cdgraphics

A CD Graphics (CD+G) implementation in JavaScript that draws to an HTML5 canvas. It's based on the player by Luke Tucker with rendering improvements from Keith McKnight's fork.

• Uses requestAnimationFrame and offscreen canvas rendering for 60fps playback
• Supports audio synchronization
• Supports a callback for canvas background color changes
• Option to force background transparency (experimental)
• ES2015 compatible
• Not designed for server-side rendering

Installation

$ npm i cdgraphics

Usage

new CDGPlayer(canvas, [options])

• canvas: Your canvas element. Required.
• options: Optional object with one or more of the following properties:

Option	Type	Description	Default
forceTransparent	boolean	Attempts to force backgrounds to be transparent, even if the CD+G title did not explicitly specify it. Experimental.	false
onBackgroundChange	function	Callback that will be invoked when the canvas background color changes. The RGBA color is passed as an array like [r, g, b, a] with alpha being 0 or 1. The reported alpha includes the effect of the forceTransparent option, if enabled.	undefined

Basic example:

const CDGPlayer = require('cdgraphics')

// or your existing <canvas> element
const canvas = document.createElement('canvas')
document.body.appendChild(canvas)
canvas.width = 600
canvas.height = 432

const cdg = new CDGPlayer(canvas)

// download, parse and play
fetch('your_file.cdg')
  .then(response => response.arrayBuffer())
  .then(buffer => {
    cdg.load(new Uint8Array(buffer))
    cdg.play()
  })

Methods

forceTransparent(boolean)

Enables or disables the forceTransparent option (see Usage above) while playing or paused.

load(array)

Takes an array of bytes and parses the CD+G instructions synchronously. This must be done before calling play. Here's an example using fetch:

fetch(cdgFileUrl)
  .then(response => response.arrayBuffer())
  .then(buffer => {
    cdg.load(new Uint8Array(buffer))
  })

play()

Starts or continues playback. Has no effect if already playing.

stop()

Stops (pauses) playback. Has no effect if already stopped.

sync(number)

Sets the last known position of the audio source in milliseconds (ms). This can be used with the timeupdate event of an audio element to keep the graphics in sync:

// your <audio> element
audio.addEventListener('timeupdate', function () {
  cdg.sync(audio.currentTime * 1000) // convert to ms
})

Running the Demo

To see how it all comes together:

1. Clone the repo
2. Place your audio and .cdg file in the demo folder
3. Update lines 1 and 2 of demo/demo.js with those filenames
4. npm i
5. npm run demo
6. Point your browser to http://localhost:8080 (the demo is served by webpack-dev-server)

Resources

• Jim Bumgardner's CD+G Revealed document/specification

License

ISC