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1libpng.txt - A description on how to use and modify libpng
2
3 libpng version 1.2.5rc3 - September 18, 2002
4 Updated and distributed by Glenn Randers-Pehrson
5 <randeg@alum.rpi.edu>
6 Copyright (c) 1998-2002 Glenn Randers-Pehrson
7 For conditions of distribution and use, see copyright
8 notice in png.h.
9
10 based on:
11
12 libpng 1.0 beta 6 version 0.96 May 28, 1997
13 Updated and distributed by Andreas Dilger
14 Copyright (c) 1996, 1997 Andreas Dilger
15
16 libpng 1.0 beta 2 - version 0.88 January 26, 1996
17 For conditions of distribution and use, see copyright
18 notice in png.h. Copyright (c) 1995, 1996 Guy Eric
19 Schalnat, Group 42, Inc.
20
21 Updated/rewritten per request in the libpng FAQ
22 Copyright (c) 1995, 1996 Frank J. T. Wojcik
23 December 18, 1995 & January 20, 1996
24
25I. Introduction
26
27This file describes how to use and modify the PNG reference library
28(known as libpng) for your own use. There are five sections to this
29file: introduction, structures, reading, writing, and modification and
30configuration notes for various special platforms. In addition to this
31file, example.c is a good starting point for using the library, as
32it is heavily commented and should include everything most people
33will need. We assume that libpng is already installed; see the
34INSTALL file for instructions on how to install libpng.
35
36Libpng was written as a companion to the PNG specification, as a way
37of reducing the amount of time and effort it takes to support the PNG
38file format in application programs.
39
40The PNG-1.2 specification is available at <http://www.libpng.org/pub/png>
41and at <ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/documents/>.
42
43The PNG-1.0 specification is available
44as RFC 2083 <ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/documents/> and as a
45W3C Recommendation <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC.png.html>. Some
46additional chunks are described in the special-purpose public chunks
47documents at <ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/documents/>.
48
49Other information
50about PNG, and the latest version of libpng, can be found at the PNG home
51page, <http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/>
52and at <ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/>.
53
54Most users will not have to modify the library significantly; advanced
55users may want to modify it more. All attempts were made to make it as
56complete as possible, while keeping the code easy to understand.
57Currently, this library only supports C. Support for other languages
58is being considered.
59
60Libpng has been designed to handle multiple sessions at one time,
61to be easily modifiable, to be portable to the vast majority of
62machines (ANSI, K&R, 16-, 32-, and 64-bit) available, and to be easy
63to use. The ultimate goal of libpng is to promote the acceptance of
64the PNG file format in whatever way possible. While there is still
65work to be done (see the TODO file), libpng should cover the
66majority of the needs of its users.
67
68Libpng uses zlib for its compression and decompression of PNG files.
69Further information about zlib, and the latest version of zlib, can
70be found at the zlib home page, <http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/zlib/>.
71The zlib compression utility is a general purpose utility that is
72useful for more than PNG files, and can be used without libpng.
73See the documentation delivered with zlib for more details.
74You can usually find the source files for the zlib utility wherever you
75find the libpng source files.
76
77Libpng is thread safe, provided the threads are using different
78instances of the structures. Each thread should have its own
79png_struct and png_info instances, and thus its own image.
80Libpng does not protect itself against two threads using the
81same instance of a structure. Note: thread safety may be defeated
82by use of some of the MMX assembler code in pnggccrd.c, which is only
83compiled when the user defines PNG_THREAD_UNSAFE_OK.
84
85
86II. Structures
87
88There are two main structures that are important to libpng, png_struct
89and png_info. The first, png_struct, is an internal structure that
90will not, for the most part, be used by a user except as the first
91variable passed to every libpng function call.
92
93The png_info structure is designed to provide information about the
94PNG file. At one time, the fields of png_info were intended to be
95directly accessible to the user. However, this tended to cause problems
96with applications using dynamically loaded libraries, and as a result
97a set of interface functions for png_info (the png_get_*() and png_set_*()
98functions) was developed. The fields of png_info are still available for
99older applications, but it is suggested that applications use the new
100interfaces if at all possible.
101
102Applications that do make direct access to the members of png_struct (except
103for png_ptr->jmpbuf) must be recompiled whenever the library is updated,
104and applications that make direct access to the members of png_info must
105be recompiled if they were compiled or loaded with libpng version 1.0.6,
106in which the members were in a different order. In version 1.0.7, the
107members of the png_info structure reverted to the old order, as they were
108in versions 0.97c through 1.0.5. Starting with version 2.0.0, both
109structures are going to be hidden, and the contents of the structures will
110only be accessible through the png_get/png_set functions.
111
112The png.h header file is an invaluable reference for programming with libpng.
113And while I'm on the topic, make sure you include the libpng header file:
114
115#include <png.h>
116
117III. Reading
118
119We'll now walk you through the possible functions to call when reading
120in a PNG file sequentially, briefly explaining the syntax and purpose
121of each one. See example.c and png.h for more detail. While
122progressive reading is covered in the next section, you will still
123need some of the functions discussed in this section to read a PNG
124file.
125
126Setup
127
128You will want to do the I/O initialization(*) before you get into libpng,
129so if it doesn't work, you don't have much to undo. Of course, you
130will also want to insure that you are, in fact, dealing with a PNG
131file. Libpng provides a simple check to see if a file is a PNG file.
132To use it, pass in the first 1 to 8 bytes of the file to the function
133png_sig_cmp(), and it will return 0 if the bytes match the corresponding
134bytes of the PNG signature, or nonzero otherwise. Of course, the more bytes
135you pass in, the greater the accuracy of the prediction.
136
137If you are intending to keep the file pointer open for use in libpng,
138you must ensure you don't read more than 8 bytes from the beginning
139of the file, and you also have to make a call to png_set_sig_bytes_read()
140with the number of bytes you read from the beginning. Libpng will
141then only check the bytes (if any) that your program didn't read.
142
143(*): If you are not using the standard I/O functions, you will need
144to replace them with custom functions. See the discussion under
145Customizing libpng.
146
147
148 FILE *fp = fopen(file_name, "rb");
149 if (!fp)
150 {
151 return (ERROR);
152 }
153 fread(header, 1, number, fp);
154 is_png = !png_sig_cmp(header, 0, number);
155 if (!is_png)
156 {
157 return (NOT_PNG);
158 }
159
160
161Next, png_struct and png_info need to be allocated and initialized. In
162order to ensure that the size of these structures is correct even with a
163dynamically linked libpng, there are functions to initialize and
164allocate the structures. We also pass the library version, optional
165pointers to error handling functions, and a pointer to a data struct for
166use by the error functions, if necessary (the pointer and functions can
167be NULL if the default error handlers are to be used). See the section
168on Changes to Libpng below regarding the old initialization functions.
169The structure allocation functions quietly return NULL if they fail to
170create the structure, so your application should check for that.
171
172 png_structp png_ptr = png_create_read_struct
173 (PNG_LIBPNG_VER_STRING, (png_voidp)user_error_ptr,
174 user_error_fn, user_warning_fn);
175 if (!png_ptr)
176 return (ERROR);
177
178 png_infop info_ptr = png_create_info_struct(png_ptr);
179 if (!info_ptr)
180 {
181 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr,
182 (png_infopp)NULL, (png_infopp)NULL);
183 return (ERROR);
184 }
185
186 png_infop end_info = png_create_info_struct(png_ptr);
187 if (!end_info)
188 {
189 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr,
190 (png_infopp)NULL);
191 return (ERROR);
192 }
193
194If you want to use your own memory allocation routines,
195define PNG_USER_MEM_SUPPORTED and use
196png_create_read_struct_2() instead of png_create_read_struct():
197
198 png_structp png_ptr = png_create_read_struct_2
199 (PNG_LIBPNG_VER_STRING, (png_voidp)user_error_ptr,
200 user_error_fn, user_warning_fn, (png_voidp)
201 user_mem_ptr, user_malloc_fn, user_free_fn);
202
203The error handling routines passed to png_create_read_struct()
204and the memory alloc/free routines passed to png_create_struct_2()
205are only necessary if you are not using the libpng supplied error
206handling and memory alloc/free functions.
