Re: Representing image data

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Gautier" <gautier@fakeaddress.nil> wrote in message 
news:49b71100$1_6@news.bluewin.ch...
> Kenneth Almquist wrote:
>> I've been working on the design of an image decoding library.  The
>> basic idea is that the library will examine the first few bytes of
>> an image, determine the format, and call the appropriate decoder,
>> so that an application using the library can read images without
>> writing code for each image format it wants to handle.
>
> How common are the formats' encodings ? JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF, TGA, PPM... ?
> Compressed ? With/without loss ? Not compressed ?
> There are various libraries, full Ada (at least for BMP, GIF, TGA & PPM) 
> or bindings, which support these usual formats. Could be a good starting 
> point, and you also could use them for the "back-end" jobs.

I agree. Claw has a package ("Claw.Bitmaps") for handling Windows bitmaps, 
which seem to cover roughly the same ground as the OP said. I'm not sure 
off-hand which half of Claw that is in; it might only be in the commercial 
version. My recollection was that it was rugged job, but that mainly 
happened because we wanted it to be a set of type extensions (one for each 
major format), and mapping that to an existing format *and* remaining 
portable to many different Ada compilers was a lot of fun. (I think we 
pulled it off, though.)

                                 Randy.