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- pnglib.txt - a description on how to use and modify pnglib
-
- pnglib version 0.6
- For conditions of distribution and use, see copyright notice in png.h
- Copyright (c) 1995 Guy Eric Schalnat, Group 42, Inc.
- May 1, 1995
-
- This file describes how to use and modify the PNG reference library
- (known as pnglib) for your own use. There are four sections to this
- file: reading, writing, modifying, and configuration notes for various
- special platforms. Other then this file, the file example.c is a good
- starting point for using the library, as it is heavily commented and
- should include everything most people will need.
-
- Pnglib was written as a companion to the PNG specification, as a
- way to reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to support
- the PNG file format in application programs. Most users will not
- have to modify the library significantly; advanced users may want
- to modify it more. The library was coded for both users. All
- attempts were made to make it as complete as possible, while
- keeping the code easy to understand. Currently, this library
- only supports C. Support for other languages is being considered.
-
- Pnglib has been designed to handle multiple sessions at one time,
- to be easily modifiable, to be portable to the vast majority of
- machines (ANSI, K&R, 16 bit, 32 bit) available, and to be easy to
- use. The ultimate goal of pnglib is to promote the acceptance of
- the PNG file format in whatever way possible. While there is still
- work to be done (see the todo.txt file), pnglib should cover the
- majority of the needs of it's users.
-
- Pnglib uses zlib for it's compression and decompression of PNG files.
- The zlib compression utility is a general purpose utility that is
- useful for more then PNG files, and can be used without pnglib for
- whatever use you want. See the documentation delivered with zlib for
- more details.
-
- Those people who do not need to modify pnglib should still read at
- least part of the PNG specification. The most important parts are
- the data formats and the chunk descriptions. Those who will be
- making changes to pnglib should read the whole specification.
-
- The structures:
-
- There are two main structures that are important to pnglib, png_struct
- and png_info. The first, png_struct, is an internal structure that
- will not, for the most part, be used by the general user except as
- the first variable passed to every png function call.
-
- The png_info structure is designed to provide information about the
- png file. All of it's fields are intended to be examined or modified
- by the user. See png.h for a good description of the png_info fields.
-
- Reading PNG files:
-
- The first thing you need to do while reading a PNG file is to allocate
- and initialize png_struct and png_info. As these are both large, you
- may not want to store these on the stack, unless you have stack space
- to spare.
-
- png_struct *png_ptr = malloc(sizeof (png_struct));
- png_info *info_ptr = malloc(sizeof (png_info));
-
- After you have these structures, you will need to set up the
- error handling. When pnglib encounters an error, it expects to
- longjmp back to your routine. Therefore, you will need to call
- setjmp and pass the jmpbuf field of your png_struct. If you
- read the file from different routines, you will need to update
- the jmpbuf field every time you enter a new routine that will
- call a png_ function. See your documentation of setjmp/longjmp
- for your compiler for more information on setjmp/longjmp. See
- the discussion on png error handling in the Customizing Pnglib
- section below for more information on the png error handling.
-
- setjmp(png_ptr->jmpbuf);
-
- Next, you will need to call png_read_init() and png_info_init().
- These functions make sure all the fields are initialized to useful
- values, and, in the case of png_read_init(), and allocate any memory
- needed for internal uses.
-
- png_read_init(png_ptr);
- png_info_init(info_ptr);
-
- Now you need to set up the input code. The default for pnglib is
- to use the C function fread(). If you use this, you will need to
- pass a valid FILE * in the function png_init_io(). Be sure that
- the file is opened in binary mode. If you wish to handle reading
- data in another way, see the discussion on png i/o handling in the
- Customizing Pnglib section below.
-
- FILE *fp = fopen(file_name, "rb");
- png_init_io(png_ptr, fp);
-
- You are now ready to read all the file information up to the actual
- image data. You do this with a call to png_read_info().
