newArrayImage

[Ref]

Just curious!
What's the big deal?

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sprites = { "sprite1.png",  "sprite2.png" }
image = love.graphics.newArrayImage( sprites )
batch = love.graphics.newSpriteBatch( image )
batch:addLayer( #, x, y  )

Isn't a batch just a limited canvas - the limitation is that all the sprites have to be the same size?
To make any change to the batch, you have to recreate it - just like drawing everything again to a canvas.
With a canvas, the sprites can be any size.
Any speed advantage? Don't think so.
What am I missing?

[zorg]

love.graphics.newArrayImage
or if you want to look into it more in-depth
Basically, it apparently gives solutions to texture bleeding that regular atlases have if you don't pad the image or something like that.

[pgimeno]

Isn't a batch just a limited canvas - the limitation is that all the sprites have to be the same size?
To make any change to the batch, you have to recreate it - just like drawing everything again to a canvas.
With a canvas, the sprites can be any size.
Any speed advantage? Don't think so.
What am I missing?

No, a batch and a canvas are very different things.

A canvas can be seen as a special kind of texture that you can draw to. A batch, however, is a collection of quads of an image. It's more similar to a mesh; the main difference is that in a mesh, you have full control over the triangles, but in a batch, you are limited to adding pairs of triangles that form rectangles.

You can actually update a batch, that's what SpriteBatch:set is for, but it's often simpler to just recreate it.

[Ref]

Interesting INFO!
(It seems from the WIKI that you can use batches in a variety of different ways - using individual images or quads and a spritesheet. )
I have found (using WIKI example) that:

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sprites = { "sprite1.png",  "sprite2.png" }
image = love.graphics.newArrayImage( sprites )
batch = love.graphics.newSpriteBatch( image )
id[i] = batch:addLayer( i, pos[i][1], pos[i][2] )

doesn't get reset properly using:

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batch:set(id[2],pos[2][1],pos[2][2])

Gets the correct new image position but wrong image (sprite[1] and not sprite[2]).
More head scratching needed.
Edit: Head scratching worked - use the following:

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batch:setLayer( 2, id[2],  pos[2][1],  pos[2][2]  )

where '2' is the layer and id[#] is image.