Multi-band buffers

While 1-band image buffers store a single value for each pixel in an image, multi-band image buffers store multiple values per pixel. Each band in a multi-band buffer represents different information. For example, RGB image buffers contain 3 bands to represent the red, green, and blue values of an image, which produce a full-color image when combined. In Aurora Imaging Library, image buffers can contain up to 1024 bands.

Note that 3-band image buffers are used to store color data. All other multi-band buffers are used for non-color data.

Note that only the Buffer, Graphics, Data Generation, and Image Processing modules support the full range of multi-band buffers. Other modules support only 1-band and 3-band image buffers. Note that support also varies within each module; see specific functions for details on the number of bands supported.

Non-color buffers

3-band image buffers always have a color space and are sometimes referred to as color buffers. For more information about color spaces, see Color spaces and converting between them. All other multi-band buffers (those with 2 bands or more than 3 bands) are non-color buffers. Note that 1-band image buffers are monochrome buffers since they only have a single band.

Since multi-band buffers store data using multiple bands, they can represent a wide range of information, not limited to color data. This allows for comprehensive analysis of various aspects of a scene, such as texture or changes over time. Non-color buffers are typically used to represent data across a range of wavelengths outside of the visible light spectrum, such as infrared or ultraviolet light.

Note that all non-color buffers are always stored in planar format.

Loading data into a non-color multi-band buffer

Non-color multi-band buffers are typically initialized by loading data stored on disk. If your acquisition device saves one image per band, you can load the bands one at a time. For each band, use MbufChildColor to allocate a child buffer within the multi-band parent buffer (previously allocated using MbufAllocColor), and load the band's corresponding image, using MbufImport with M_LOAD, or using MbufLoad. If your acquisition device saves all the bands in a single file, you cannot use MbufImport or MbufLoad. In this case, consult the technical specifications provided by your device manufacturer to determine how to load the data, and use MbufPutColor to populate the bands of your multi-band buffer.

Multiple multi-band buffers

When two or more multi-band buffers are used in a function, they must all have the same number of bands; otherwise, an error will occur. For example, if your source image buffer has 4 bands, all other source and destination image buffers must have either 4 bands or 1 band. You can't, for example, pass a 4-band image buffer and a 5-band image buffer to a function. This applies to any function that supports multi-band buffers, with the exception of MbufCopyColor, MbufCopyColor2d, and MbufTransfer. For MbufCopyColor, this rule only applies if the Band parameter is set to M_ALL_BANDS. For MbufCopyColor2d, this rule only applies if the SrcBand and DstBand parameters are set to M_ALL_BANDS. For MbufTransfer, this rule only applies if the TransferFunction parameter is set to M_COPY and the SrcBand and DestBand parameters are set to M_ALL_BANDS.