[Plugin: NextGEN Gallery] advanced function calls for [singlepic]

Hey alex, next gen is awsome. now thats done, my question.

I am trying to automatically fetch an image presented as a [singlepic] from a page, and use that elsewhere. im sure i have to use
pregmatch('\[[^singlepic\]]*\]','',$temp_content) or something similar, but im not sure how to get the first number, then use $image = nggdb::find_image( $image );.

basically im a little lost, i was wondering if you might give me a little help, as using more advanced functionality wtihin templates isnt so well documented around the net.

thanks bro.
paul.