207
208When libpng encounters an error, it expects to longjmp back
209to your routine. Therefore, you will need to call setjmp and pass
210your png_jmpbuf(png_ptr). If you read the file from different
211routines, you will need to update the jmpbuf field every time you enter
212a new routine that will call a png_*() function.
213
214See your documentation of setjmp/longjmp for your compiler for more
215information on setjmp/longjmp. See the discussion on libpng error
216handling in the Customizing Libpng section below for more information
217on the libpng error handling. If an error occurs, and libpng longjmp's
218back to your setjmp, you will want to call png_destroy_read_struct() to
219free any memory.
220
221 if (setjmp(png_jmpbuf(png_ptr)))
222 {
223 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr,
224 &end_info);
225 fclose(fp);
226 return (ERROR);
227 }
228
229If you would rather avoid the complexity of setjmp/longjmp issues,
230you can compile libpng with PNG_SETJMP_NOT_SUPPORTED, in which case
231errors will result in a call to PNG_ABORT() which defaults to abort().
232
233Now you need to set up the input code. The default for libpng is to
234use the C function fread(). If you use this, you will need to pass a
235valid FILE * in the function png_init_io(). Be sure that the file is
236opened in binary mode. If you wish to handle reading data in another
237way, you need not call the png_init_io() function, but you must then
238implement the libpng I/O methods discussed in the Customizing Libpng
239section below.
240
241 png_init_io(png_ptr, fp);
242
243If you had previously opened the file and read any of the signature from
244the beginning in order to see if this was a PNG file, you need to let
245libpng know that there are some bytes missing from the start of the file.
246
247 png_set_sig_bytes(png_ptr, number);
248
249Setting up callback code
250
251You can set up a callback function to handle any unknown chunks in the
252input stream. You must supply the function
253
254 read_chunk_callback(png_ptr ptr,
255 png_unknown_chunkp chunk);
256 {
257 /* The unknown chunk structure contains your
258 chunk data: */
259 png_byte name[5];
260 png_byte *data;
261 png_size_t size;
262 /* Note that libpng has already taken care of
263 the CRC handling */
264
265 /* put your code here. Return one of the
266 following: */
267
268 return (-n); /* chunk had an error */
269 return (0); /* did not recognize */
270 return (n); /* success */
271 }
272
273(You can give your function another name that you like instead of
274"read_chunk_callback")
275
276To inform libpng about your function, use
277
278 png_set_read_user_chunk_fn(png_ptr, user_chunk_ptr,
279 read_chunk_callback);
280
281This names not only the callback function, but also a user pointer that
282you can retrieve with
283
284 png_get_user_chunk_ptr(png_ptr);
285
286At this point, you can set up a callback function that will be
287called after each row has been read, which you can use to control
288a progress meter or the like. It's demonstrated in pngtest.c.
289You must supply a function
290
291 void read_row_callback(png_ptr ptr, png_uint_32 row,
292 int pass);
293 {
294 /* put your code here */
295 }
296
297(You can give it another name that you like instead of "read_row_callback")
298
299To inform libpng about your function, use
300
301 png_set_read_status_fn(png_ptr, read_row_callback);
302
303Unknown-chunk handling
304
305Now you get to set the way the library processes unknown chunks in the
306input PNG stream. Both known and unknown chunks will be read. Normal
307behavior is that known chunks will be parsed into information in
308various info_ptr members; unknown chunks will be discarded. To change
309this, you can call:
310
311 png_set_keep_unknown_chunks(png_ptr, info_ptr, keep,
312 chunk_list, num_chunks);
313 keep - 0: do not keep
314 1: keep only if safe-to-copy
315 2: keep even if unsafe-to-copy
316 chunk_list - list of chunks affected (a byte string,
317 five bytes per chunk, NULL or '\0' if
318 num_chunks is 0)
319 num_chunks - number of chunks affected; if 0, all
320 unknown chunks are affected
321
322Unknown chunks declared in this way will be saved as raw data onto a
323list of png_unknown_chunk structures. If a chunk that is normally
324known to libpng is named in the list, it will be handled as unknown,
325according to the "keep" directive. If a chunk is named in successive
326instances of png_set_keep_unknown_chunks(), the final instance will
327take precedence.
328
329The high-level read interface
330
331At this point there are two ways to proceed; through the high-level
332read interface, or through a sequence of low-level read operations.
333You can use the high-level interface if (a) you are willing to read
334the entire image into memory, and (b) the input transformations
335you want to do are limited to the following set:
336
337 PNG_TRANSFORM_IDENTITY No transformation
338 PNG_TRANSFORM_STRIP_16 Strip 16-bit samples to
339 8 bits
340 PNG_TRANSFORM_STRIP_ALPHA Discard the alpha channel
341 PNG_TRANSFORM_PACKING Expand 1, 2 and 4-bit
342 samples to bytes
343 PNG_TRANSFORM_PACKSWAP Change order of packed
344 pixels to LSB first
345 PNG_TRANSFORM_EXPAND Perform set_expand()
346 PNG_TRANSFORM_INVERT_MONO Invert monochrome images
347 PNG_TRANSFORM_SHIFT Normalize pixels to the
348 sBIT depth
349 PNG_TRANSFORM_BGR Flip RGB to BGR, RGBA
350 to BGRA
351 PNG_TRANSFORM_SWAP_ALPHA Flip RGBA to ARGB or GA
352 to AG
353 PNG_TRANSFORM_INVERT_ALPHA Change alpha from opacity
354 to transparency
355 PNG_TRANSFORM_SWAP_ENDIAN Byte-swap 16-bit samples
356
357(This excludes setting a background color, doing gamma transformation,
358dithering, and setting filler.) If this is the case, simply do this:
359
360 png_read_png(png_ptr, info_ptr, png_transforms, NULL)
361
362where png_transforms is an integer containing the logical OR of
363some set of transformation flags. This call is equivalent to png_read_info(),
364followed the set of transformations indicated by the transform mask,
365then png_read_image(), and finally png_read_end().
366
367(The final parameter of this call is not yet used. Someday it might point
368to transformation parameters required by some future input transform.)
369
370After you have called png_read_png(), you can retrieve the image data
371with
372
373 row_pointers = png_get_rows(png_ptr, info_ptr);
374
375where row_pointers is an array of pointers to the pixel data for each row:
376
377 png_bytep row_pointers[height];
378
379If you know your image size and pixel size ahead of time, you can allocate
380row_pointers prior to calling png_read_png() with
381
382 row_pointers = png_malloc(png_ptr,
383 height*sizeof(png_bytep));
384 for (int i=0; i<height, i++)
385 row_pointers[i]=png_malloc(png_ptr,
386 width*pixel_size);
387 png_set_rows(png_ptr, info_ptr, &row_pointers);
388
389Alternatively you could allocate your image in one big block and define
390row_pointers[i] to point into the proper places in your block.
391
392If you use png_set_rows(), the application is responsible for freeing
393row_pointers (and row_pointers[i], if they were separately allocated).
394
395If you don't allocate row_pointers ahead of time, png_read_png() will
396do it, and it'll be free'ed when you call png_destroy_*().
