As I mentioned in the previous two posts, the execution process of GPUImage is like a chain or line in series, which is called Pipeline officially. It is no doubt that there must be an origin for a pipeline. Therefore the first thing have to do if you wanna use GPUImage is preparing the origin, as well as the input. Then, a series of defined filter nodes would receive and calculate data from input and finally the processed result could be export from the pipeline. So it’s critical to understand how GPUImage deals with input. This post introduces the explicit procedure of using static images as input of GPUImage since most time I used to use GPUImage to process static images. And maybe someday I will update the process of using videos as input, hopefully.

You can see from the wiki that GPUImage provides four classes with different source types which could be used as input, and I add another one additionally. Two of them, which are GPUImagePicture and GPUImageRawDataInput are the classes using static image sources to initialising input. Before explaining these two classes, I would like to say something about GPUImageOutput, which are the father-class of all the classes used as input in GPUImage.

GPUImageOutput

The content of comments in the head file of GPUImageOutput is:      

/** GPUImage's base source object
 
 Images or frames of video are uploaded from source objects, which are subclasses of GPUImageOutput. These include:
 
 - GPUImageVideoCamera (for live video from an iOS camera) 
 - GPUImageStillCamera (for taking photos with the camera)
 - GPUImagePicture (for still images)
 - GPUImageMovie (for movies)
 
 Source objects upload still image frames to OpenGL ES as textures, then hand those textures off to the next objects in the processing chain.
 */

In Chinese: 图片或者视频帧可通过继承了GPUImageOutput的资源对象进行加载，资源对象把图片或者视频帧加载到OpenGL ES的纹理中，处理完成后再把这些纹理传递处理管道中的下一个对象。

In other words, the features of all sub-classes of GPUImageOuput are:

• transmit textures to the next objects/nodes (there can be more than one objects/nodes as the next).
• an image can be generated from textures.

Hence, there are three parts of implementation of this class as follows:

• self data management
• data transmitting management
• export image

Next, some properties and functions are introduced from these three aspects in English and Chinese respectively.

1.Data Management

//This variable is the content in each object. During the execution of image processing by GPUImage or OpenGL ES, the image content would be put into Buffer firstly. Framebuffer means the object which is used to render a single image or frame, and it's corresponding to the FBO in GPUImage. It can be noticed that OOP is used in OpenGL ES as well. While there are some limitations becasue it's based on C, some advantages of OOP could not be revealed well when using OpenGL ES. So Framebuffer is became as a real class in GPUImage. In my opinion, FrameBuffer = textures + parameters. 
//这个就是所有管道中每个节点传递的内容。GPUImage或者说OpenGL ES处理图片或者视频过程中，会将需要处理的图像内容放置到Buffer中处理。Framebuffer顾名思义，就是用来渲染单张图片或者一帧图像内容的对象，也就是传说中的FBO在GPUImage中的对应。可以看出，在OpenGL ES中也把其对象化，但本身基于C的api限制，在使用的时候并不能体现面向对象的特征，因此GPUImage把它严格意义上的变成了一个对象类型。我对FrameBuffer的理解是一个带有图片原始内容（texture）+各种纹理参数的类。

GPUImageFramebuffer *outputFramebuffer;

An unique management method of GPUImage to manage the objects of FrameBuffer should be spent another single post to illustrate. And for now, it could be thought as an object of GPUImageOutput temporarily. THis object must have a variable called ‘outputFramebuffer’, which is to save the processed data and hand it off to the next objects.        

I did not find the initialisation code of ‘outputFramebuffer’ in GPUImageOutput, since different types of data and the unique management method mentioned above. So the initialisation code of ‘outputFramebuffer’ is placed in each sub-class of GPUImageOutput.

//This function is used to hand self outputFramebuffer off to the next objects, as well as one of the input parameters 'target'. For the second parameter 'inputTextureIndex', basically means each object can have more than one input.
//这个方法就是用来把自身的outputFramebuffer传递给下一个目标节点，也就是方法中的target。另外可以注意到方法还有第二个参数inputTextureIndex，简单理解就是，每个节点的输入源不一定只有一个。简单的处理流程一般都为一张图片加一个滤镜输出，但要实现对于把两张或者多张图片进行合并后输出这种需要两个以上输入源的需求时就需要增加这个参数来。

- (void)setInputFramebufferForTarget:(id)target atIndex:(NSInteger)inputTextureIndex;
{
 [target setInputFramebuffer:[self framebufferForOutput]       atIndex:inputTextureIndex];
}

2.Data Transmitting Management

//The variable 'targets' is used to record the next added objects. So for each object/node, there is not only one direct way, since each object can have more branches. For instance, a specific image is set as input, then this image could be mosaic and sharpen respectively and two processed image could be exported. 
//targets用于记录自身对象添加过的目标节点，所以对于一个管道来说，并不是只有一条路，每个节点都可以产生多个分支。例如，一张图片作为输入源，可以分别进行加马赛克和图片锐化操作，最终导出两张图片。

