Advanced Pixel Search Library

[Alandor]

Glad to help. And actually I am the one who should give thanx to you as you are the one making the hard (and good) work here.

Greetings.

[John81]

Hello, how i can do translate this Pixelsearch to FastFind code ?

$return = PixelSearch ( 368 , 321 , 373 , 327 , 0x3D494D , 3, 1 ) 
If IsArray($return) = True Then 
; ... action

Edited July 27, 2011 by John81

[FastFrench]

Hi,

As FFNearestPixel do not support ShadeVariation, you have to use the more complete version : FFNearestSpot.

I think the following should do about the same :

$return = FFNearestSpot( 0, 1, 0, 0, 0x3D494D, 3, true, 368 , 321 , 373 , 327) 
If IsArray($return) = True Then 
; ... action

Now, it doesn't really make sense to use FastFind if PixelSearch do the trick. Except for performance reasons, if you need to do a lot of searches with same snapshot (then you should use "false" instead of "true" on 7th param).

Edited July 28, 2011 by FastFrench

[John81]

Thx FastFrench, i know how to use FF now

$FFLastSnap = DllCall($FFDllHandle, "int", "SnapShot", "int", 0, "int", 0, "int", 0, "int", 0, "int", 0)

While 1


    ;$Object1 = PixelSearch ( 392 , 282 , 402 , 291 , 0x687162 , 1 )
    ;$Object1  = FFNearestSpot(1, 1, 397, 287, 0x687162 , 1 ,false)
    $Object1  = DllCall($FFDllHandle, "int", "GenericColorSearch", "int", 5, "int*", 1, "int*", 397, "int*",287, "int", 0x687162, "int", 1, "int", 0)
    If IsArray($Object1 ) = True Then
        MsgBox(1,"Info", "Found Object1")
        ExitLoop
    EndIf
    
    
    ;$Object2  = PixelSearch ( 354 , 305 , 361 , 313 , 0x4E5E63 , 1 )
    ;$Object2  = FFNearestSpot(1, 1, 359, 309, 0x4E5E63 , 1 ,false)
    $Object2  = DllCall($FFDllHandle, "int", "GenericColorSearch", "int", 1, "int*", 1, "int*", 359, "int*",309, "int", 0x4E5E63, "int", 1, "int", 0)
    If IsArray($Object2) = True Then
        MsgBox(1,"Info", "Found Object2")
        ExitLoop
    EndIf


    ;$Object3 = PixelSearch ( 384 , 266 , 390 , 277 , 0x090C0B , 1 )
    ;$Object3 = FFNearestSpot(1, 1, 389, 263, 0x090C0B , 1 ,false)
    $Object3 = DllCall($FFDllHandle, "int", "GenericColorSearch", "int", 1, "int*", 1, "int*", 389, "int*",263, "int", 0x090C0B, "int", 1, "int", 0)
    If IsArray($Object3) = True Then
        MsgBox(1,"Info", "Found Object3")
        ExitLoop
    EndIf


WEnd

But if i want use the DLLCall version instead of FFNearestSpot to find Object3. It will find Object1 with DLLCaLL!

What i did wrong ?

Edited July 29, 2011 by John81

[FastFrench]

The AutoIt wrapper takes care of doing the SnapShot first (with SnapShotPreProcessor). If you uses direct DllCall instruction, then you need to do it explicitely as needed first.

Also, i've done a mistake in my previous answer : first parameter should be 1, not 0 (a single pixel is a 1 pixel x 1 pixel square, not a 0x0 one).

$return = FFNearestSpot( 1, 1, 0, 0, 0x3D494D, 3, true, 368 , 321 , 373 , 327) 
If IsArray($return) = True Then 
; ... action

Edited August 5, 2011 by FastFrench

[FastFrench]

Please don't edit your former post to ask a new question, it's a bit confusing

As your snapshot is done outside your loop, it won't reflect changes on the screen (so the loop is useless). You should put it inside the loop.

And the first part is not equivalent to the commented instructions.