397
398The low-level read interface
399
400If you are going the low-level route, you are now ready to read all
401the file information up to the actual image data. You do this with a
402call to png_read_info().
403
404 png_read_info(png_ptr, info_ptr);
405
406This will process all chunks up to but not including the image data.
407
408Querying the info structure
409
410Functions are used to get the information from the info_ptr once it
411has been read. Note that these fields may not be completely filled
412in until png_read_end() has read the chunk data following the image.
413
414 png_get_IHDR(png_ptr, info_ptr, &width, &height,
415 &bit_depth, &color_type, &interlace_type,
416 &compression_type, &filter_method);
417
418 width - holds the width of the image
419 in pixels (up to 2^31).
420 height - holds the height of the image
421 in pixels (up to 2^31).
422 bit_depth - holds the bit depth of one of the
423 image channels. (valid values are
424 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and depend also on
425 the color_type. See also
426 significant bits (sBIT) below).
427 color_type - describes which color/alpha channels
428 are present.
429 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY
430 (bit depths 1, 2, 4, 8, 16)
431 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY_ALPHA
432 (bit depths 8, 16)
433 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_PALETTE
434 (bit depths 1, 2, 4, 8)
435 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB
436 (bit_depths 8, 16)
437 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA
438 (bit_depths 8, 16)
439
440 PNG_COLOR_MASK_PALETTE
441 PNG_COLOR_MASK_COLOR
442 PNG_COLOR_MASK_ALPHA
443
444 filter_method - (must be PNG_FILTER_TYPE_BASE
445 for PNG 1.0, and can also be
446 PNG_INTRAPIXEL_DIFFERENCING if
447 the PNG datastream is embedded in
448 a MNG-1.0 datastream)
449 compression_type - (must be PNG_COMPRESSION_TYPE_BASE
450 for PNG 1.0)
451 interlace_type - (PNG_INTERLACE_NONE or
452 PNG_INTERLACE_ADAM7)
453 Any or all of interlace_type, compression_type, of
454 filter_method can be NULL if you are
455 not interested in their values.
456
457 channels = png_get_channels(png_ptr, info_ptr);
458 channels - number of channels of info for the
459 color type (valid values are 1 (GRAY,
460 PALETTE), 2 (GRAY_ALPHA), 3 (RGB),
461 4 (RGB_ALPHA or RGB + filler byte))
462 rowbytes = png_get_rowbytes(png_ptr, info_ptr);
463 rowbytes - number of bytes needed to hold a row
464
465 signature = png_get_signature(png_ptr, info_ptr);
466 signature - holds the signature read from the
467 file (if any). The data is kept in
468 the same offset it would be if the
469 whole signature were read (i.e. if an
470 application had already read in 4
471 bytes of signature before starting
472 libpng, the remaining 4 bytes would
473 be in signature[4] through signature[7]
474 (see png_set_sig_bytes())).
475
476
477 width = png_get_image_width(png_ptr,
478 info_ptr);
479 height = png_get_image_height(png_ptr,
480 info_ptr);
481 bit_depth = png_get_bit_depth(png_ptr,
482 info_ptr);
483 color_type = png_get_color_type(png_ptr,
484 info_ptr);
485 filter_method = png_get_filter_type(png_ptr,
486 info_ptr);
487 compression_type = png_get_compression_type(png_ptr,
488 info_ptr);
489 interlace_type = png_get_interlace_type(png_ptr,
490 info_ptr);
491
492
493These are also important, but their validity depends on whether the chunk
494has been read. The png_get_valid(png_ptr, info_ptr, PNG_INFO_<chunk>) and
495png_get_<chunk>(png_ptr, info_ptr, ...) functions return non-zero if the
496data has been read, or zero if it is missing. The parameters to the
497png_get_<chunk> are set directly if they are simple data types, or a pointer
498into the info_ptr is returned for any complex types.
499
500 png_get_PLTE(png_ptr, info_ptr, &palette,
501 &num_palette);
502 palette - the palette for the file
503 (array of png_color)
504 num_palette - number of entries in the palette
505
506 png_get_gAMA(png_ptr, info_ptr, &gamma);
507 gamma - the gamma the file is written
508 at (PNG_INFO_gAMA)
509
510 png_get_sRGB(png_ptr, info_ptr, &srgb_intent);
511 srgb_intent - the rendering intent (PNG_INFO_sRGB)
512 The presence of the sRGB chunk
513 means that the pixel data is in the
514 sRGB color space. This chunk also
515 implies specific values of gAMA and
516 cHRM.
517
518 png_get_iCCP(png_ptr, info_ptr, &name,
519 &compression_type, &profile, &proflen);
520 name - The profile name.
521 compression - The compression type; always
522 PNG_COMPRESSION_TYPE_BASE for PNG 1.0.
523 You may give NULL to this argument to
524 ignore it.
525 profile - International Color Consortium color
526 profile data. May contain NULs.
527 proflen - length of profile data in bytes.
528
529 png_get_sBIT(png_ptr, info_ptr, &sig_bit);
530 sig_bit - the number of significant bits for
531 (PNG_INFO_sBIT) each of the gray,
532 red, green, and blue channels,
533 whichever are appropriate for the
534 given color type (png_color_16)
535
536 png_get_tRNS(png_ptr, info_ptr, &trans, &num_trans,
537 &trans_values);
538 trans - array of transparent entries for
539 palette (PNG_INFO_tRNS)
540 trans_values - graylevel or color sample values of
541 the single transparent color for
542 non-paletted images (PNG_INFO_tRNS)
543 num_trans - number of transparent entries
544 (PNG_INFO_tRNS)
545
546 png_get_hIST(png_ptr, info_ptr, &hist);
547 (PNG_INFO_hIST)
548 hist - histogram of palette (array of
549 png_uint_16)
550
551 png_get_tIME(png_ptr, info_ptr, &mod_time);
552 mod_time - time image was last modified
553 (PNG_VALID_tIME)
554
555 png_get_bKGD(png_ptr, info_ptr, &background);
556 background - background color (PNG_VALID_bKGD)
557 valid 16-bit red, green and blue
558 values, regardless of color_type
559
560 num_comments = png_get_text(png_ptr, info_ptr,
561 &text_ptr, &num_text);
562 num_comments - number of comments
563 text_ptr - array of png_text holding image
564 comments
565 text_ptr[i].compression - type of compression used
566 on "text" PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_NONE
567 PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt
568 PNG_ITXT_COMPRESSION_NONE
569 PNG_ITXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt
570 text_ptr[i].key - keyword for comment. Must contain
571 1-79 characters.
572 text_ptr[i].text - text comments for current
573 keyword. Can be empty.
574 text_ptr[i].text_length - length of text string,
575 after decompression, 0 for iTXt
576 text_ptr[i].itxt_length - length of itxt string,
577 after decompression, 0 for tEXt/zTXt
578 text_ptr[i].lang - language of comment (empty
579 string for unknown).
580 text_ptr[i].lang_key - keyword in UTF-8
581 (empty string for unknown).
582 num_text - number of comments (same as
583 num_comments; you can put NULL here
584 to avoid the duplication)
585 Note while png_set_text() will accept text, language,
586 and translated keywords that can be NULL pointers, the
587 structure returned by png_get_text will always contain
588 regular zero-terminated C strings. They might be
589 empty strings but they will never be NULL pointers.
590
591 num_spalettes = png_get_sPLT(png_ptr, info_ptr,
592 &palette_ptr);
593 palette_ptr - array of palette structures holding
594 contents of one or more sPLT chunks
595 read.
596 num_spalettes - number of sPLT chunks read.
