pod::Prima::Image(3)

NAME
Prima::Image - Bitmap routines

DESCRIPTION
Prima::Image, Prima::Icon and Prima::DeviceBitmap are classes for bitmap handling, including file and graphic input and output. Prima::Image and Prima::DeviceBitmap are descendants of Prima::Drawable and represent bitmaps, stored in memory. Prima::Icon is a descendant of Prima::Image and contains a transparency mask along with the regular data.

USAGE
Images usually are represented as a memory area, where pixel data are stored row-wise. The Prima toolkit is no exception, however, it does not assume that the GUI system uses the same memory format. The implicit conversion routines are called when Prima::Image is about to be drawn onto the screen, for example. The conversions are not always efficient, therefore the Prima::DeviceBitmap class is introduced to represent a bitmap, stored in the system memory in the system pixel format. These two basic classes serve the different needs, but can be easily converted to each other, with "image" and "bitmap" methods. Prima::Image is a more general bitmap representation, capable of file and graphic input and output, plus it is supplied with number of conversion and scaling functions. The Prima::DeviceBitmap class has almost none of additional functionality, and is targeted to efficient graphic input and output.

  Graphic input and output
As descendants of Prima::Drawable, all Prima::Image, Prima::Icon and Prima::DeviceBitmap objects are subject to three-state painting mode - normal ( disabled ), painting ( enabled ) and informational. Prima::DeviceBitmap is, however, exists only in the enabled state, and can not be switched to the other two.

When an object enters the enabled state, it serves as a canvas, and all Prima::Drawable operations can be performed on it. When the object is back to the disabled state, the graphic information is stored into the object associated memory, in the pixel format, supported by the toolkit. This information can be visualized by using one of "Prima::Drawable::put_image" group methods. If the object enters the enabled state again, the graphic information is presented as an initial state of a bitmap.

It must be noted, that if an implicit conversion takes place after an object enters and before it leaves the enabled state, as it is with Prima::Image and Prima::Icon, the bitmap is converted to the system pixel format. During such conversion some information can be lost, due to down-sampling, and there is no way to preserve the information. This does not happen with Prima::DeviceBitmap.

Image objects can be drawn upon images, as well as on the screen and Prima::Widget objects. This operation is performed via one of Prima::Drawable::put_image group methods ( see Prima::Drawable), and can be called with the image object disregarding the paint state. The following code illustrates the dualism of an image object, where it can serve both as a drawing surface and as a drawing tool:

    my $a = Prima::Image-> create( width => 100, height => 100, type => im::RGB);
    $a-> begin_paint;
    $a-> clear;
    $a-> color( cl::Green);
    $a-> fill_ellipse( 50, 50, 30, 30);
    $a-> end_paint;
    $a-> rop( rop::XorPut);
    $a-> put_image( 10, 10, $a);
    $::application-> begin_paint;
    $::application-> put_image( 0, 0, $a);
    $::application-> end_paint;

It must be noted, that "put_image", "stretch_image" and "put_image_indirect" are only painting methods that allow drawing on an image that is in its paint-disabled state. Moreover, in such context they only allow "Prima::Image" descendants to be passed as a source image object. This functionality does not imply that the image is internally switched to the paint-enabled state and back; the painting is performed without switching and without interference with the system's graphical layer.

Another special case is a 1-bit ( monochrome ) DeviceBitmap. When it is drawn upon a drawable with bit depth greater than 1, the drawable's color and backColor properties are used to reflect 1 and 0 bits, respectively. On a 1-bit drawable this does not happen, and the color properties are not used.

  File input and output
Depending on the toolkit configuration, images can be read and written in different formats. This functionality in accessible via "load()" and "save()" methods. Prima::image-load is dedicated to the description of loading and saving parameters, that can be passed to the methods, so they can handle different aspects of file format-specific options, such as multi-frame operations, auto conversion when a format does not support a particular pixel format etc. In this document, "load()" and "save()" methods are illustrated only in their basic, single-frame functionality. When called with no extra parameters, these methods fail only if a disk I/O error occurred or an unknown image format was used.