-
- png_read_info(png_ptr, info_ptr);
-
- The png_info structure is now filled in with all the data necessary
- to read the file. Some of the more important parts of the png_info are:
- width - holds the width of the file
- height - holds the height of the file
- bit_depth - holds the bit depth of one of the image channels
- color_type - describes the channels and what they mean
- see the PNG_COLOR_TYPE_ macros for more information
- interlace_type - currently 0 for none, 1 for interlaced
- valid - this details which optional chunks were found in the file
- to see if a chunk was present, OR valid with the appropriate
- PNG_INFO_<chunk name> define.
- palette and num_palette - the palette for the file
- gamma - the gamma the file is written at
- sig_bit and sig_bit_number - the number of significant bits
- trans, trans_values, and number_trans - transparency info
- hist - histogram of palette
- text and num_text - text comments in the file.
- for more information, see the png_info definition in png.h and the
- PNG specification for chunk contents.
-
- A quick word about text and num_text. PNG stores comments in
- keyword - text pairs, one pair per chunk. While there are
- suggested keywords, there is no requirement to use them. Also,
- there is no requirement to have a keyword, or a text string to
- follow it. There is no maximum length on the keyword, and nothing
- prevents you from duplicating the keyword. The text field is an
- array of png_text structures, each holding pointer to a keyword
- and a pointer to a text string. Either or both of these may be null.
- The keyword - text pairs are put into the array in the order that
- they are received. However, some or all of the text chunks may be
- after the image, so to make sure you have read all the text chunks,
- don't mess with these until after you read the stuff after the image.
- This will be mentioned again below in the discussion that goes with
- png_read_end().
-
- After you've read the file information, you can set up the library to
- handle any special transformations of the image data. The various
- ways to transform the data will be described in the order that they
- occur. This is important, as some of these change the color type
- and bit depth of the data, and some others only work on certain
- color types and bit depths. Even though each transformation should
- check to see if it has data that it can do somthing with, you should
- make sure to only enable a transformation if it will be valid for
- the data. For example, don't swap red and blue on grayscale data.
-
- This transforms bit depths of less then 8 to 8 bits, changes paletted
- images to rgb, and adds an alpha channel if there is transparency
- information in a tRNS chunk. This is probably most useful on grayscale
- images with bit depths of 2 or 4 and tRNS chunks.
-
- if (png_info->color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_PALETTE &&
- png_info->bit_depth < 8)
- png_set_expand(png_ptr);
-
- if (png_info->color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY &&
- png_info->bit_depth < 8)
- png_set_expand(png_ptr);
-
- if (png_info->valid & PNG_INFO_tRNS)
- png_set_expand(png_ptr);
-
- This handles alpha and transparency by replacing it with a background
- value. If there was a valid one in the file, you can use it if you
- want. However, you can replace it with your own if you want also. If
- there wasn't one in the file, you must supply a color.
-
- png_uint_16 my_backgound[3];
-
- if (png_info->valid & PNG_INFO_bKGD)
- png_set_backgrond(png_ptr, png_info->background);
- else
- png_set_background(png_ptr, &my_background);
-
- This handles gamma transformations of the data. Pass both the file
- gamma and the desired screen gamma. If the file does not have a
- gamma value, you can pass one anyway if you wish. Note that file
- gammas are inverted from screen gammas. See the discussions on
- gamma in the PNG specification for more information.
-
- if (png_info->valid & PNG_INFO_gAMA)
- png_set_gamma(png_ptr, screen_gamma, png_info->gamma);
- else
- png_set_gamma(png_ptr, screen_gamma, 0.45);
-
- PNG can have files with 16 bits per channel. If you only can handle
- 8 bits per channel, this will strip the pixels down to 8 bit.
-
- if (png_info->bit_depth == 16)
- png_set_strip_16(png_ptr);
-
- If you are running on an 8 bit screen, this will dither a rgb file
- down to a palette. Note that this is a simple match dither, that
- merely finds the closest color available. This should work fairly
- well with optimized palettes, and fairly badly with linear color
- cubes. If you pass a palette that is larger then maximum_colors,
- the file will reduce the number of colors in the palette so it
- will fit into maximum_colors. If there is an histogram, it will
- use it to make intelligent choises when reducing the palette. If
- there is no histogram, it may not do a good job.