597
598 png_get_oFFs(png_ptr, info_ptr, &offset_x, &offset_y,
599 &unit_type);
600 offset_x - positive offset from the left edge
601 of the screen
602 offset_y - positive offset from the top edge
603 of the screen
604 unit_type - PNG_OFFSET_PIXEL, PNG_OFFSET_MICROMETER
605
606 png_get_pHYs(png_ptr, info_ptr, &res_x, &res_y,
607 &unit_type);
608 res_x - pixels/unit physical resolution in
609 x direction
610 res_y - pixels/unit physical resolution in
611 x direction
612 unit_type - PNG_RESOLUTION_UNKNOWN,
613 PNG_RESOLUTION_METER
614
615 png_get_sCAL(png_ptr, info_ptr, &unit, &width,
616 &height)
617 unit - physical scale units (an integer)
618 width - width of a pixel in physical scale units
619 height - height of a pixel in physical scale units
620 (width and height are doubles)
621
622 png_get_sCAL_s(png_ptr, info_ptr, &unit, &width,
623 &height)
624 unit - physical scale units (an integer)
625 width - width of a pixel in physical scale units
626 height - height of a pixel in physical scale units
627 (width and height are strings like "2.54")
628
629 num_unknown_chunks = png_get_unknown_chunks(png_ptr,
630 info_ptr, &unknowns)
631 unknowns - array of png_unknown_chunk
632 structures holding unknown chunks
633 unknowns[i].name - name of unknown chunk
634 unknowns[i].data - data of unknown chunk
635 unknowns[i].size - size of unknown chunk's data
636 unknowns[i].location - position of chunk in file
637
638 The value of "i" corresponds to the order in which the
639 chunks were read from the PNG file or inserted with the
640 png_set_unknown_chunks() function.
641
642The data from the pHYs chunk can be retrieved in several convenient
643forms:
644
645 res_x = png_get_x_pixels_per_meter(png_ptr,
646 info_ptr)
647 res_y = png_get_y_pixels_per_meter(png_ptr,
648 info_ptr)
649 res_x_and_y = png_get_pixels_per_meter(png_ptr,
650 info_ptr)
651 res_x = png_get_x_pixels_per_inch(png_ptr,
652 info_ptr)
653 res_y = png_get_y_pixels_per_inch(png_ptr,
654 info_ptr)
655 res_x_and_y = png_get_pixels_per_inch(png_ptr,
656 info_ptr)
657 aspect_ratio = png_get_pixel_aspect_ratio(png_ptr,
658 info_ptr)
659
660 (Each of these returns 0 [signifying "unknown"] if
661 the data is not present or if res_x is 0;
662 res_x_and_y is 0 if res_x != res_y)
663
664The data from the oFFs chunk can be retrieved in several convenient
665forms:
666
667 x_offset = png_get_x_offset_microns(png_ptr, info_ptr);
668 y_offset = png_get_y_offset_microns(png_ptr, info_ptr);
669 x_offset = png_get_x_offset_inches(png_ptr, info_ptr);
670 y_offset = png_get_y_offset_inches(png_ptr, info_ptr);
671
672 (Each of these returns 0 [signifying "unknown" if both
673 x and y are 0] if the data is not present or if the
674 chunk is present but the unit is the pixel)
675
676For more information, see the png_info definition in png.h and the
677PNG specification for chunk contents. Be careful with trusting
678rowbytes, as some of the transformations could increase the space
679needed to hold a row (expand, filler, gray_to_rgb, etc.).
680See png_read_update_info(), below.
681
682A quick word about text_ptr and num_text. PNG stores comments in
683keyword/text pairs, one pair per chunk, with no limit on the number
684of text chunks, and a 2^31 byte limit on their size. While there are
685suggested keywords, there is no requirement to restrict the use to these
686strings. It is strongly suggested that keywords and text be sensible
687to humans (that's the point), so don't use abbreviations. Non-printing
688symbols are not allowed. See the PNG specification for more details.
689There is also no requirement to have text after the keyword.
690
691Keywords should be limited to 79 Latin-1 characters without leading or
692trailing spaces, but non-consecutive spaces are allowed within the
693keyword. It is possible to have the same keyword any number of times.
694The text_ptr is an array of png_text structures, each holding a
695pointer to a language string, a pointer to a keyword and a pointer to
696a text string. The text string, language code, and translated
697keyword may be empty or NULL pointers. The keyword/text
698pairs are put into the array in the order that they are received.
699However, some or all of the text chunks may be after the image, so, to
700make sure you have read all the text chunks, don't mess with these
701until after you read the stuff after the image. This will be
702mentioned again below in the discussion that goes with png_read_end().
703
704Input transformations
705
706After you've read the header information, you can set up the library
707to handle any special transformations of the image data. The various
708ways to transform the data will be described in the order that they
709should occur. This is important, as some of these change the color
710type and/or bit depth of the data, and some others only work on
711certain color types and bit depths. Even though each transformation
712checks to see if it has data that it can do something with, you should
713make sure to only enable a transformation if it will be valid for the
714data. For example, don't swap red and blue on grayscale data.
715
716The colors used for the background and transparency values should be
717supplied in the same format/depth as the current image data. They
718are stored in the same format/depth as the image data in a bKGD or tRNS
719chunk, so this is what libpng expects for this data. The colors are
720transformed to keep in sync with the image data when an application
721calls the png_read_update_info() routine (see below).
722
723Data will be decoded into the supplied row buffers packed into bytes
724unless the library has been told to transform it into another format.
725For example, 4 bit/pixel paletted or grayscale data will be returned
7262 pixels/byte with the leftmost pixel in the high-order bits of the
727byte, unless png_set_packing() is called. 8-bit RGB data will be stored
728in RGB RGB RGB format unless png_set_filler() is called to insert filler
729bytes, either before or after each RGB triplet. 16-bit RGB data will
730be returned RRGGBB RRGGBB, with the most significant byte of the color
731value first, unless png_set_strip_16() is called to transform it to
732regular RGB RGB triplets, or png_set_filler() is called to insert
733filler bytes, either before or after each RRGGBB triplet. Similarly,
7348-bit or 16-bit grayscale data can be modified with png_set_filler()
735or png_set_strip_16().
736
737The following code transforms grayscale images of less than 8 to 8 bits,
738changes paletted images to RGB, and adds a full alpha channel if there is
739transparency information in a tRNS chunk. This is most useful on
740grayscale images with bit depths of 2 or 4 or if there is a multiple-image
741viewing application that wishes to treat all images in the same way.
742
743 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_PALETTE)
744 png_set_palette_to_rgb(png_ptr);
745
746 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY &&
747 bit_depth < 8) png_set_gray_1_2_4_to_8(png_ptr);
748
749 if (png_get_valid(png_ptr, info_ptr,
750 PNG_INFO_tRNS)) png_set_tRNS_to_alpha(png_ptr);
751
752These three functions are actually aliases for png_set_expand(), added
753in libpng version 1.0.4, with the function names expanded to improve code
754readability. In some future version they may actually do different
755things.
756
757PNG can have files with 16 bits per channel. If you only can handle
7588 bits per channel, this will strip the pixels down to 8 bit.
