Work with multi-diminutional array dynamically as UIImage array - ios

Question

I'm working on app to do paged photos inside scrollViews like in the photos app to swipe right to get the old photos and swipe left to get the new photos until the end of photos.
Alright,so i am getting the photos as a multi-diminutional from the web :
imageArray[indexPath.row][0] as? String
Thats in the ViewController1 to show all the images in CollectionView .
When the user press on a photo i do segue and show the image larger in ViewController2 so if swipe left it show the new photos and right to show the old photos which is stored in the array.
but i need to covert my two-dimensional array to one and use it dynamically to be something like this :
pageImages = [UIImage(named:"photo1.png")!,
UIImage(named:"photo2.png")!,
UIImage(named:"photo3.png")!,
UIImage(named:"photo4.png")!,
UIImage(named:"photo5.png")!]
how is it possible to do ?
i could say like :
pageImages = [UIimage(named:thewholearray)] ?
i tried first to convert to one-diminutional array but i failed :
var imageArray : NSArray = []
var mybigarray : NSArray = []
for (var i=0; i<=self.imageArray.count; i++) {
self.mybigarray = self.imageArray[i][0] as! NSArray
}
which generate this casting error :
Could not cast value of type '__NSCFString' (0x196806958) to 'NSArray' (0x196807308).

Answer 1

You can use the map-function to extract the image names from your multi-dimensional array.
var imageNames:[String] = imageArray.map({
$0[0] as! String
})
The map function iterates through all array entries like a for-in-loop.
The statement in the closure determines the new entry of your imageNames array.
EDIT:
If you don't use Swift-Arrays:
var imageNames:NSMutableArray = []
for image in imageArray{
imageNames.addObject(image[0] as! String)
}

Answer 2

I looked at the tutorial and I think this will help with the answer from Daniel. Keep Daniel's Answer and use the URLs from the array with the extension.
Add this to create you images from a URL
extension UIImageView {
public func imageFromUrl(urlString: String) {
if let url = NSURL(string: urlString) {
let request = NSURLRequest(URL: url)
NSURLConnection.sendAsynchronousRequest(request, queue: NSOperationQueue.mainQueue()) {
(response: NSURLResponse!, data: NSData!, error: NSError!) -> Void in
if data != nil {
self.image = UIImage(data: data)
}
else {
self.image = UIImage()
}
}
}
}
}
Use this in the PagedImageScrollViewController:
newPageView.imageFromUrl(pageImages[page])
pageImages is your array of Strings.