;$Object1 = PixelSearch ( 392 , 282 , 402 , 291 , 0x687162 , 1 )
    ;$Object1  = FFNearestSpot(1, 1, 397, 287, 0x687162 , 1 ,false)
    $Object1  = DllCall($FFDllHandle, "int", "GenericColorSearch", "int", 5, "int*", 1, "int*", 397, "int*",287, "int", 0x687162, "int", 1, "int", 0)
    If IsArray($Object1 ) = True Then
        MsgBox(1,"Info", "Found Object1")
        ExitLoop
    EndIf

Here the first two params means that you're looking for a single pixel with the good color in a 5x5 area. So you surely have more chances to find it than in the next tries (looking for a pixel in a 1x1 area).

[Sven]

Is it possible to use this to search for a small picture like an icon somewhere on the screen, similar to what _imagesearch() does? I've been following this topic since its beginning, but chances are I might just have missed the clue.

[FastFrench]

Is it possible to use this to search for a small picture like an icon somewhere on the screen, similar to what _imagesearch() does? I've been following this topic since its beginning, but chances are I might just have missed the clue.

Nop. As you say, there is allready another dll with an Autoit wrapper that do the job. So it didn't sound very usefull for me to do it in FastFind.dll.

[Sven]

Nop. As you say, there is allready another dll with an Autoit wrapper that do the job. So it didn't sound very usefull for me to do it in FastFind.dll.

The problem with _imagesearch() is it takes a new screenshot for every single thing you want to look for. It would be much more efficient if we could look for different things in the same screenshot, perhaps run multiple searches on multiple CPU cores at the same time and on the same screenshot. Speeding up the process of looking for a single item in a screenshot could also be achieved. It would require tiling a screenshot using overlapping borders and let each core handle a tile. Edited August 7, 2011 by Sven

[Aktonius]

This is some really great stuff fastfrench but its kinda useless to me since i cant search my own bitmap handles that i extract on my own. Maybe it wouldnt be hard for you to add that feature like adding bitmap handle into snapshot?

FF cant take snapshots unless windows are active, this is why i need to handle this part on my own first.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Aktonius

[FastFrench]

I see.

Thank you for your valuable feedback, Sven and Aktonius.

Actualy both suggestions are feasable, I just wonder how many people would be interested in such improvments ?

@Sven : You're right, it makes sense to add image search in FastFind, for when you have many images to search in the same SnapShot. Now, is it a frequent need ?

And the multi-thread stuff could also be done, but usually searches are much faster than the SnapShot (which can't probably be multi-threaded, as I suspect it would take even more time than done on a single thread). And starting threads still take some time by itself. So it could only be usefull when you need to find many pictures in the same very large snapshots (full-screen or close). How many people need to do that ?

@Aktonius : it shouldn't be too hard to do that either. Are other people interested in such feature ?

Edited August 9, 2011 by FastFrench

[Aktonius]

FastFrench i think alot of people would be interested in that, i think someone else also mentioned this in this thread earlier. Also if you search google with keywords: autoit and something that describes this feature it shows some interest. But then up to you, i think its really good lib after all just to bad i am missing this part to use it on my own.

[Sven]

@Sven : You're right, it makes sense to add image search in FastFind, for when you have many images to search in the same SnapShot. Now, is it a frequent need ?

Thank you for being open for this matter. While I can't speak for others, I regularly bump into cases where it would be of quite some benefit to be able to run up to 5 or 6 searches on the same screen. Whether trying to control a web browser other than Internet Explorer or a GUI written in .NET, the less time it takes to read status information, the better.

Incidentally, Tic and Ax over at autohotkey.com just came up with pretty much exactly what I need. While compiling the .dll works like a charm for me, porting the AHK code over to AutoIt is beyond my current capabilities. I thought I got the functions figured out, yet they produce different results and I'm at a loss as to what's going wrong.

[John81]

@Fastfrench

I belief the function FFNearestSpot has a bug, because it does found my color sometimes out of area, so $SizeSearch does not realy work everytime.

[Steve0]

Marvelous script, love your work. Detection is so fast, its blinding.

I've been playing around with a modified version of the demo, searching for a "blue" square - have changed colour, size of the square and everything works perfectly, however when I try to add in an exclusion rectangle, it doesn't work. I've modified the function to take a snapshot at the start and set FFNearest to use the previous snapshot (this still works perfectly), however adding FFAddExcludedArea after FFSnapshot() comes back with "0" (error), but I can't work out why.

Is there any way to further debug the exclusion range? or add to the graphical debug a way to highlight what area is being scanned (perhaps a green square around the scanned area, blue squares around any exclusion rectangles).

