Sending 1D depthbuffer to a shader

[ogge]

Hello, is there a way for me to send a 1D depth-buffer to a shader.

I'm trying to store a value(distance) for every x-coordinate on the screen. And I would like to send it to my shader.
I've tried to send an array to the shader, but that won't let me send over 1019 values to a shader. Plus I heard that It was very slow.

So how can I do this?

[Nelvin]

You could use a texture, store your distances in it's pixels and then sample the value using your x-coordinate in your shader.

[ogge]

You could use a texture, store your distances in it's pixels and then sample the value using your x-coordinate in your shader.

but won't that limit me to store a maximum of 255*4 different values per pixel?

[grump]

Make an ImageData of format r32f (or whatever fits best) with the approriate width and a height of 1 pixel. Make an Image from the ImageData, that's your texture, and send it to the shader. Use Image:replacePixels to update the texture. Use ImageData:mapPixel to update the pixels, avoid ImageData:setPixel.

https://love2d.org/wiki/PixelFormat
https://love2d.org/wiki/ImageData:mapPixel
https://love2d.org/wiki/(Image):replacePixels

[ogge]

Make an ImageData of format r32f (or whatever fits best) with the approriate width and a height of 1 pixel. Make an Image from the ImageData, that's your texture, and send it to the shader. Use Image:replacePixels to update the texture. Use ImageData:mapPixel to update the pixels, avoid ImageData:setPixel.

https://love2d.org/wiki/PixelFormat
https://love2d.org/wiki/ImageData:mapPixel
https://love2d.org/wiki/(Image):replacePixels

thank you!