Messages

1

Beyond MusicBee / Re: BinExtractor

« on: November 23, 2024, 05:28:15 PM »

Thank you very very much for your help. without your tool, we can not do anything with fb2k Vu Meter.
But your have just made it more fantastic, we can now extract the BIN file on-the-fly,  it works flawlessly.

I'm curious, what is your end-goal for using this BinExtractor tool?
foobar2000's VU meter plugins are (obviously) working fine using .bin VU meters.
So what is it that you do with the extracted images exactly?

hi @hiccup,
as we can not decode the bin file  (as it is beyond our ability  in terms of coding and bin format) although @oops and @BoringName are very kind to give all necessary information. we, then, found that this tool can extract all images of needle, LED and background of a bin.

out of 1024 needle/LED images, we select randomly 1/5 ~ 1024/5 = 205 images scattered  along the meter range. we then, by converting the RMS/Peak signal (signal can be extracted by FFmpeg) into an index value, then we can get the needle/LED image to paint.

why 205, as our observation, a FB2k VU Meter  is roughly around a  100 degree curve (and it is a curve if diameter length (pivot point x,y) is short enough ) = > 100/205 ~ we may have 2 images  per every 1 degree.
on a small screen, this movement id nice enough.

it is not efficient at all, but that is all we have until we may go further.
regards,
@ilovefb2k 

2

Beyond MusicBee / Re: BinExtractor

« on: November 22, 2024, 09:08:08 PM »

I didn't plan on doing anything with the extractor but now I've gone and updated it....
BinExtractor1.1.zip

BinExtractor will now take 2 command line arguments. The first is the path to the bin file and the second is a frame number.

eg)
BinExtractor.exe "C:\FoobarSkins\McIntosh.bin" 400

This will extract the background image, needle and LED frame for frame number 400 into the following folders
C:\FoobarSkins\McIntosh\left
C:\FoobarSkins\McIntosh\right

If there is no right meter the folder will be empty.
The frame number argument starts at zero so if a skin has 1024 frames and you want the last one you need to use 1023.

If the frame number argument is omitted it will extract all the frames. As previously mentioned this has the potential to create A LOT of files, over 4000.

If you specify a frame number argument that is larger than the number of frames in the specified bin file, it will extract all frames.

If you extract a bin file that only has LEDs and no Needles, it will still create a needle file for each frame, they will just be blank.

This is provided as is, use at your own risk. It doesn't really check for errors and if the arguments are wrong it will just exit without letting you know why. Make sure you enclose the bin path in quotes if it has any spaces in it.

hi @BoringName,
Thank you very very much for your help. without your tool, we can not do anything with fb2k Vu Meter.
But your have just made it more fantastic, we can now extract the BIN file on-the-fly,  it works flawlessly.
again, thank you a lot for your time.

wish your all the best and a very happy, enjoyable weekend.
regards
@ilovefb2k

3

Beyond MusicBee / Re: BinExtractor

« on: November 21, 2024, 05:54:51 AM »

can we share that tool with others at https://hydrogenaud.io and https://vnav.vn/ 4rums ?

No problems with you sharing it. Just make sure to warn people that extract all can create upwards of 4000 files.

I've just found the Jscript thread on Hydrogenaud.io so I'll have a read through and reply there if I think of anything that can help. There is probably a better option than extracting all those images from the BIN file.

hi @BoringName
wow, it is more than fantastic with your positive feedback.
thank you very much.
regards
@ilovefb2k

4

Beyond MusicBee / Re: BinExtractor

« on: November 21, 2024, 04:46:14 AM »

just a wishlist : could you please compile it as a command-line utility ?

I threw it together pretty quickly and I don't intend on doing anything else with it.

Sorry.

If you're trying to automate reverse engineering a bin file I don't think it's going to work as I've found a lot of the needle images do not extract the same as the original. VUEditor seems to do some kind of anti-aliasing when creating the bin file and the needle images tend to have an outline added to them that matches the background image at the position of the current frame.

hi @BoringName,
thank you very much for your very quick reply.
we have scoured the Internet and found your tool as the ultimate solution. as such, we surely will not take it seriously as just want to play around with beautiful fb2k Vu Meter skins.
we hope that you will give it a try later on. for now on, your BinExtractor.exe tool is still the best way to extract that skins.
can we share that tool with others at https://hydrogenaud.io and https://vnav.vn/ 4rums ?
wish you all the best
@ilovefb2k

5

Beyond MusicBee / Re: BinExtractor

« on: November 21, 2024, 04:03:55 AM »

BinExtractor.zip

This is a small utility to extract images from a foobar bin file. I threw it together pretty quickly and I don't intend on doing anything else with it.

The open file button will open to the folder the EXE is placed in so probably best to place it in the same folder with the bin files you want to extract.

There are toggle buttons for Show Background, Show LED, Show Needle, Show left and Show right. These determine what will be displayed on the screen and what will be extracted. You can change the current frame with the mouse wheel or by using the slider at the bottom.

Export frame will extract the current frame. Depending on which toggles are enabled it will extract Needle<Frame No.>.png, LED<Frame No>.png and background.png to a "Frames" subfolder. If this folder doesn't exist it will be created in the same directory the EXE is in. Files for the right meter will have an "R" appended to the start of the filename.

Export All will export all frames based on the toggle buttons except it will ignore the Show Left and Show Right toggles. It will export both left and right frames.

Warning: This can result in a lot of files being created, over 4000 in some cases. Number of frames x 4. Left needle, left LED, right needle, right LED. There are no confirmations,  warnings or cancel buttons so be careful what you click on.

If you have a skin with LED and no needles make sure you untoggle the Show needle button before clicking export all.

You may find some needle images have part of the background image around them, that's just how they are stored in the bin file, it's not an error with the program.

hi @BoringName,
thank you for creating BinExtractor utility, that enables us to have a look inside fb2k's VU Meter BIN.
just a wishlist : could you please compile it as a command-line utility ?
in detail, example: c:\BinExtractor.exe  c:\fb2k VU Meter\fb2k1000.bin
=> all frames , including background, needles and LEDS (if any) will be extracted into c:\fb2k VU Meter\fb2k1000\left and c:\fb2k VU Meter\fb2k1000\right
reason:  we are developing a script to play around with VU meter, but get stuck with fb2k Vu meter BIN.

regards
@ilovefb2k