Lastly, does anyone have any suggestions for returning the location to "click" on a detected area? I'm scanning a window rather than full-screen, object is detected at say 200,200, but this is not the co-ordinates to click. I've been adding to this using:

ObjDetect[0] + WinGetPos[0] + 29, ObjDetect[1] + WinGetPos[1] + 3

Where 29 and 3 are the values for the height of the title bar and border down the left-hand side in Windows XP. It works, it just doesn't look nice....

Thanks again!

[JohnOne]

MouseCoordMode option takes care of that.

EDIT:

Or maybe its PixelCoordMode

Its one of them

Edited August 26, 2011 by JohnOne

[Steve0]

MouseCoordMode option takes care of that.

EDIT:

Or maybe its PixelCoordMode

Its one of them

MouseCoordMode set to 2 works perfectly, many thanks!

... now just for some Exclusion testing... What I'm trying is:

#Include <FastFind.au3>
#Include <WinAPI.au3>
AutoItSetOption("MouseCoordMode", 2)
HotKeySet("{F1}", "_CheckExcluded")

FFSnapShot()
FFAddExcludedArea(1, 1, 100, 100) ; exclude 100x100 square in the top left corner

While 1
    Sleep(10)
Wend

Func _CheckExcluded()
    $hWnd = WinGetHandle("[ACTIVE]", "")
    $MousePosition = MouseGetPos()

    $IsExcluded = FFIsExcluded($MousePosition[0], $MousePosition[1], $hWnd)
    If IsArray($IsExcluded) Then
        $ExclResult = $IsExcluded[0] & "x" & $IsExcluded[1]
    Else
        $ExclResult = $IsExcluded
    EndIf

    TrayTip("Exclusion", "Pixel at: " & $MousePosition[0] & "x" & $MousePosition[1] & @LF & "Reports: " & $ExclResult, 2000)
EndFunc

Pressing F1 comes up with a tooltop showing mouse co-ordinates, and the result from FFIsExcluded.

Edited August 26, 2011 by Steve0

[PhilHibbs]

I'm also having trouble with excluded areas not working.

At one point in my script, I need to start clicking on yellow spots at the right hand side of the 800x600 program window.

FFSetWnd(WinGetHandle($WinTitle))
Opt("MouseCoordMode", 2)
Opt("PixelCoordMode", 2)

$Seen = TimerInit()
FFResetExcludedAreas()
FFAddExcludedArea( 0, 0, 599, 599 )
Do
  $spot = FFNearestSpot(8, 60, 799, 300, 0xFFFF00, 25, true)
  If Not @error Then
    $Seen = TimerInit()
    MouseClick( "left", $spot[0], $spot[1], 1, 1 )
    FileWriteLine($log, "Spot " & $spot[0] & "," & $spot[1] )
    Sleep( 100 )
  EndIf
Until @error And TimerDiff( $Seen ) > 100

I'm getting entries in my log file like this:

Spot 134,95

Why would the function ever return 134,95 when I have excluded from 0,0 to 599,599? Are the excluded area coordinates not the same as the window coordinates?

*Update* I tried Steve0's test script and I get the same result, never returns 1 from FFIsExcluded. Exclusion zones appear to be broken.

Edited August 27, 2011 by PhilHibbs

[FastFrench]

Thank you for reporting this problem.

It looks like there is a small bug in the AutoIt wrapper for FFAddExcludedArea : the name of the function in the dll is "AddExcludedArea" and not "FFAddExcludedArea".

So, the function in FastFind.au3 should look like this :

Func FFAddExcludedArea(const $x1, const $y1, const $x2, const $y2)
local $Res = DllCall($FFDllHandle, "int", "AddExcludedArea", "int", $x1, "int", $y1, "int", $x2, "int", $y2)
if IsArray($res) Then return $res[0]
return $res
EndFunc

instead of

Func FFAddExcludedArea(const $x1, const $y1, const $x2, const $y2)
local $Res = DllCall($FFDllHandle, "int", "FFAddExcludedArea", "int", $x1, "int", $y1, "int", $x2, "int", $y2)
if IsArray($res) Then return $res[0]
return $res
EndFunc

I hope it will do the trick, thank you to confirm.

Edited September 1, 2011 by FastFrench

[Steve0]

Update works perfectly, very much appreciated FastFrench!