Dynamic Images on MVP-8400

mush

G'day,

I am trying to animate a weather radar image on an MVP-8400.
The image is at http://data.theweather.com.au/access/imageserver.jsp?image=radar/web_rad_15lev_003_zoom.latest.jpg
The image changes every ten minutes or so.
I have a six state button that has a reference to six different dynamic images which all point to the above URL.
All six images are set to update only at panel start up with a 0 refresh rate.
When I first load the page with the button on it the first image in state 1 updates but none of the others do.
If I send a refresh image command "^RFR-<resource name>'" for the first image it updates, if I send the same command for the other buttons they do not update.
If I send the "^ANI" command to animate the button and leave each state visible for more than a few seconds it updates.
Also if I send the image update command whilst the panel is asleep or on another page button one does not update either.
Am I doing something wrong or is this the way it is meant to be?

Any help, tips or ideas are much appreciated.

Cheers

vining

Do a forum search on this subject and you should find quite a lot of info. This had been discussed at length about six++ months ago.

http://amxforums.com/showthread.php?t=1003&highlight=animating+dynamic+images
(there may be other threads)

If this is an older MVP (not the new i series) it can't be done because of insufficient RAM space (64MB). The RAM is not upgradeable but the new i series ship with 128MB which in theory should be adequate. Again read the previous post cuz I'm not sure about the particulars.

I don't know if any one has yet to try this with the new i series so it still may not work. I should be getting one shortly and if time permits I'll re-visit this idea and give it another go and see what happens. I did try everything possible back then with the older MVPs as did others and got no where.

ericmedley

Not sure why your solution wouldn't work. strange.

Perhaps you could try a more 'old skool' aproach. Instead of a multi state level button, try to stack several two-state buttons on top of each other and number them sucessively.

Say.. buttons 1-7.

the off states would be clear buttons. The on states would be the desired frame of the graphic.

then you just create a little routine to run the on states of the several buttons in succession.

Just a thought...

mush

vining wrote:

Do a forum search on this subject and you should find quite a lot of info. This had been discussed at length about six++ months ago.

http://amxforums.com/showthread.php?t=1003&highlight=animating+dynamic+images
(there may be other threads)

If this is an older MVP (not the new i series) it can't be done because of insufficient RAM space (64MB). The RAM is not upgradeable but the new i series ship with 128MB which in theory should be adequate. Again read the previous post cuz I'm not sure about the particulars.

I don't know if any one has yet to try this with the new i series so it still may not work. I should be getting one shortly and if time permits I'll re-visit this idea and give it another go and see what happens. I did try everything possible back then with the older MVPs as did others and got no where.

G'day Vining,

Thanks for your response. I had already searched and spent a few hours reading any threads
relating to my problem but none of them are the same as mine, at least none that I could find.
I'm not sure we are on the same page with my problem. Mine is a refresh not an animation problem.
I can animate the images required with no problems at all. They are quite small and the
animation is very smooth. What I can't do is get the touch panel to update an image.
If I send the refresh command to the state that is visible on the button it will refresh but
if the state is not the visible state and I send a refresh, nothing happens.

Cheers

Matt

mush

ericmedley wrote:

Not sure why your solution wouldn't work. strange.

Perhaps you could try a more 'old skool' aproach. Instead of a multi state level button, try to stack several two-state buttons on top of each other and number them sucessively.

Say.. buttons 1-7.

the off states would be clear buttons. The on states would be the desired frame of the graphic.

then you just create a little routine to run the on states of the several buttons in succession.

Just a thought...

G'day Eric,

Thanks for your idea. I will try it and let you know how I go.

Cheers

Matt

mush

ericmedley wrote:

Not sure why your solution wouldn't work. strange.

Perhaps you could try a more 'old skool' aproach. Instead of a multi state level button, try to stack several two-state buttons on top of each other and number them sucessively.

Say.. buttons 1-7.

the off states would be clear buttons. The on states would be the desired frame of the graphic.

then you just create a little routine to run the on states of the several buttons in succession.

Just a thought...

G'day Eric,

I tried your idea but ended up with the same problem.
I have to make each button visible first for a few seconds, refresh the image and then
animate. Which is completely unworkable.

Thanks anyway.

Cheers

Matt

ericmedley

mush wrote:

G'day Eric,

I tried your idea but ended up with the same problem.
I have to make each button visible first for a few seconds, refresh the image and then
animate. Which is completely unworkable.

Thanks anyway.

Cheers

Matt

Alas and anon... Like most of my good ideas, they don't work...
;~)

justnoah

Map in motion from weather.com

Within the panel file, create 5 dynamic image files.

Edit the first one like this:

Name: weather loop image-1
Protocol: HTTP
Host: image.weather.com
Path: looper/archive/us_tlh_closeradar_plus_usen
File: 1L.jpg?1162928298915
Refresh Rate: 1

The rest have the same information with the following Files:

DI2: 2L.jpg?1162928298915
DI3: 3L.jpg?1162928298915
DI4: 4L.jpg?1162928298915
DI5: 5L.jpg?1162928298915

On the main weather page just show the last dynamic image, but have a push do a page change to view a full sized set up with the following:

GENERAL

---

Multi-State General Button
State Count = 5
Animate Time Up = 20
Animate Time Down = 0
Auto-Repeat = Yes

PROGRAMMING

---

Feedback = Always On

STATES

---

State 1:Bitmap = Dynamic image 1
State 2:Bitmap = Dynamic image 2
State 3:Bitmap = Dynamic image 3
State 4:Bitmap = Dynamic image 4
State 5:Bitmap = Dynamic image 5

No programming needed. The panel handles it all.

-Noah

jjames

I was just running into the problem today, but not for weather images. Anyway, wouldn't refreshing every second be a bit excessive for something updates every 10 minutes? Perhaps some code is needed, such as after going to that page, after 30 seconds or so - it changes the resource's refresh time to 0?

Just an idea.

EDIT: Nevermind, didn't work for me - I'll tell ya, these "dynamic images" are a pain in the butt! There needs to be a way to load images BEFORE they're needed, and keep them in the cache. Feature requests - here I come!

vining

Have you tried the ^RFRP command? You could also keep 5 x 5 pixel image button for each dynamic image that are almost transparent on your main page so they refresh according the the refresh rate set in resources. The images will be in focus and refresh regularly when on the main page or weather page but they small and almost invisable so no one knows they are there. The ^RFRP command should allow you to refresh via code with out the image being displayed or in focus.

justnoah

Oops.

You are absolutely right. The refresh rate should be much higher.

jjames

vining wrote:

Have you tried the ^RFRP command? You could also keep 5 x 5 pixel image button for each dynamic image that are almost transparent on your main page so they refresh according the the refresh rate set in resources. The images will be in focus and refresh regularly when on the main page or weather page but they small and almost invisable so no one knows they are there. The ^RFRP command should allow you to refresh via code with out the image being displayed or in focus.

The ^RFR command does not work in my instance. The button images are from a server, and the "ON" state doesn't show up unless you hold the button for several seconds (momentary feedback.) So what I did was made duplicates of the buttons (since the buttons change according to code, and there's a lot of images to choose from) and hid them with the ALWAYS ON status. It works now . . . but seriously - should I have to do that?!?

And you did mean ^RFR right? Not RFRP? There's no documentation for RFRP that I can find - though admittedly I've only look in AMX-PI

vining

jjames wrote;

And you did mean ^RFR right? Not RFRP?

Yep ^RFRP! It's a new command that is supposed to allow you to refresh an image not in scope (currently displayed). Keep looking, its got to be there some where.