Export images as binary file instead of .c source files in Gui Guider

[filo96]

Hello,

We are developing a Gui Guider project that involves a MIMXRT1062CVL5B microcontroller with an external flash memory.

We have a huge amount of images, this requires a large amount of time to compile and flash the code into the microcontroller (5 minutes or so).

Gui Guider creates by default a series of .c source files which contain a vector representing the image. We have 300+ files like this.

We want to move the images in a .bin binary file and insert them in the external flash, avoiding a complete programming of code + images every time we make a change. By this way we could use pointers to memory instead of variables to use the images.

Is it possible to manage binary files for images in Gui Guider? If yes, is there a procedure we can follow in order to reach this scope (possibly using Gui Guider)?

> Information about the system <

• Version GUI GUIDER 1.5.1-GA
• MCUXpresso IDE v11.7.0 [Build 9198] [2023-01-17]
• OS: Windows 11, x64
• Java vendor: Eclipse Adoptium
• Java runtime version: 11.0.17+8
• Java version: 11.0.17

Thank you,

Filippo

[filo96]

Thank you @LiubinGong, I've been able to create a bin file with the 2nd method you mentioned.

But I encountered a problem of binary file size: I obtain a 20MB binary file size after selecting twenty images.

Following this method we are not able to proceed with the flash upload of the images because with around 400 images we will obtain something like a 400MB binary file!

This is the configuration we used:

However the 20 images inside explorer seem to occopy around 558KB! All the files have a 24 bit depth and are .jpg.

For example, if we convert only the first pic (15.8KB) to binary, we get a 80KB binary file.

This picture is 193x212 pixel and 24 bit resolution.

Could you explain me why we have this issue? Using .c source files instead of .bin didn't raise this issue.

[LiubinGong · Accepted solution]

Hi @filo96 

   According to your description, I suggest you take a look at document <12 external image in QSPI Flash>

1. How to get the local document. 

   Help->User Guider-> 12. external image in QSPI flash

2. How to Convert image to .bin file by image tools.

Best regards 

Liubin

[LiubinGong]

Hi @filo96 

      Please check every bin file size from mergeBinfile.c, I think the bin file size is related to the image size(width*height and file size). After my verification,  I found that the sum of each bin size is equal to the merged bin file size.

By the way, method 1 uses the widget size to convert the bin file, and method 2 uses the original image size.

    Are all your images the same size?  Is there an image with a larger size? 

Best Regards

Liubin

[filo96]

Thank you @LiubinGong.

You're right, now it's clear the difference between the two methods.

Unfortunately the images in our project have different sizes, so we cannot try a resize of all of them before generating the binary file.

We are now working to implement method 1. If you have any kind of suggestion we'll be happy to read.