What to do if Core Image is ignoring your slider attributes

2008-02-27 13:19:05 -08:00

So you’re writing an Image Unit, and it has a couple of numeric parameters. You expect that Core Image Fun House will show a slider for each of them, and it does—but no matter what you do, the slider’s minimum and maximum are both 0. Furthermore, Core Image Fun House doesn’t show your parameters’ real display names; it simply makes them up from the parameters’ KVC keys.

The problem is that you are specifying those attributes in the wrong place in your Description.plist. And yes, I know you’re specifying them where the project template had them—so was I. The template has it wrong.

One of the filter attributes that Core Image recognizes is CIInputs. The value for this key is an array of dictionaries; each dictionary represents one parameter to the filter. The template has all the parameter attributes in these dictionaries. That makes sense, but it’s not where Core Image looks for them.

In reality, Core Image only looks for three keys in those dictionaries:

  • CIAttributeName
  • CIAttributeClass
  • CIAttributeDefault

Anything else, it simply ignores.

The correct place to put all those other keys (including CIAttributeSliderMin, CIAttributeSliderMax, and CIAttributeDisplayName) is in another dictionary—one for each parameter. These dictionaries go inside the CIFilterAttributes dictionary. In other words, the CIFilterAttributes dictionary should contain:

  • CIInputs => Aforementioned array of (now very small) dictionaries
  • inputFoo => Dictionary fully describing the inputFoo parameter, including slider attributes and display name
  • inputBar => Dictionary fully describing the inputBar parameter, including slider attributes and display name
  • inputBaz => Dictionary fully describing the inputBaz parameter, including slider attributes and display name

Finally, an example:

<key>CIFilterAttributes</key>
<dict>
    ⋮
    <key>CIInputs</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>CIAttributeClass</key>
            <string>CIImage</string>
            <key>CIAttributeName</key>
            <string>inputImage</string>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>CIAttributeClass</key>
            <string>NSNumber</string>
            <key>CIAttributeDefault</key>
            <real>1.0</real>
            <key>CIAttributeName</key>
            <string>inputWhitePoint</string>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>CIAttributeClass</key>
            <string>NSNumber</string>
            <key>CIAttributeDefault</key>
            <real>0.0</real>
            <key>CIAttributeName</key>
            <string>inputBlackPoint</string>
        </dict>
    </array>
    <key>inputWhitePoint</key>
    <dict>
        <key>CIAttributeClass</key>
        <string>NSNumber</string>
        <key>CIAttributeDefault</key>
        <real>1.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeDisplayName</key>
        <string>White point</string>
        <key>CIAttributeIdentity</key>
        <real>1.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeMin</key>
        <real>0.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeMax</key>
        <real>1.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeName</key>
        <string>inputWhitePoint</string>
        <key>CIAttributeSliderMin</key>
        <real>0.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeSliderMax</key>
        <real>1.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeType</key>
        <string>CIAttributeTypeScalar</string>
    </dict>
    <key>inputBlackPoint</key>
    <dict>
        <key>CIAttributeClass</key>
        <string>NSNumber</string>
        <key>CIAttributeDefault</key>
        <real>0.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeDisplayName</key>
        <string>Black point</string>
        <key>CIAttributeIdentity</key>
        <real>0.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeMin</key>
        <real>0.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeMax</key>
        <real>1.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeName</key>
        <string>inputBlackPoint</string>
        <key>CIAttributeSliderMin</key>
        <real>0.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeSliderMax</key>
        <real>1.0</real>
        <key>CIAttributeType</key>
        <string>CIAttributeTypeScalar</string>
    </dict>
</dict>

You can see how the descriptions under CIInputs are as terse as possible; everything besides the absolute necessities is specified in the outer dictionaries.

4 Responses to “What to do if Core Image is ignoring your slider attributes”

  1. Blake C. Says:

    Which template exactly has the incorrect plist?

  2. Peter Hosey Says:

    Blake C.: The Image Unit template.

  3. David Kim Says:

    That you, Peter.

    I found this post in my websearch for a problem that looks similar, involving executable kernels. I am posting a follow-up to help anyone who stumbles across this set of problems (spent a day hitting my head against the wall).

    To get your properties to show up in Core Image Fun House, CI Filter Browser, etc, etc, you must also conform to some naming conventions (not sure if these come from AppKit, UIKit, or whatever):

    Instead of:
    minimum
    saturationValue
    weatherControlFactor
    …etc.

    use:
    inputMinimum
    inputSaturationValue
    inputWeatherControlFactor

    Voila! They suddenly show up.

    Hope this helps someone,
    Cheers,
    David

  4. Peter Hosey Says:

    David Kim: That convention is enforced by either Core Image or Core Image Fun House; I don’t know which. It is not part of Cocoa, and is certainly not part of Cocoa Touch, which doesn’t have Core Image.

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