-
- if (png_info->color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB ||
- png_info->color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA)
- {
- if (png_info->valid & PNG_INFO_PLTE)
- png_set_dither(png_ptr, png_info->palette,
- png_info->num_palette, 256, png_info->histogram);
- else
- {
- png_color std_color_cube[256] = { ... colors ... };
-
- png_set_dither(png_ptr, std_color_cube, 256, 256, NULL);
- }
- }
-
- PNG files describe moncrome as black is zero and white is one. If you
- want this reversed (black is one and white is zero), call this:
-
- if (png_info->bit_depth == 1 &&
- png_info->color_type == PNG_COLOR_GRAY)
- png_set_invert(png_ptr);
-
- PNG files reduce possible bit depths to 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16. However,
- they also provide a way to describe the true bit depth of the image.
- Then they require bits to be scaled to full range for the bit depth
- used in the file. If you want to reduce your pixels back down to
- the true bit depth, call this:
-
- if (png_info->valid & PNG_INFO_sBIT &&
- png_info->bit_depth > png_info->sig_bit)
- png_set_shift(png_ptr, png_info->sig_bit);
-
- PNG files pack pixels of bit depths 1, 2, and 4 into bytes as small as
- they can, resulting in, for example, 8 pixels per byte for 1 bit files.
- If you would rather these were expanded to 1 pixel per byte without
- changing the values of the pixels, call this:
-
- if (png_info->bit_depth < 8)
- png_set_packing(png_ptr);
-
- PNG files store 3 color pixels in red, green, blue order. If you would
- rather have the pixels as blue, green, red, call this.
-
- if (png_info->color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB ||
- png_info->color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA)
- png_set_bgr(png_ptr);
-
- For some uses, you may want a grayscale image to be represented as
- rgb. One use for this would be overlaying a grayscale image on top
- of a rgb image, using png_set_alpha(). If you need this, call this:
-
- if (png_info->color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY ||
- png_info->color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY_ALPHA)
- png_set_gray_to_rgb(png_ptr);
-
- PNG files store 16 bit pixels in network byte order (most significant
- bit first). If you would rather store them the other way, (the way
- PC's store them, for example), call this:
-
- if (png_info->bit_depth == 16)
- png_set_swap(png_ptr);
-
- PNG files store rgb pixels packed into 3 bytes. If you would rather
- pack them into 4 bytes, call this:
-
- if (png_info->bit_depth == 8 &&
- png_info->color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB)
- png_set_rgbx(png_ptr);
-
- After setting the transformations, you can update your palette by
- calling png_start_read_image(). This function is provided for those
- who need an updated palette before they read the image data. If you
- don't call this function, the library will automatically call it
- before it reads the first row.
-
- png_start_read_image(png_ptr);
-
- That's it for the transformations. Now you can read the image data.
- The simplest way to do this is in one function call. If you are
- allocating enough memory to hold the whole image, you can just
- call png_read_image() and pnglib will read in all the image data
- and put it in the memory area supplied. You will need to pass in
- an array of pointers to each row. If you have called png_set_alpha(),
- you will need to initialize this memory with the background image.
- This function automatically handles interlacing, so you don't need
- to call png_set_interlace_handling() or call this function multiple
- times, or any of that other stuff necessary with png_read_rows().
-
- png_read_image(png_ptr, row_pointers);
-
- where row_pointers is:
-
- void *row_pointers[height];
-
- You can point to void or char or whatever you use for pixels.
-
- If you don't want to read the whole image in at once, you can
- use png_read_rows() instead. If there is no interlacing (check
- png_info->interlace_type), this is simple:
-
- png_read_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers, NULL, number_of_rows);
-
- row_pointers is the same as in the png_read_image() call.
-
- As with png_read_image(), if you have called png_set_alpha(), you
- will need to initialize each row with the background image. If
- you are just calling one row at a time, you can do this for
- row_pointers:
-
- char *row_pointers = row;
-
- png_read_rows(png_ptr, &row_pointers, NULL, 1);
-
- When the file is interlaced (png_info->interlace_type == 1), things
- get a good deal harder. PNG files have a complicated interlace scheme
- that breaks down an image into seven smaller images of varying size.