759
760 if (bit_depth == 16)
761 png_set_strip_16(png_ptr);
762
763If, for some reason, you don't need the alpha channel on an image,
764and you want to remove it rather than combining it with the background
765(but the image author certainly had in mind that you *would* combine
766it with the background, so that's what you should probably do):
767
768 if (color_type & PNG_COLOR_MASK_ALPHA)
769 png_set_strip_alpha(png_ptr);
770
771In PNG files, the alpha channel in an image
772is the level of opacity. If you need the alpha channel in an image to
773be the level of transparency instead of opacity, you can invert the
774alpha channel (or the tRNS chunk data) after it's read, so that 0 is
775fully opaque and 255 (in 8-bit or paletted images) or 65535 (in 16-bit
776images) is fully transparent, with
777
778 png_set_invert_alpha(png_ptr);
779
780PNG files pack pixels of bit depths 1, 2, and 4 into bytes as small as
781they can, resulting in, for example, 8 pixels per byte for 1 bit
782files. This code expands to 1 pixel per byte without changing the
783values of the pixels:
784
785 if (bit_depth < 8)
786 png_set_packing(png_ptr);
787
788PNG files have possible bit depths of 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16. All pixels
789stored in a PNG image have been "scaled" or "shifted" up to the next
790higher possible bit depth (e.g. from 5 bits/sample in the range [0,31] to
7918 bits/sample in the range [0, 255]). However, it is also possible to
792convert the PNG pixel data back to the original bit depth of the image.
793This call reduces the pixels back down to the original bit depth:
794
795 png_color_8p sig_bit;
796
797 if (png_get_sBIT(png_ptr, info_ptr, &sig_bit))
798 png_set_shift(png_ptr, sig_bit);
799
800PNG files store 3-color pixels in red, green, blue order. This code
801changes the storage of the pixels to blue, green, red:
802
803 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB ||
804 color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA)
805 png_set_bgr(png_ptr);
806
807PNG files store RGB pixels packed into 3 or 6 bytes. This code expands them
808into 4 or 8 bytes for windowing systems that need them in this format:
809
810 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB)
811 png_set_filler(png_ptr, filler, PNG_FILLER_BEFORE);
812
813where "filler" is the 8 or 16-bit number to fill with, and the location is
814either PNG_FILLER_BEFORE or PNG_FILLER_AFTER, depending upon whether
815you want the filler before the RGB or after. This transformation
816does not affect images that already have full alpha channels. To add an
817opaque alpha channel, use filler=0xff or 0xffff and PNG_FILLER_AFTER which
818will generate RGBA pixels.
819
820If you are reading an image with an alpha channel, and you need the
821data as ARGB instead of the normal PNG format RGBA:
822
823 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA)
824 png_set_swap_alpha(png_ptr);
825
826For some uses, you may want a grayscale image to be represented as
827RGB. This code will do that conversion:
828
829 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY ||
830 color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY_ALPHA)
831 png_set_gray_to_rgb(png_ptr);
832
833Conversely, you can convert an RGB or RGBA image to grayscale or grayscale
834with alpha.
835
836 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB ||
837 color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA)
838 png_set_rgb_to_gray_fixed(png_ptr, error_action,
839 int red_weight, int green_weight);
840
841 error_action = 1: silently do the conversion
842 error_action = 2: issue a warning if the original
843 image has any pixel where
844 red != green or red != blue
845 error_action = 3: issue an error and abort the
846 conversion if the original
847 image has any pixel where
848 red != green or red != blue
849
850 red_weight: weight of red component times 100000
851 green_weight: weight of green component times 100000
852 If either weight is negative, default
853 weights (21268, 71514) are used.
854
855If you have set error_action = 1 or 2, you can
856later check whether the image really was gray, after processing
857the image rows, with the png_get_rgb_to_gray_status(png_ptr) function.
858It will return a png_byte that is zero if the image was gray or
8591 if there were any non-gray pixels. bKGD and sBIT data
860will be silently converted to grayscale, using the green channel
861data, regardless of the error_action setting.
862
863With red_weight+green_weight<=100000,
864the normalized graylevel is computed:
865
866 int rw = red_weight * 65536;
867 int gw = green_weight * 65536;
868 int bw = 65536 - (rw + gw);
869 gray = (rw*red + gw*green + bw*blue)/65536;
870
871The default values approximate those recommended in the Charles
872Poynton's Color FAQ, <http://www.inforamp.net/~poynton/>
873Copyright (c) 1998-01-04 Charles Poynton poynton@inforamp.net
874
875 Y = 0.212671 * R + 0.715160 * G + 0.072169 * B
876
877Libpng approximates this with
878
879 Y = 0.21268 * R + 0.7151 * G + 0.07217 * B
880
881which can be expressed with integers as
882
883 Y = (6969 * R + 23434 * G + 2365 * B)/32768
884
885The calculation is done in a linear colorspace, if the image gamma
886is known.
887
888If you have a grayscale and you are using png_set_expand_depth(),
889png_set_expand(), or png_set_gray_to_rgb to change to truecolor or to
890a higher bit-depth, you must either supply the background color as a gray
891value at the original file bit-depth (need_expand = 1) or else supply the
892background color as an RGB triplet at the final, expanded bit depth
893(need_expand = 0). Similarly, if you are reading a paletted image, you
894must either supply the background color as a palette index (need_expand = 1)
895or as an RGB triplet that may or may not be in the palette (need_expand = 0).
896
897 png_color_16 my_background;
898 png_color_16p image_background;
899
900 if (png_get_bKGD(png_ptr, info_ptr, &image_background))
901 png_set_background(png_ptr, image_background,
902 PNG_BACKGROUND_GAMMA_FILE, 1, 1.0);
903 else
904 png_set_background(png_ptr, &my_background,
905 PNG_BACKGROUND_GAMMA_SCREEN, 0, 1.0);
906
907The png_set_background() function tells libpng to composite images
908with alpha or simple transparency against the supplied background
909color. If the PNG file contains a bKGD chunk (PNG_INFO_bKGD valid),
910you may use this color, or supply another color more suitable for
911the current display (e.g., the background color from a web page). You
912need to tell libpng whether the color is in the gamma space of the
913display (PNG_BACKGROUND_GAMMA_SCREEN for colors you supply), the file
914(PNG_BACKGROUND_GAMMA_FILE for colors from the bKGD chunk), or one
915that is neither of these gammas (PNG_BACKGROUND_GAMMA_UNIQUE - I don't
916know why anyone would use this, but it's here).
917
918To properly display PNG images on any kind of system, the application needs
919to know what the display gamma is. Ideally, the user will know this, and
920the application will allow them to set it. One method of allowing the user
921to set the display gamma separately for each system is to check for a
922SCREEN_GAMMA or DISPLAY_GAMMA environment variable, which will hopefully be
923correctly set.
924
925Note that display_gamma is the overall gamma correction required to produce
926pleasing results, which depends on the lighting conditions in the surrounding
927environment. In a dim or brightly lit room, no compensation other than
928the physical gamma exponent of the monitor is needed, while in a dark room
929a slightly smaller exponent is better.
930
931 double gamma, screen_gamma;
932
933 if (/* We have a user-defined screen
934 gamma value */)
935 {
936 screen_gamma = user_defined_screen_gamma;
937 }
938 /* One way that applications can share the same
939 screen gamma value */
940 else if ((gamma_str = getenv("SCREEN_GAMMA"))
941 != NULL)
942 {
943 screen_gamma = (double)atof(gamma_str);
944 }
945 /* If we don't have another value */
946 else
947 {
948 screen_gamma = 2.2; /* A good guess for a
949 PC monitor in a bright office or a dim room */
950 screen_gamma = 2.0; /* A good guess for a
951 PC monitor in a dark room */
952 screen_gamma = 1.7 or 1.0; /* A good
953 guess for Mac systems */
954 }
955
956The png_set_gamma() function handles gamma transformations of the data.
957Pass both the file gamma and the current screen_gamma. If the file does
958not have a gamma value, you can pass one anyway if you have an idea what
959it is (usually 0.45455 is a good guess for GIF images on PCs). Note
960that file gammas are inverted from screen gammas. See the discussions
961on gamma in the PNG specification for an excellent description of what
962gamma is, and why all applications should support it. It is strongly
963recommended that PNG viewers support gamma correction.
