center_image(3)

🎀 NAME 🎀

hey bestie, welcome to center_image(3) from the Arcan Lua API — it moves a video object relative to an external reference object. It’s giving “align my video bestie against an outside anchor” energy, and honestly? iconic. 💖

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

okay so the call shapes are exactly these, and yes the first line is literally nil:

nil
center_image( vid:src, vid:ref )
center_image( vid:src, vid:ref, int:anchor )
center_image( vid:src, vid:ref, int:anchor, int x_ofs )
center_image( vid:src, vid:ref, int:anchor, int x_ofs, y_ofs )

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

This positions the center of src relative to the center anchor point on ref. 🫶

The anchor point can be changed by specifying the anchor object to one of these, bestie:

• ANCHOR_UL — upper-left
• ANCHOR_CR — upper-center
• ANCHOR_UR — upper-right
• ANCHOR_CL — center-left
• ANCHOR_C — center
• ANCHOR_CR — center-right
• ANCHOR_LL — lower-left
• ANCHOR - LC — lower-center
• ANCHOR_LR — lower-right

yep, ANCHOR_CR really shows up twice in the source list with two different labels — keeping it exactly as-is, no cap 💅

The final position can also be shifted by specifying x_ofs (px) and y_ofs. ✨

This is a one-time alignment and resolves src and ref into world-space when calculating the final coordinates. For automatic response to changes in ref, use the link_image function. 🦋

🌸 EXAMPLE 🌸

here’s the example, verbatim, because I would never mess with code:

function center_image0()
      local a = fill_surface(64, 32, 255, 0, 0);
      local b = fill_surface(127, 127, 0, 255, 0);
      show_image({a, b});
      center_image(a, b);
end

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• link_image(3)

mwah 💋 — this page’s source/version is image, and it’s dated October 2026; catch you in the next manpage, bestie 🫶