- Pnglib will fill out those images if you want, or it will give them
- to you "as is". If you want to fill them out, there is two ways
- to do that. The one mentioned in the PNG specification is to expand
- each pixel to cover those pixels that have not been read yet. This
- results in a blocky image for the first pass, which gradually smooths
- out as more pixels are read. The other method is the "sparkle" method,
- where pixels are draw only in their final locations, with the rest of
- the image remaining whatever colors they were initialized to before
- the start of the read. The first method usually looks better, but
- has a problem with alpha or transparency, in that you are overwriting
- pixels you will need later, to combine with pixels that are not read
- in this pass. So, if the image has alpha or transparency, you end up
- storing the old image in a seperate memory area from the new one. Some
- examples to help clear this up:
-
- If you don't want pnglib to handle the interlacing details, just
- call png_read_rows() the correct number of times to read in all
- seven images. See the PNG specification for more details on the
- interlacing scheme.
-
- If you want pnglib to expand the images, call this:
-
- if (png_info->interlace_type)
- number_passes = png_set_interlace_handling(png_ptr);
-
- This will return the number of passes needed. Currently, this
- is seven, but may change if another interlace type is added.
-
- If you are not going to display the image after each pass, but are
- going to wait until the entire image is read in, use the sparkle
- effect. This effect is faster, you don't have to worry about alpha
- or transparency, and the end result of either method is exactly the
- same. If you are planning on displaying the image after each pass,
- the rectangle effect is generally considered the better looking one.
-
- If you only want the "sparkle" effect, just call png_read_rows() as
- normal, with the third parameter NULL. Make sure you make pass over
- the image number_passes times, and you don't change the data in the
- rows between calls. You can change the locations of the data, just
- not the data. Each pass only writes the pixels appropriate for that
- pass, and assumes the data from previous passes is still valid. If
- you have called png_set_alpha(), initialize the rows to the background
- image before the first pass only.
-
- png_read_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers, NULL, number_of_rows);
-
- If you have not called png_set_alpha(), and you only want the first
- effect (the rectangles), do the same as before except pass the row
- buffer in the third parameter, and leave the second parameter NULL.
-
- png_read_rows(png_ptr, NULL, row_pointers, number_of_rows);
-
- If you have called png_set_alpha(), and you want the rectangle
- effect, you must pass both pointers. You must also keep these
- rows seperate. The first pointer (the second parameter) will
- need to be initialized to hold the background image, and will
- have the "sparkle" effect painted on it. The second pointer
- (the third parameter) should also be initialized to the background
- image (for display purposes), and will have the rectangles painted
- into it for each pass.
-
- After you are finished reading the image, you can finish reading
- the file. If you are interested in comments or time, you should
- pass the png_info pointer from the png_read_info() call. If you
- are not interested, you can pass NULL.
-
- png_read_end(png_ptr, png_info);
-
- When you are done, you can free all memory used by pnglib like this:
-
- png_read_destroy(png_ptr, png_info);
-
- After that, you can discard the structures, or reuse them another
- read or write. For a more compact example of reading a PNG image,
- see the file example.c.
-
-
- Writing PNG files:
-
- Much of this is very similar to reading. However, everything of
- importance is repeated here, so you don't have to constantly look
- back up in the Reading PNG files section to understand writing.
-
- The first thing you need to do while writing a PNG file is to allocate
- and initialize png_struct and png_info. As these are both large, you
- may not want to store these on the stack, unless you have stack space
- to spare.
-
- png_struct *png_ptr = malloc(sizeof (png_struct));
- png_info *info_ptr = malloc(sizeof (png_info));
-
- After you have these structures, you will need to set up the
- error handling. When pnglib encounters an error, it expects to
- longjmp back to your routine. Therefore, you will need to call
- setjmp and pass the jmpbuf field of your png_struct. If you
- write the file from different routines, you will need to update
- the jmpbuf field every time you enter a new routine that will
- call a png_ function. See your documentation of setjmp/longjmp
- for your compiler for more information on setjmp/longjmp. See
- the discussion on png error handling in the Customizing Pnglib
- section below for more information on the png error handling.