964
965 if (png_get_gAMA(png_ptr, info_ptr, &gamma))
966 png_set_gamma(png_ptr, screen_gamma, gamma);
967 else
968 png_set_gamma(png_ptr, screen_gamma, 0.45455);
969
970If you need to reduce an RGB file to a paletted file, or if a paletted
971file has more entries then will fit on your screen, png_set_dither()
972will do that. Note that this is a simple match dither that merely
973finds the closest color available. This should work fairly well with
974optimized palettes, and fairly badly with linear color cubes. If you
975pass a palette that is larger then maximum_colors, the file will
976reduce the number of colors in the palette so it will fit into
977maximum_colors. If there is a histogram, it will use it to make
978more intelligent choices when reducing the palette. If there is no
979histogram, it may not do as good a job.
980
981 if (color_type & PNG_COLOR_MASK_COLOR)
982 {
983 if (png_get_valid(png_ptr, info_ptr,
984 PNG_INFO_PLTE))
985 {
986 png_uint_16p histogram = NULL;
987
988 png_get_hIST(png_ptr, info_ptr,
989 &histogram);
990 png_set_dither(png_ptr, palette, num_palette,
991 max_screen_colors, histogram, 1);
992 }
993 else
994 {
995 png_color std_color_cube[MAX_SCREEN_COLORS] =
996 { ... colors ... };
997
998 png_set_dither(png_ptr, std_color_cube,
999 MAX_SCREEN_COLORS, MAX_SCREEN_COLORS,
1000 NULL,0);
1001 }
1002 }
1003
1004PNG files describe monochrome as black being zero and white being one.
1005The following code will reverse this (make black be one and white be
1006zero):
1007
1008 if (bit_depth == 1 && color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY)
1009 png_set_invert_mono(png_ptr);
1010
1011This function can also be used to invert grayscale and gray-alpha images:
1012
1013 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY ||
1014 color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY_ALPHA)
1015 png_set_invert_mono(png_ptr);
1016
1017PNG files store 16 bit pixels in network byte order (big-endian,
1018ie. most significant bits first). This code changes the storage to the
1019other way (little-endian, i.e. least significant bits first, the
1020way PCs store them):
1021
1022 if (bit_depth == 16)
1023 png_set_swap(png_ptr);
1024
1025If you are using packed-pixel images (1, 2, or 4 bits/pixel), and you
1026need to change the order the pixels are packed into bytes, you can use:
1027
1028 if (bit_depth < 8)
1029 png_set_packswap(png_ptr);
1030
1031Finally, you can write your own transformation function if none of
1032the existing ones meets your needs. This is done by setting a callback
1033with
1034
1035 png_set_read_user_transform_fn(png_ptr,
1036 read_transform_fn);
1037
1038You must supply the function
1039
1040 void read_transform_fn(png_ptr ptr, row_info_ptr
1041 row_info, png_bytep data)
1042
1043See pngtest.c for a working example. Your function will be called
1044after all of the other transformations have been processed.
1045
1046You can also set up a pointer to a user structure for use by your
1047callback function, and you can inform libpng that your transform
1048function will change the number of channels or bit depth with the
1049function
1050
1051 png_set_user_transform_info(png_ptr, user_ptr,
1052 user_depth, user_channels);
1053
1054The user's application, not libpng, is responsible for allocating and
1055freeing any memory required for the user structure.
1056
1057You can retrieve the pointer via the function
1058png_get_user_transform_ptr(). For example:
1059
1060 voidp read_user_transform_ptr =
1061 png_get_user_transform_ptr(png_ptr);
1062
1063The last thing to handle is interlacing; this is covered in detail below,
1064but you must call the function here if you want libpng to handle expansion
1065of the interlaced image.
1066
1067 number_of_passes = png_set_interlace_handling(png_ptr);
1068
1069After setting the transformations, libpng can update your png_info
1070structure to reflect any transformations you've requested with this
1071call. This is most useful to update the info structure's rowbytes
1072field so you can use it to allocate your image memory. This function
1073will also update your palette with the correct screen_gamma and
1074background if these have been given with the calls above.
1075
1076 png_read_update_info(png_ptr, info_ptr);
1077
1078After you call png_read_update_info(), you can allocate any
1079memory you need to hold the image. The row data is simply
1080raw byte data for all forms of images. As the actual allocation
1081varies among applications, no example will be given. If you
1082are allocating one large chunk, you will need to build an
1083array of pointers to each row, as it will be needed for some
1084of the functions below.
1085
1086Reading image data
1087
1088After you've allocated memory, you can read the image data.
1089The simplest way to do this is in one function call. If you are
1090allocating enough memory to hold the whole image, you can just
1091call png_read_image() and libpng will read in all the image data
1092and put it in the memory area supplied. You will need to pass in
1093an array of pointers to each row.
1094
1095This function automatically handles interlacing, so you don't need
1096to call png_set_interlace_handling() or call this function multiple
1097times, or any of that other stuff necessary with png_read_rows().
1098
1099 png_read_image(png_ptr, row_pointers);
1100
1101where row_pointers is:
1102
1103 png_bytep row_pointers[height];
1104
1105You can point to void or char or whatever you use for pixels.
1106
1107If you don't want to read in the whole image at once, you can
1108use png_read_rows() instead. If there is no interlacing (check
1109interlace_type == PNG_INTERLACE_NONE), this is simple:
1110
1111 png_read_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers, NULL,
1112 number_of_rows);
1113
1114where row_pointers is the same as in the png_read_image() call.
1115
1116If you are doing this just one row at a time, you can do this with
1117a single row_pointer instead of an array of row_pointers:
1118
1119 png_bytep row_pointer = row;
1120 png_read_row(png_ptr, row_pointer, NULL);
1121
1122If the file is interlaced (interlace_type != 0 in the IHDR chunk), things
1123get somewhat harder. The only current (PNG Specification version 1.2)
1124interlacing type for PNG is (interlace_type == PNG_INTERLACE_ADAM7)
1125is a somewhat complicated 2D interlace scheme, known as Adam7, that
1126breaks down an image into seven smaller images of varying size, based
1127on an 8x8 grid.
1128
1129libpng can fill out those images or it can give them to you "as is".
1130If you want them filled out, there are two ways to do that. The one
1131mentioned in the PNG specification is to expand each pixel to cover
1132those pixels that have not been read yet (the "rectangle" method).
1133This results in a blocky image for the first pass, which gradually
1134smooths out as more pixels are read. The other method is the "sparkle"
1135method, where pixels are drawn only in their final locations, with the
1136rest of the image remaining whatever colors they were initialized to
1137before the start of the read. The first method usually looks better,
1138but tends to be slower, as there are more pixels to put in the rows.
1139
1140If you don't want libpng to handle the interlacing details, just call
1141png_read_rows() seven times to read in all seven images. Each of the
1142images is a valid image by itself, or they can all be combined on an
11438x8 grid to form a single image (although if you intend to combine them
1144you would be far better off using the libpng interlace handling).
1145
1146The first pass will return an image 1/8 as wide as the entire image
1147(every 8th column starting in column 0) and 1/8 as high as the original
1148(every 8th row starting in row 0), the second will be 1/8 as wide
1149(starting in column 4) and 1/8 as high (also starting in row 0). The
1150third pass will be 1/4 as wide (every 4th pixel starting in column 0) and
11511/8 as high (every 8th row starting in row 4), and the fourth pass will
1152be 1/4 as wide and 1/4 as high (every 4th column starting in column 2,
1153and every 4th row starting in row 0). The fifth pass will return an
1154image 1/2 as wide, and 1/4 as high (starting at column 0 and row 2),
1155while the sixth pass will be 1/2 as wide and 1/2 as high as the original
1156(starting in column 1 and row 0). The seventh and final pass will be as
1157wide as the original, and 1/2 as high, containing all of the odd
1158numbered scanlines. Phew!