When an image is loaded, the old bitmap memory content is discarded, and the image attributes are changed accordingly to the loaded image. Along with these, an image palette is loaded, if available, and a pixel format is assigned, closest or identical to the pixel format in the image file.

  Pixel formats
Prima::Image supports a number of pixel formats, governed by the "::type" property. It is reflected by an integer value, a combination of "im::XXX" constants. The whole set of pixel formats is represented by colored formats, like, 16-color, 256-color and 16M-color, and by gray-scale formats, mapped to C data types - unsigned char, unsigned short, unsigned long, float and double. The gray-scale formats are subdivided to real-number formats and complex-number format; the last ones are represented by two real values per pixel, containing the real and the imaginary values.

Prima::Image can also be initialized from other formats, that it does not support, but can convert data from. Currently these are represented by a set of permutations of 32-bit RGBA format, and 24-bit BGR format. These formats can only be used in conjunction with "::data" property.

The conversions can be performed between any of the supported formats ( to do so, "::type" property is to be set-called ). An image of any of these formats can be drawn on the screen, but if the system can not accept the pixel format ( as it is with non-integer or complex formats ), the bitmap data are implicitly converted. The conversion does not change the data if the image is to be output; the conversion is performed only when the image is to be served as a drawing surface. If, by any reason, it is desired that the pixel format is not to be changed, the "::preserveType" property must be set to 1. It does not prevent the conversion, but it detects if the image was implicitly converted inside "end_paint()" call, and reverts it to its previous pixel format.

There are situations, when a pixel format conversion must be made with down-sampling. One of four down-sampling methods can be selected - normal, 8x8 ordered halftoning, error diffusion, and error diffusion combined with optimized palette. These can be set to the "::conversion" property with one of "ict::XXX" constants. When there is no information loss, "::conversion" property is not used.

Another special case of conversion is a conversion with a palette.

  $image-> type( im::bpp4);
  $image-> palette( $palette);

and

  $image-> palette( $palette);
  $image-> type( im::bpp4);

produce different results, but none of these takes into account eventual palette remapping, because "::palette" property does not change bitmap pixel data, but overwrites palette information. A proper call syntax is

  $image-> set(
     palette => $palette,
     type    => im::bpp4,
  );

This call produces correct results, if palette pixel mapping is desired. The most power of this syntax is available when conversion is "ict::Optimized" ( by default ). This does not only allows remapping or downsampling to a predefined colors set, but also can be used to limit palette size to a particular number, without actual color cells values knowledge. For example, for an 24-bit image,

  $image-> set( type => im::bpp8, palette => 32);

call would calculate colors in the image, compress them to a palette of 32 cells and converts to a 8-bit format.

  Data access
The pixel values can be accessed in Prima::Drawable style, via "::pixel" property. However, Prima::Image introduces several helper functions, for different aims. The "::data" property is used to set or retrieve a scalar representation of bitmap data. The data are expected to be lined up to a 'line size' margin ( 4-byte boundary ), which is calculated as

  $lineSize = int(( $image->width * ( $image-> type & im::BPP) + 31) / 32) * 4;

This is a default line size, but "::data" can be accompanied with a write-only flag 'lineSize':

  $image-> set( width => 1, height=> 2);
  $image-> type( im::RGB);
  $image-> set(
     data => 'RGB----RGB----',
     lineSize => 7,
  );
  print $image-> data, "\n";

  output: RGB-RGB-

Although it is possible to perform all kinds of calculations and modification with the pixels, returned by "::data", it is not advisable unless the speed does not matter. Standalone PDL package with help of PDL::PrimaImage package, and Prima-derived IPA package provide routines for data and image analysis. Prima::Image itself provides only the simplest statistic information, namely: lowest and highest pixel values, pixel sum, sum of square pixels, mean, variance, and standard deviation.

  Standalone usage
The image functionality can be used standalone, with all other parts of the toolkit being uninitialized. This is useful in non-interactive programs, running in evnironments with no GUI access, a cgi-script with no access to X11 display, for example. Normally, Prima fails to start in such situations, but can be told not to initialize its GUI part by explicitly operating system-dependent options. Currently, X11 implementation provides '--no-x11' option which effectively turns off X11 support.

