a useful unit. Ctrl+Click to decrement (Cmd+Click on Mac). Hold down Shift for 10x the un-shifted amount.

• Select an image using the Picture button, or drag and drop the image file onto the image area.

• Start and stop the read head with the Play/Pause button, or send a trigger to the lavender pp input port.

• Press the reset button, or send a triggger to the r input port to reset the read head to it's default position. Shift+Click to set the default psoition to the current position.

• Adjust the speed of the read head with the speed knob. The x? knob next to speed multiplies the speed by x1 - x10 times.

  While there is a lot of room to go very fast, some of the best results may be obtained by slowing it down to speeds less than one. Right click to enter precise small values.

• If the v output is too janky for you, smooth it out with a higher slew rate.

• Choose the color component from the read head to output to voltage and analyze for gates and triggers. The knob has a dynamic label that shows the selected color component:

  Component	Description
  L	Lightness
  Lu	Luminance
  S	Saturation (chroma)
  H	Hue
  min	Minumum of R, G, B
  max	Maximum of R, G, B
  ave	Average of R, G, B
  R	Red component
  G	Green component
  B	Blue component
  a	Alpha (transparancy)

  Alpha isn't useful for most images. Only PNGs with transparency will have an effect: everything else will ouput a steady maximum voltage for Alpha.

• Set the threshhold for gates and triggers with the g/t knob. Low values are very sensitive. If you're getting too many too fast, set a higher threshhold, slow the read head down, or increase the minT time.

• Choose a path to move through the image:

  Path	Description
  Scanline	Simple left-to right, top to bottom scan, like a television or video display.
  Bounce	Travel in straight lines and bounce at the edges. Bounces are randomly very slightly askew from a perfect reflection, so you don't get stuck in the same orbit.
  Vinyl	(my favorite) Spin in like a record (baby): spin it right round; then spin back out.
  Wander	Just wander around the image to see what you can find.
  XY Pad	No automatic movement of the read head. Reads from where you click. Drag the mouse to scrub. With a carefully prepared image, you can get specific voltages for controlling a patch.
  Tabalar	Top-to-bottom, left-to-right.
  Ralabat	Right-to-left, bottom-to-top

  The selected path is shown in the backlit text display in the middle of the panel.

  To use Imagine as an plain XY Pad, set path to XY Pad without an image. To close an image after you've opened one, cancel out of the Open image dialog.

• Imagine has a variety of outputs. Raw outputs for x, y, and unipolar pixel R, G, and B values are on the left, and computed outputs for voltage gate and trigger to the right.

  X/Y outputs from the X/Y Pad follow the Polarity (p) switch to select from Unipolar positive offsets from top-left to Bipolar Cartesian coordinates.

• Choose polarity of voltage ouput with the Polarity (p) switch. Switches computed outputs between -5 to +5v (bipolar) and 0 to 10V (unipolar). Also sets the coordinate system for the XY Pad.

Inputs

Input	Description
speed	The left violet-colored port controls the speed of the read head.
x/y	The peach-colored ports are unipolar CV control of read head position overrides the path, speed, and multiplier knobs. Both inputs must be connected to control the read head.
r	The lime-colored port is a unipolar trigger for read head reset to its default starting position.
pp	The right violet-colored port is a unipolar trigger that toggles Play/Pause of the read head.
minT	The pink colored port modulates the minT setting for minimum gate/trigger time.

Outputs

Output	Description
x/y	x/y coordinates of the read head. Follows the polarity of the Polarity switch.
R, G, B	Raw Red, Green, and Blue components at the read head.
v	Voltage of the selected color component.
g	Gate based on analyzing v. Use g/t to adjust sensitivity.
t	Trigger based on analyzing v. Use g/t to adjust sensitivity.

Menu options

Option	Description
Screws	Add or remove the screw caps.
Theme	Choose Light, Dark, or High Contrast theme. Choose whether to follow the Rack Use dark panels option, and which theme is applied when the option is selected. You can even be a rebel (or silly) and choose Light as the theme used when Use dark panels is selected. Who am I to judge?
Labels	Show labels on controls and jacks, or hide all text for a clean look.
Gold medallion	Show the gold #d brand medallion, or hide it if it's a bit too bold for you.
Bright image in a dark room	Keep the image bright when it's dark.

Factory presets

Preset	Description
clean-bright-light	Clean panel in Light theme with no screws or labels. The image is bright in a dark room.
clean-bright-dark	Clean panel in Dark theme with no screws or labels. The image is bright in a dark room.
clean-bright-high-contrast	Clean panel in High Contrast theme with no screws or labels. The image is bright in a dark room.
default-ui	Factory default UI settings.

Image presets

Imagine includes a few sample image presets to try things out with.

Preset	Notes	Image
Sampler	Try scrubbing or letting Scanline run across a barcode. The QR codes are working links. The barcodes and QR codes were created with the Inkscape Barcode extension.
Burning-balloon	A digital painting
fields	A digital painting
Guitar-shirt	pachde's favorite guitar shirt
Mica	A digital painting
Monkey	A digital painting
Sandstone	Chuckanut sandstone erosion texture from Waldron island. This one is manipulated to have both smooth transitions (at low speeds) and sudden jumps.
Seaweed	Photo from the beach.
Seaweed-Frame	Black-framed seaweed on the beach. The full-scanning traversals Scanline, Tabalar, and Ralabat are nice with this one to fade in and out at the edges.
Stratus	Eroded bluff face on a US Pacific beach.
Corset	A Steam-punk Corset

The images are free for use with Imagine: Check the license.