-
- setjmp(png_ptr->jmpbuf);
-
- Next, you will need to call png_write_init() and png_info_init().
- These functions make sure all the fields are initialized to useful
- values, and, in the case of png_write_init(), allocate any memory
- needed for internal uses.
-
- png_write_init(png_ptr);
- png_info_init(info_ptr);
-
- Now you need to set up the input code. The default for pnglib is
- to use the C function fwrite(). If you use this, you will need to
- pass a valid FILE * in the function png_init_io(). Be sure that
- the file is opened in binary mode. If you wish to handle writing
- data in another way, see the discussion on png i/o handling in the
- Customizing Pnglib section below.
-
- FILE *fp = fopen(file_name, "rb");
- png_init_io(png_ptr, fp);
-
- You now need to fill in the png_info structure with all the data
- you wish to write before the actual image. Note that the only thing
- you are allowed to write after the image is the text chunks and the
- time chunk. See png_write_end() for more information on that. If you
- wish to write them before the image, fill them in now. If you want to
- wait until after the data, don't fill them until png_write_end(). For
- all the fields in png_info, see png.h. For explinations of what the
- fields contain, see the PNG specification. Some of the more important
- parts of the png_info are:
- width - holds the width of the file
- height - holds the height of the file
- bit_depth - holds the bit depth of one of the image channels
- color_type - describes the channels and what they mean
- see the PNG_COLOR_TYPE_ defines for more information
- interlace_type - currently 0 for none, 1 for interlaced
- valid - this describes which optional chunks to write to the
- file. Note that if you are writing a PNG_COLOR_TYPE_PALETTE
- file, the PLTE chunk is not optional, but must still be marked
- for writing. To mark chunks for writing, OR valid with the
- appropriate PNG_INFO_<chunk name> define.
- palette and num_palette - the palette for the file
- gamma - the gamma the file is written at
- sig_bit and sig_bit_number - the number of significant bits
- trans, trans_values, and number_trans - transparency info
- hist - histogram of palette
- text and num_text - text comments in the file.
-
- A quick word about text and num_text. text is an array of png_text
- structures. num_text is the number of valid structures in the array.
- If you want, you can use max_text to hold the size of the array, but
- pnglib ignores it for writing (it does use it for reading). Each
- png_text structure holds a keyword-text value, and a compression type.
- The compression types have the same valid numbers as the compression
- types of the image data. Currently, the only valid number is zero.
- However, you can store text either compressed or uncompressed, unlike
- images which always have to be compressed. So if you don't want the
- text compressed, set the compression type to -1. Until text gets
- arount 1000 bytes, it is not worth compressing it.
-
- The keyword-text pairs work like this. Keywords should be short
- simple descriptions of what the comment is about. Some typical
- keywords are found in the PNG specification, as is some recomendations
- on keywords. You can repeat keywords in a file. You can even write
- some text before the image and some after. For example, you may want
- to put a description of the image before the image, but leave the
- disclaimer until after, so viewers working over modem connections
- don't have to wait for the disclaimer to go over the modem before
- they start seeing the image. Finally, keywords should be full
- words, not abbreviations. Keywords can not contain NUL characters,
- and should not contain control characters. Text in general should
- not contain control characters.
-
- PNG supports modification time via the png_time structure. Two
- conversion routines are proved, png_convert_from_time_t() for
- time_t and png_convert_from_struct_tm() for struct tm. The
- time_t routine uses gmtime(). You don't have to use either of
- these, but if you wish to fill in the png_time structure directly,
- you should provide the time in universal time (GMT) if possible
- instead of your local time.
-
- You are now ready to write all the file information up to the actual
- image data. You do this with a call to png_write_info().