  Prima::Icon
Prima::Icon inherits all properties of Prima::Image, and it also provides a 1-bit depth transparency mask. This mask can also be loaded and saved into image files, if the format supports a transparency information.

Alike Prima::Image "::data" property, Prima::Icon "::mask" property provides access to the binary mask data. The mask can be updated automatically, after an icon object was subject to painting or other change. The auxiliary properties "::autoMasking" and "::maskColor" regulate mask update procedure. For example, if an icon was loaded with the color ( vs. bitmap ) transparency information, the binary mask will be generated anyway, but it will be also recorded that a particular color serves as a transparent indicator, so eventual conversions can rely on the color value, instead of the mask bitmap.

If an icon is drawn upon a graphic canvas, the image output is constrained to the mask. On raster displays it is typically simulated by a combination of and- and xor- operation modes, therefore attempts to put an icon with "::rop", different from "rop::CopyPut", usually fail.

API

  Prima::Image properties

conversion TYPE
    Selects type of dithering algorithm, when down-sampling takes place. TYPE is one of "ict::XXX" constants:

       ict::None            - no dithering
       ict::Halftone        - 8x8 ordered halftone dithering
       ict::ErrorDiffusion  - error diffusion dithering with static palette
       ict::Optimized       - error diffusion dithering with optimized palette

    As an example, if a 4x4 color image with every pixel set to RGB(32,32,32), converted to a 1-bit image, the following results occur:

       ict::None:
         [ 0 0 0 0 ]
         [ 0 0 0 0 ]
         [ 0 0 0 0 ]
         [ 0 0 0 0 ]

       ict::Halftone:
         [ 0 0 0 0 ]
         [ 0 0 1 0 ]
         [ 0 0 0 0 ]
         [ 1 0 0 0 ]

       ict::ErrorDiffusion, ict::Ordered:
         [ 0 0 1 0 ]
         [ 0 0 0 1 ]
         [ 0 0 0 0 ]
         [ 0 0 0 0 ]

data SCALAR
    Provides access to the bitmap data. On get-call, returns all bitmap pixels, aligned to 4-byte boundary. On set-call, stores the provided data with same alignment. The alignment can be altered by submitting 'lineSize' write-only flag to set call. ( see "Data access" ).

height INTEGER
    Manages the vertical dimension of the image data. On set-call, the image data are changed accordingly to the new height, and depending on "::vScaling" property, the pixel values are either scaled or truncated.

hScaling BOOLEAN
    If 1, the bitmap data will be scaled when image changes its horizontal extent. If 0, the data will be stripped or padded with zeros.

mean
    Returns mean value of pixels. Mean value is "::sum" of pixel values, divided by number of pixels.

palette [ @PALETTE ]
    A color palette, used for representing 1, 4, and 8-bit bitmaps, when an image object is to be visualized.

pixel ( X_OFFSET, Y_OFFSET ) PIXEL
    Provides per-pixel access to the image data when image object is in disabled paint state. Otherwise, same as "Prima::Drawable::pixel".

preserveType BOOLEAN
    If 1, reverts the image type to its old value if an implicit conversion was called during "end_paint()".

rangeHi
    Returns maximum pixel value in the image data.

rangeLo
    Returns minimum pixel value in the image data.

size WIDTH, HEIGHT
    Manages dimensions of the image. On set-call, the image data are changed accordingly to the new dimensions, and depending on "::vScaling" and "::hScaling" properties, the pixel values are either scaled or truncated.

stats ( INDEX ) VALUE
    Returns one of calculated values, that correspond to INDEX, which is one of the following "is::XXX" constants:

       is::RangeLo  - minimum pixel value
       is::RangeHi  - maximum pixel value
       is::Mean     - mean value
       is::Variance - variance
       is::StdDev   - standard deviation
       is::Sum      - sum of pixel values
       is::Sum2     - sum of squares of pixel values

    The values are re-calculated on request and cached. On set-call VALUE is stored in the cache, and is returned on next get-call. The cached values are discarded every time the image data changes.