1159
1160If you want libpng to expand the images, call this before calling
1161png_start_read_image() or png_read_update_info():
1162
1163 if (interlace_type == PNG_INTERLACE_ADAM7)
1164 number_of_passes
1165 = png_set_interlace_handling(png_ptr);
1166
1167This will return the number of passes needed. Currently, this
1168is seven, but may change if another interlace type is added.
1169This function can be called even if the file is not interlaced,
1170where it will return one pass.
1171
1172If you are not going to display the image after each pass, but are
1173going to wait until the entire image is read in, use the sparkle
1174effect. This effect is faster and the end result of either method
1175is exactly the same. If you are planning on displaying the image
1176after each pass, the "rectangle" effect is generally considered the
1177better looking one.
1178
1179If you only want the "sparkle" effect, just call png_read_rows() as
1180normal, with the third parameter NULL. Make sure you make pass over
1181the image number_of_passes times, and you don't change the data in the
1182rows between calls. You can change the locations of the data, just
1183not the data. Each pass only writes the pixels appropriate for that
1184pass, and assumes the data from previous passes is still valid.
1185
1186 png_read_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers, NULL,
1187 number_of_rows);
1188
1189If you only want the first effect (the rectangles), do the same as
1190before except pass the row buffer in the third parameter, and leave
1191the second parameter NULL.
1192
1193 png_read_rows(png_ptr, NULL, row_pointers,
1194 number_of_rows);
1195
1196Finishing a sequential read
1197
1198After you are finished reading the image through either the high- or
1199low-level interfaces, you can finish reading the file. If you are
1200interested in comments or time, which may be stored either before or
1201after the image data, you should pass the separate png_info struct if
1202you want to keep the comments from before and after the image
1203separate. If you are not interested, you can pass NULL.
1204
1205 png_read_end(png_ptr, end_info);
1206
1207When you are done, you can free all memory allocated by libpng like this:
1208
1209 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr,
1210 &end_info);
1211
1212It is also possible to individually free the info_ptr members that
1213point to libpng-allocated storage with the following function:
1214
1215 png_free_data(png_ptr, info_ptr, mask, seq)
1216 mask - identifies data to be freed, a mask
1217 containing the logical OR of one or
1218 more of
1219 PNG_FREE_PLTE, PNG_FREE_TRNS,
1220 PNG_FREE_HIST, PNG_FREE_ICCP,
1221 PNG_FREE_PCAL, PNG_FREE_ROWS,
1222 PNG_FREE_SCAL, PNG_FREE_SPLT,
1223 PNG_FREE_TEXT, PNG_FREE_UNKN,
1224 or simply PNG_FREE_ALL
1225 seq - sequence number of item to be freed
1226 (-1 for all items)
1227
1228This function may be safely called when the relevant storage has
1229already been freed, or has not yet been allocated, or was allocated
1230by the user and not by libpng, and will in those
1231cases do nothing. The "seq" parameter is ignored if only one item
1232of the selected data type, such as PLTE, is allowed. If "seq" is not
1233-1, and multiple items are allowed for the data type identified in
1234the mask, such as text or sPLT, only the n'th item in the structure
1235is freed, where n is "seq".
1236
1237The default behavior is only to free data that was allocated internally
1238by libpng. This can be changed, so that libpng will not free the data,
1239or so that it will free data that was allocated by the user with png_malloc()
1240or png_zalloc() and passed in via a png_set_*() function, with
1241
1242 png_data_freer(png_ptr, info_ptr, freer, mask)
1243 mask - which data elements are affected
1244 same choices as in png_free_data()
1245 freer - one of
1246 PNG_DESTROY_WILL_FREE_DATA
1247 PNG_SET_WILL_FREE_DATA
1248 PNG_USER_WILL_FREE_DATA
1249
1250This function only affects data that has already been allocated.
1251You can call this function after reading the PNG data but before calling
1252any png_set_*() functions, to control whether the user or the png_set_*()
1253function is responsible for freeing any existing data that might be present,
1254and again after the png_set_*() functions to control whether the user
1255or png_destroy_*() is supposed to free the data. When the user assumes
1256responsibility for libpng-allocated data, the application must use
1257png_free() to free it, and when the user transfers responsibility to libpng
1258for data that the user has allocated, the user must have used png_malloc()
1259or png_zalloc() to allocate it.
1260
1261If you allocated your row_pointers in a single block, as suggested above in
1262the description of the high level read interface, you must not transfer
1263responsibility for freeing it to the png_set_rows or png_read_destroy function,
1264because they would also try to free the individual row_pointers[i].
1265
1266If you allocated text_ptr.text, text_ptr.lang, and text_ptr.translated_keyword
1267separately, do not transfer responsibility for freeing text_ptr to libpng,
1268because when libpng fills a png_text structure it combines these members with
1269the key member, and png_free_data() will free only text_ptr.key. Similarly,
1270if you transfer responsibility for free'ing text_ptr from libpng to your
1271application, your application must not separately free those members.
1272
1273The png_free_data() function will turn off the "valid" flag for anything
1274it frees. If you need to turn the flag off for a chunk that was freed by your
1275application instead of by libpng, you can use
1276
1277 png_set_invalid(png_ptr, info_ptr, mask);
1278 mask - identifies the chunks to be made invalid,
1279 containing the logical OR of one or
1280 more of
1281 PNG_INFO_gAMA, PNG_INFO_sBIT,
1282 PNG_INFO_cHRM, PNG_INFO_PLTE,
1283 PNG_INFO_tRNS, PNG_INFO_bKGD,
1284 PNG_INFO_hIST, PNG_INFO_pHYs,
1285 PNG_INFO_oFFs, PNG_INFO_tIME,
1286 PNG_INFO_pCAL, PNG_INFO_sRGB,
1287 PNG_INFO_iCCP, PNG_INFO_sPLT,
1288 PNG_INFO_sCAL, PNG_INFO_IDAT
1289
1290For a more compact example of reading a PNG image, see the file example.c.
1291
1292Reading PNG files progressively
1293
1294The progressive reader is slightly different then the non-progressive
1295reader. Instead of calling png_read_info(), png_read_rows(), and
1296png_read_end(), you make one call to png_process_data(), which calls
1297callbacks when it has the info, a row, or the end of the image. You
1298set up these callbacks with png_set_progressive_read_fn(). You don't
1299have to worry about the input/output functions of libpng, as you are
1300giving the library the data directly in png_process_data(). I will
1301assume that you have read the section on reading PNG files above,
1302so I will only highlight the differences (although I will show
1303all of the code).
1304
1305png_structp png_ptr;
1306png_infop info_ptr;
1307
1308 /* An example code fragment of how you would
1309 initialize the progressive reader in your
1310 application. */
1311 int
1312 initialize_png_reader()
1313 {
1314 png_ptr = png_create_read_struct
1315 (PNG_LIBPNG_VER_STRING, (png_voidp)user_error_ptr,
1316 user_error_fn, user_warning_fn);
1317 if (!png_ptr)
1318 return (ERROR);
1319 info_ptr = png_create_info_struct(png_ptr);
1320 if (!info_ptr)
1321 {
1322 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, (png_infopp)NULL,
1323 (png_infopp)NULL);
1324 return (ERROR);
1325 }
1326
1327 if (setjmp(png_jmpbuf(png_ptr)))
1328 {
1329 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr,
1330 (png_infopp)NULL);
1331 return (ERROR);
1332 }
1333
1334 /* This one's new. You can provide functions
1335 to be called when the header info is valid,
1336 when each row is completed, and when the image
1337 is finished. If you aren't using all functions,
1338 you can specify NULL parameters. Even when all
1339 three functions are NULL, you need to call
1340 png_set_progressive_read_fn(). You can use
1341 any struct as the user_ptr (cast to a void pointer
1342 for the function call), and retrieve the pointer
1343 from inside the callbacks using the function
1344
1345 png_get_progressive_ptr(png_ptr);
1346
1347 which will return a void pointer, which you have
1348 to cast appropriately.