-
- png_write_info(png_ptr, info_ptr);
-
- After you've read the file information, you can set up the library to
- handle any special transformations of the image data. The various
- ways to transform the data will be described in the order that they
- occur. This is important, as some of these change the color type
- and bit depth of the data, and some others only work on certain
- color types and bit depths. Even though each transformation should
- check to see if it has data that it can do somthing with, you should
- make sure to only enable a transformation if it will be valid for
- the data. For example, don't swap red and blue on grayscale data.
-
- PNG files store rgb pixels packed into 3 bytes. If you would rather
- supply the pixels as 4 bytes per pixel, call this:
-
- png_set_rgbx(png_ptr);
-
- PNG files pack pixels of bit depths 1, 2, and 4 into bytes as small as
- they can, resulting in, for example, 8 pixels per byte for 1 bit files.
- If you would rather supply the data 1 pixel per byte, but with the
- values limited to the correct number of bits, call this:
-
- png_set_packing(png_ptr);
-
- PNG files reduce possible bit depths to 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16. If your
- data is of another bit depth, but is packed into the bytes correctly,
- this will scale the values to appear to be the correct bit depth.
- Make sure you write a sBIT chunk when you do this, so others, if
- they want, can reduce the values down to their true depth.
-
- /* do this before png_write_info() */
- png_info->valid |= PNG_INFO_sBIT;
- png_info->sig_bit = true_bit_depth;
-
- /* do this here */
- png_set_shift(png_ptr, png_info->sig_bit);
-
- PNG files store 16 bit pixels in network byte order (most significant
- bit first). If you would rather supply them the other way, (the way
- PC's store them, for example), call this:
-
- png_set_swap(png_ptr);
-
- PNG files store 3 color pixels in red, green, blue order. If you would
- rather supply the pixels as blue, green, red, call this.
-
- png_set_bgr(png_ptr);
-
- PNG files describe moncrome as black is zero and white is one. If you
- would rather supply the pixels with this reversed (black is one and
- white is zero), call this:
-
- png_set_invert(png_ptr);
-
- That's it for the transformations. Now you can write the image data.
- The simplest way to do this is in one function call. If have the
- whole image in memory, you can just call png_write_image() and pnglib
- will write the image. You will need to pass in an array of pointers to
- each row. This function automatically handles interlacing, so you don't
- need to call png_set_interlace_handling() or call this function multiple
- times, or any of that other stuff necessary with png_write_rows().
-
- png_write_image(png_ptr, row_pointers);
-
- where row_pointers is:
-
- void *row_pointers[height];
-
- You can point to void or char or whatever you use for pixels.
-
- If you can't want to write the whole image at once, you can
- use png_write_rows() instead. If the file is not interlaced,
- this is simple:
-
- png_write_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers, number_of_rows);
-
- row_pointers is the same as in the png_write_image() call.
-
- If you are just calling one row at a time, you can do this for
- row_pointers:
-
- char *row_pointers = row;
-
- png_write_rows(png_ptr, &row_pointers, 1);
-
- When the file is interlaced, things can get a good deal harder.
- PNG files have a complicated interlace scheme that breaks down an
- image into seven smaller images of varying size. Pnglib will
- build these images if you want, or you can do them yourself. If
- you want to build them yourself, see the PNG specification for
- details of which pixels to write when.
-
- If you don't want pnglib to handle the interlacing details, just
- call png_write_rows() the correct number of times to write all
- seven sub-images.
-
- If you want pnglib to build the sub-images, call this:
-
- number_passes = png_set_interlace_handling(png_ptr);
-
- This will return the number of passes needed. Currently, this
- is seven, but may change if another interlace type is added.
-
- Then write the image number_passes times.
-
- png_write_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers, number_of_rows);
-
- As some of these rows are not used, and thus return immediately,
- you may want to read about interlacing in the PNG specification,
- and only update the rows that are actually used.
-
- After you are finished writing the image, you should finish writing
- the file. If you are interested in writing comments or time, you should
- pass the an appropriately filled png_info pointer. If you
- are not interested, you can pass NULL. Be careful that you don't
- write the same text or time chunks here as you did in png_write_info().