    These values are also accessible via set of alias properties: "::rangeLo", "::rangeHi", "::mean", "::variance", "::stdDev", "::sum", "::sum2".

stdDev
    Returns standard deviation of the image data. Standard deviation is the square root of "::variance".

sum Returns sum of pixel values of the image data

sum2
    Returns sum of squares of pixel values of the image data

type TYPE
    Governs the image pixel format type. TYPE is a combination of "im::XXX" constants. The constants are collected in groups:

    Bit-depth constants provide size of pixel is bits. Their actual value is same as number of bits, so "im::bpp1" value is 1, "im::bpp4" - 4, etc. The valid constants represent bit depths from 1 to 128:

       im::bpp1
       im::bpp4
       im::bpp8
       im::bpp16
       im::bpp24
       im::bpp32
       im::bpp64
       im::bpp128

    The following values designate the pixel format category:

       im::Color
       im::GrayScale
       im::RealNumber
       im::ComplexNumber
       im::TrigComplexNumber

    Value of "im::Color" is 0, whereas other category constants represented by unique bit value, so combination of "im::RealNumber" and "im::ComplexNumber" is possible.

    There also several mnemonic constants defined:

       im::Mono          - im::bpp1
       im::BW            - im::bpp1 | im::GrayScale
       im::16            - im::bpp4
       im::Nibble        - im::bpp4
       im::256           - im::bpp8
       im::RGB           - im::bpp24
       im::Triple        - im::bpp24
       im::Byte          - gray 8-bit unsigned integer
       im::Short         - gray 16-bit unsigned integer
       im::Long          - gray 32-bit unsigned integer
       im::Float         - float
       im::Double        - double
       im::Complex       - dual float
       im::DComplex      - dual double
       im::TrigComplex   - dual float
       im::TrigDComplex  - dual double

    Bit depths of float- and double- derived pixel formats depend on a platform.

    The groups can be masked out with the mask values:

       im::BPP      - bit depth constants
       im::Category - category constants
       im::FMT      - extra format constants

    The extra formats are the pixel formats, not supported by "::type", but recognized within the combined set-call, like

       $image-> set(
          type => im::fmtBGRI,
          data => 'BGR-BGR-',
       );

    The data, supplied with the extra image format specification will be converted to the closest supported format. Currently, the following extra pixel formats are recognized:

       im::fmtBGR
       im::fmtRGBI
       im::fmtIRGB
       im::fmtBGRI
       im::fmtIBGR

variance
    Returns variance of pixel values of the image data. Variance is "::sum2", divided by number of pixels minus square of "::sum" of pixel values.

vScaling BOOLEAN
    If 1, the bitmap data will be scaled when image changes its vertical extent. If 0, the data will be stripped or padded with zeros.

width INTEGER
    Manages the horizontal dimension of the image data. On set-call, the image data are changed accordingly to the new width, and depending on "::hScaling" property, the pixel values are either scaled or truncated.

  Prima::Icon properties

autoMasking TYPE
    Selects whether the mask information should be updated automatically with "::data" change or not. Every "::data" change is mirrored in "::mask", using TYPE, one of "am::XXX" constants:

       am::None           - no mask update performed
       am::MaskColor      - mask update based on ::maskColor property
       am::Auto           - mask update based on corner pixel values

    The "::maskColor" color value is used as a transparent color if TYPE is "am::MaskColor". The transparency mask generation algorithm, turned on by "am::Auto" checks corner pixel values, assuming that majority of the corner pixels represents a transparent color. Once such color is found, the mask is generated as in "am::MaskColor" case.

    When image "::data" is stretched, "::mask" is stretched accordingly, disregarding the "::autoMasking" value.

mask SCALAR
    Provides access to the transparency bitmap. On get-call, returns all bitmap pixels, aligned to 4-byte boundary in 1-bit format. On set-call, stores the provided transparency data with same alignment.

maskColor COLOR
    When "::autoMasking" set to "am::MaskColor", COLOR is used as a transparency value.