//The variable 'targetTextureIndices' records the input sequences of a object/node saved in array 'targets'. This sequences is essential for the next object if this object has several input, since it directly influences self frameBuffer and the result effects.
//targetTextureIndices 用于记录targets数组中对应下标的某个目标节点的输入顺序。这个顺序对于需要多个输入源的目标节点非常重要，决定了这个目标节点自己的frameBuffer的各种样式还有处理后的效果。值的范围在对应目标节点需要的输入源个数内，例如target0对象需要2个输入源，那targetTextureIndices中对应下标的元素值为0或者1。

NSMutableArray *targets, *targetTextureIndices;

//Obvious meaning.
//字面意思：当前目标对象是否要忽略。忽略的意思就是在处理管道中要不要选择不做这个目标对象的处理。

@property(readwrite, nonatomic) BOOL shouldIgnoreUpdatesToThisTarget;

//The two functions below are used to point out the next objects/nodes. If the number of input of the next target is two, then these two inputs should call function 'addTarget' following the sequence. The parameter 'textureLocation' of the first added object equals to 0, the other one is 1.
//以下两个方法就是用来设置下一个目标节点的方法。如果下个target需要两个输入源，那么这两个输入源需按顺序调用addTarget，先add的对象的textureLocation为0，另一个则为1。方法中有两个操作比较重要：1.调用- (void)setInputFramebufferForTarget:(id)target atIndex:(NSInteger)inputTextureIndex;方法，在添加时就把自己所属的frameBuffer传递给了刚添加好的target。2.把添加的target以及自己在这个target中所占的下标保存管理。再会发现，这些操作都在一个定义好的队列中实现，如下下：

- (void)addTarget:(id)newTarget;

- (void)addTarget:(id)newTarget atTextureLocation:(NSInteger)textureLocation;

The implementation of initialisation of the self-defined queue is in the file ‘GPUImageContext’. It can be seen that the running hardware environment determines whether this queue is serial or concurrent. All tasks are added into the queue sychronously, in order to make sure that each step are executed in series through the entire pipeline. In this way, every target could be processed and every content of them are exist and correct.

_contextQueue = dispatch_queue_create("com.sunsetlakesoftware.GPUImage.openGLESContextQueue", GPUImageDefaultQueueAttribute());
dispatch_queue_attr_t GPUImageDefaultQueueAttribute(void)
{
#if TARGET_OS_IPHONE

if ([[[UIDevice currentDevice] systemVersion] compare:@"9.0" options:NSNumericSearch] != NSOrderedAscending)
{
return dispatch_queue_attr_make_with_qos_class(DISPATCH_QUEUE_SERIAL, QOS_CLASS_DEFAULT, 0);
}

#endif
return nil;
}

//You need to remove the targets which were added before. When there are some targets which are abundant or need to modify their effects, you should remove them from their previous objects. The below functions are used to do removing. If the target which should be removed is in the middle of the pipeline, additionally before removing it, the targets in it should be removed. It just likes a carriage of a train, it would be completely removed from the train only the previous and the next carriages of it removed. Of couse, for deallocation these removing operations are not necessary to execute in ARC.
//有添加就有移除，当当前管道中某些target的处理效果不需要或者需要更改的时候，你可以把这些节点从它的上一站移除，这个移除的操作就需要它的上一节点对象调用以下方法实现。如果作为中间节点，还需要把自己所添加的target移除。就像火车中的中间一截车厢，需要把自己与上一截和下一截的链接都去掉，才可以完全移除。当然在ARC下，全部销毁的时候不需要做这些移除工作。

- (void)removeTarget:(id)targetToRemove;

- (void)removeAllTargets;

3.Processed Image Exporting

One of the most convenient and useful features is the processed image could be exported from all objects which are GPUImageOutput. However, GPUImageOutput is just a base class. Since it does not provide the implementation code of the above two features and image exporting, the sub-classes should overwirte those functions.

- (void)useNextFrameForImageCapture;
{

}

- (CGImageRef)newCGImageFromCurrentlyProcessedOutput;
{
    return nil;
}

But you can find the detailed image exporting procedure in the function of – (CGImageRef)newCGImageByFilteringCGImage:(CGImageRef)imageToFilter.

1. As a source object, ‘stillImageSource’ should be added to the current target object.
2. Before calling the function ‘processImage’ of the target object, the function of ‘useNextFrameForImageCapture‘ should be called. Otherwise, crash!
3. Calling ‘processImage’.

[self useNextFrameForImageCapture];   

[stillImageSource addTarget:(id)self];

[stillImageSource processImage];

CGImageRef processedImage = [self newCGImageFromCurrentlyProcessedOutput];

This post introduces the three most important parts of GPUImageOutput, while some specific stuff like frameBuffer, processing queue and other properties and functions do not metioned detailly. This is because the design pattern of GPUImage is so elegant, the author encapsulated and prepared almost all points which related to detailed processing flow. I’ll explain them someday. And if there are some doubts or questions, don’t hesitate to discuss with me. Cheers:)