-
- png_write_end(png_ptr, png_info);
-
- When you are done, you can free all memory used by pnglib like this:
-
- png_write_destroy(png_ptr);
-
- Any data you allocated for png_info, you must free yourself.
-
- After that, you can discard the structures, or reuse them another
- read or write. For a more compact example of writing a PNG image,
- see the file example.c.
-
-
- Customizing pnglib:
-
- There are two issues here. The first is changing how pnglib does
- standard things like memory allocation, input/output, and error handling.
- The second deals with more complicated things like adding new chunks,
- adding new transformations, and generally changing how pnglib works.
-
- All of the memory allocation, input/output, and error handling in pnglub
- goes through the routines in pngstub.c. The file as plenty of comments
- describing each function and how it expects to work, so I will just
- summarize here. See pngstub.c for more details.
-
- Memory allocation is done through the functions png_large_malloc(),
- png_malloc(), png_realloc(), png_large_free(), and png_free().
- These currently just call the standard C functions. The large
- functions must handle exactly 64K, but they don't have to handle
- more then that. If your pointers can't access more then 64K at a
- time, you will want to set MAXSEG_64K in zlib.h.
-
- Input/Output in pnglib is done throught png_read() and png_write(), which
- currently just call fread() and fwrite(). The FILE * is stored in
- png_struct, and is initialized via png_init_io(). If you wish to change
- this, make the appropriate changes in pngstub.c and png.h. Make sure you
- change the function prototype for png_init_io() if you are no longer
- using a FILE *.
-
- Error handling in pnglib is done through png_error() and png_warning().
- Errors handled through png_error() are fatal, meaning that png_error()
- should never return to it's caller. Currently, this is handled via
- setjmp() and longjmp(), but you could change this to do things like
- exit() if you should wish. Similarly, both png_error() and png_warning()
- print a message on stderr, but that can also be changed. The motivation
- behind using setjmp() and longjmp() is the C++ throw and catch exception
- handling methods. This makes the code much easier to write, as there
- is no need to check every return code of every function call. However,
- there are some uncertainties about the status of local variables after
- a longjmp, so the user may want to be careful about doing anything after
- setjmp returns non zero besides returning itself. Consult your compiler
- documentation for more details.
-
- If you need to read or write custom chunks, you will need to get deeper
- into the pnglib code. First, read the PNG specification, and have
- a first level of understanding of how it works. Pay particular
- attention to the sections that describe chunk names, and look
- at how other chunks were designed, so you can do things similar.
- Second, check out the sections of pnglib that read and write chunks.
- Try to find a chunk that is similar to yours, and copy off of it.
- More details can be found in the comments inside the code.
-
- If you wish to write your own transformation for the data, look
- through the part of the code that does the transformations, and check
- out some of the more simple ones to get an idea of how they work. Try
- to find a similar transformation to the one you want to add, and copy
- off of it. More details can be found in the comments inside the code
- itself.
-
- Configuring for 16 bit platforms:
-
- You will probably need to change the png__large_malloc() and
- png_large_free() routines in pngstub.c, as these are requred
- to allocate 64K. Also, you will want to look into zconf.h to tell
- zlib (and thus pnglib) that it cannot allocate more then 64K at a
- time. Even if you can, the memory won't be accessable unless you
- are using the huge memory model (which is not suggested, as you will
- take a large performance hit). So limit zlib and pnglib to 64K by
- defining MAXSEG_64K.
-
- Configuring for Windowing platforms:
-
- You will need to change the error message display in png_error() and
- png_warning() to display a message instead of fprinting it to stderr.
- You may want to write a single function to do this and call it something
- like png_message(). On some compliers, you may have to change the
- memory allocators (png_malloc, etc.).
-
- Configuring for compiler xxx:
-
- All includes for pnglib are in png.h. If you need to add/change/delete
- an include, this is the place to do it. The includes that are not
- needed outside pnglib are protected by the PNG_INTERNAL definition,
- which is only defined for those routines inside pnglib itself.
-
-