[PD-dev] capabilities of data structures with externals

[x nor]

On Fri, Jan 3, 2020 at 1:34 PM Christof Ressi <christof.ressi at gmx.at> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> if you consider writing an external, why not include the data? Having the
> data model in Pd data structures and writing an external just to access it
> is certainly possible, but IMO doesn't make much sense.
>

I guess I could write a monolithic external that both reads data files and
synthesizes but the idea of separating and using datastructures was so that
I could provide visualization of the data (which I've done) and also use
that some information for synthesis and potentially allow the interaction
with the visualization to control synthesis parameters, also, the
separation would allow a user to swap out the synthesis technique if they
like..
That said, maybe this is asking too much of the datastructure setup...
maybe I should simply use datastructures as a visualization and interaction
interface as part of a monolithic external that can read data files,
synthesize as well as generate the data for visualization...


>
> In your external you can create a (hidden) canvas and add garrays, either
> with graph_array() from g_array.c or or by sending the "array" message to
> the canvas with pd_typedmess(). DSP objects like [tabwrite4~] can then
> access those garrays by their name.
>
> This is how you create a hidden canvas:
> https://git.iem.at/pd/vstplugin/blob/master/pd/src/vstplugin~.cpp#alsoL728
> <https://git.iem.at/pd/vstplugin/blob/master/pd/src/vstplugin~.cpp#L728>
>
> And this is how you add objects:
> https://git.iem.at/pd/vstplugin/blob/master/pd/src/vstplugin~.cpp#L868
>
> NOTE: I wouldn't really recommend this
>
> ---
>
> The other possibility is to have your data model in an abstraction, with
> the float arrays in [table] or [array define], and then use [clone] or
> dynamic patching. I think this is less work :-)
>

This is actually what I am already doing, except I build a datastructure
first, then I have [clone]'d abstractions that create the flattened out
[array] s from that data structure (pointer) that I can use for the actual
synthesis...
One issue with this is that I'd like to be able to have multiple
resynthesis patches using the same data.. in my current approach, each
resynthesizer has a unique copy of the data structure data, it is CPU
intensive to copy all that data around and uses a bunch of RAM just to have
duplicate data. If the synthesis abstraction or external could simply use
the datastucture data directly, then it shouldn't be very expensive to
create a bunch of additional synthesizers.

I guess I could have an intermediary step that takes the analysis data and
creates (hidden or not) arrays and then communicate those names to the
synthesizers... or simply do that as part of the initial data reading
external.


>
> ---
>
> That being said, I think there should be a way for [tabwrite~] etc. to
> access data structure "float" arrays. See also:
> https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/667
>

I agree.

-Alex


>
> Christof
>
> *Gesendet:* Freitag, 03. Januar 2020 um 17:59 Uhr
> *Von:* "x nor" <x37v.alex at gmail.com>
> *An:* pd-dev <pd-dev at lists.iem.at>
> *Betreff:* [PD-dev] capabilities of data structures with externals
> This past week I've finally learned a bit more about data structures in PD
> and I've successfully created my own data structures that model data from
> ATS files (sines + noise analysis models).
> The re-synthesis ended up being a bit heavy because I didn't see a way to
> use tabread~/tabread4~ directly with arrays of complex data, so I patched
> some helpers that iterate the data structures and create float arrays from
> the fields as needed.
>
> I'm wondering if I can replace this with an external that deals with these
> details internally so I have a few questions before I go down that road:
>
> 1) I see that I can register "pointer" methods for externals.. my
> structure has a field that stores an array that stores arrays of structs,
> can I expect to be able to get to that data in an external? Any examples?
> 2) If I am able to get to the data, can I mark it as 'used for dsp'
> somehow like i see you can do for garrays, and then use it within a dsp
> callback 'safely' or do i need to copy the data into separate float arrays
> to do that?.. maybe i should reorganize the data so that I don't have to do
> the copy, but if I end up creating a bunch of float arrays to model the
> data inside my data structure, can I then somehow treat it as a "garray"
> and mark it used in dsp and use it in my dsp method?
>
> Thanks,
> Alex
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