  Prima::DeviceBitmap properties

monochrome BOOLEAN
    A read-only property, that can only be set during creation, reflects whether the system bitmap is black-and-white 1-bit (monochrome) or not. The color depth of a bitmap can be read via "get_bpp()" method; monochrome bitmaps always have bit depth of 1.

  Prima::Image methods

bitmap
    Returns newly created Prima::DeviceBitmap instance, with the image dimensions and with the bitmap pixel values copied to.

codecs
    Returns array of hashes, each describing the supported image format. If the array is empty, the toolkit was set up so it can not load and save images.

    See Prima::image-load for details.

    This method can be called without object instance.

dup Returns a duplicate of the object, a newly created Prima::Image, with all information copied to it.

extract X_OFFSET, Y_OFFSET, WIDTH, HEIGHT
    Returns a newly created image object with WIDTH and HEIGHT dimensions, initialized with pixel data from X_OFFSET and Y_OFFSET in the bitmap.

get_bpp
    Returns the bit depth of the pixel format. Same as "::type & im::BPP".

get_handle
    Returns a system handle for an image object.

load FILENAME [ %PARAMETERS ]
    Loads image file FILENAME into an object, and returns the success flag. The semantics of "load()" is extensive, and can be influenced by PARAMETERS hash. "load()" can be called either in a context of an existing object, then a boolean success flag is returned, or in a class context, then a newly created object ( or "undef" ) is returned. If an error occurs, $@ variable contains the error description string. These two invocation semantics are equivalent:

       my $x = Prima::Image-> create();
       die "$@" unless $x-> load( ... );

    and

       my $x = Prima::Image-> load( ... );
       die "$@" unless $x;

    See Prima::image-load for details.

map COLOR
    Performs iterative mapping of bitmap pixels, setting every pixel to "::color" property with respect to "::rop" type if a pixel equals to COLOR, and to "::backColor" property with respect to "::rop2" type otherwise.

    "rop::NoOper" type can be used for color masking.

    Examples:

       width => 4, height => 1, data => [ 1, 2, 3, 4]
       color => 10, backColor => 20, rop => rop::CopyPut

       rop2 => rop::CopyPut
       input: map(2) output: [ 20, 10, 20, 20 ]

       rop2 => rop::NoOper
       input: map(2) output: [ 1, 10, 3, 4 ]

resample SRC_LOW, SRC_HIGH, DEST_LOW, DEST_HIGH
    Performs linear scaling of gray pixel values from range (SRC_LOW - SRC_HIGH) to range (DEST_LOW - DEST_HIGH). Can be used to visualize gray non-8 bit pixel values, by the code:

       $image-> resample( $image-> rangeLo, $image-> rangeHi, 0, 255);

save FILENAME, [ %PARAMETERS ]
    Stores image data into image file FILENAME, and returns the success flag. The semantics of "save()" is extensive, and can be influenced by PARAMETERS hash. If error occurs, $@ variable contains error description string.

    See Prima::image-load for details.

  Prima::Icon methods

split
    Returns two new Prima::Image objects of same dimension. Pixels in the first is are duplicated from "::data" storage, in the second - from "::mask" storage.

combine DATA, MASK
    Copies information from DATA and MASK images into "::data" and "::mask" property. DATA and MASK are expected to be images of same dimension.

  Prima::DeviceBitmap methods

icon
    Returns a newly created Prima::Icon object instance, with the pixel information copied from the object.

image
    Returns a newly created Prima::Image object instance, with the pixel information copied from the object.

get_handle
    Returns a system handle for a system bitmap object.

AUTHOR
Dmitry Karasik, <dmitry@karasik.eu.org>.

SEE ALSO
Prima, Prima::Drawable, Prima::image-load, Prima::codecs.

<http://pdl.perl.org/> - PDL home page,

<http://prima.eu.org/PDL-PrimaImage/> - PDL::PrimaImage home page,

<http://prima.eu.org/IPA/> - IPA toolkit home page,