1349 */
1350 png_set_progressive_read_fn(png_ptr, (void *)user_ptr,
1351 info_callback, row_callback, end_callback);
1352
1353 return 0;
1354 }
1355
1356 /* A code fragment that you call as you receive blocks
1357 of data */
1358 int
1359 process_data(png_bytep buffer, png_uint_32 length)
1360 {
1361 if (setjmp(png_jmpbuf(png_ptr)))
1362 {
1363 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr,
1364 (png_infopp)NULL);
1365 return (ERROR);
1366 }
1367
1368 /* This one's new also. Simply give it a chunk
1369 of data from the file stream (in order, of
1370 course). On machines with segmented memory
1371 models machines, don't give it any more than
1372 64K. The library seems to run fine with sizes
1373 of 4K. Although you can give it much less if
1374 necessary (I assume you can give it chunks of
1375 1 byte, I haven't tried less then 256 bytes
1376 yet). When this function returns, you may
1377 want to display any rows that were generated
1378 in the row callback if you don't already do
1379 so there.
1380 */
1381 png_process_data(png_ptr, info_ptr, buffer, length);
1382 return 0;
1383 }
1384
1385 /* This function is called (as set by
1386 png_set_progressive_read_fn() above) when enough data
1387 has been supplied so all of the header has been
1388 read.
1389 */
1390 void
1391 info_callback(png_structp png_ptr, png_infop info)
1392 {
1393 /* Do any setup here, including setting any of
1394 the transformations mentioned in the Reading
1395 PNG files section. For now, you _must_ call
1396 either png_start_read_image() or
1397 png_read_update_info() after all the
1398 transformations are set (even if you don't set
1399 any). You may start getting rows before
1400 png_process_data() returns, so this is your
1401 last chance to prepare for that.
1402 */
1403 }
1404
1405 /* This function is called when each row of image
1406 data is complete */
1407 void
1408 row_callback(png_structp png_ptr, png_bytep new_row,
1409 png_uint_32 row_num, int pass)
1410 {
1411 /* If the image is interlaced, and you turned
1412 on the interlace handler, this function will
1413 be called for every row in every pass. Some
1414 of these rows will not be changed from the
1415 previous pass. When the row is not changed,
1416 the new_row variable will be NULL. The rows
1417 and passes are called in order, so you don't
1418 really need the row_num and pass, but I'm
1419 supplying them because it may make your life
1420 easier.
1421
1422 For the non-NULL rows of interlaced images,
1423 you must call png_progressive_combine_row()
1424 passing in the row and the old row. You can
1425 call this function for NULL rows (it will just
1426 return) and for non-interlaced images (it just
1427 does the memcpy for you) if it will make the
1428 code easier. Thus, you can just do this for
1429 all cases:
1430 */
1431
1432 png_progressive_combine_row(png_ptr, old_row,
1433 new_row);
1434
1435 /* where old_row is what was displayed for
1436 previously for the row. Note that the first
1437 pass (pass == 0, really) will completely cover
1438 the old row, so the rows do not have to be
1439 initialized. After the first pass (and only
1440 for interlaced images), you will have to pass
1441 the current row, and the function will combine
1442 the old row and the new row.
1443 */
1444 }
1445
1446 void
1447 end_callback(png_structp png_ptr, png_infop info)
1448 {
1449 /* This function is called after the whole image
1450 has been read, including any chunks after the
1451 image (up to and including the IEND). You
1452 will usually have the same info chunk as you
1453 had in the header, although some data may have
1454 been added to the comments and time fields.
1455
1456 Most people won't do much here, perhaps setting
1457 a flag that marks the image as finished.
1458 */
1459 }
1460
1461
1462
1463IV. Writing
1464
1465Much of this is very similar to reading. However, everything of
1466importance is repeated here, so you won't have to constantly look
1467back up in the reading section to understand writing.
1468
1469Setup
1470
1471You will want to do the I/O initialization before you get into libpng,
1472so if it doesn't work, you don't have anything to undo. If you are not
1473using the standard I/O functions, you will need to replace them with
1474custom writing functions. See the discussion under Customizing libpng.
1475
1476 FILE *fp = fopen(file_name, "wb");
1477 if (!fp)
1478 {
1479 return (ERROR);
1480 }
1481
1482Next, png_struct and png_info need to be allocated and initialized.
1483As these can be both relatively large, you may not want to store these
1484on the stack, unless you have stack space to spare. Of course, you
1485will want to check if they return NULL. If you are also reading,
1486you won't want to name your read structure and your write structure
1487both "png_ptr"; you can call them anything you like, such as
1488"read_ptr" and "write_ptr". Look at pngtest.c, for example.
1489
1490 png_structp png_ptr = png_create_write_struct
1491 (PNG_LIBPNG_VER_STRING, (png_voidp)user_error_ptr,
1492 user_error_fn, user_warning_fn);
1493 if (!png_ptr)
1494 return (ERROR);
1495
1496 png_infop info_ptr = png_create_info_struct(png_ptr);
1497 if (!info_ptr)
1498 {
1499 png_destroy_write_struct(&png_ptr,
1500 (png_infopp)NULL);
1501 return (ERROR);
1502 }
1503
1504If you want to use your own memory allocation routines,
1505define PNG_USER_MEM_SUPPORTED and use
1506png_create_write_struct_2() instead of png_create_write_struct():
1507
1508 png_structp png_ptr = png_create_write_struct_2
1509 (PNG_LIBPNG_VER_STRING, (png_voidp)user_error_ptr,
1510 user_error_fn, user_warning_fn, (png_voidp)
1511 user_mem_ptr, user_malloc_fn, user_free_fn);
1512
1513After you have these structures, you will need to set up the
1514error handling. When libpng encounters an error, it expects to
1515longjmp() back to your routine. Therefore, you will need to call
1516setjmp() and pass the png_jmpbuf(png_ptr). If you
1517write the file from different routines, you will need to update
1518the png_jmpbuf(png_ptr) every time you enter a new routine that will
1519call a png_*() function. See your documentation of setjmp/longjmp
1520for your compiler for more information on setjmp/longjmp. See
1521the discussion on libpng error handling in the Customizing Libpng
1522section below for more information on the libpng error handling.
1523
1524 if (setjmp(png_jmpbuf(png_ptr)))
1525 {
1526 png_destroy_write_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr);
1527 fclose(fp);
1528 return (ERROR);
1529 }
1530 ...
1531 return;
1532
1533If you would rather avoid the complexity of setjmp/longjmp issues,
1534you can compile libpng with PNG_SETJMP_NOT_SUPPORTED, in which case
1535errors will result in a call to PNG_ABORT() which defaults to abort().
1536
1537Now you need to set up the output code. The default for libpng is to
1538use the C function fwrite(). If you use this, you will need to pass a
1539valid FILE * in the function png_init_io(). Be sure that the file is
1540opened in binary mode. Again, if you wish to handle writing data in
1541another way, see the discussion on libpng I/O handling in the Customizing
1542Libpng section below.
1543
1544 png_init_io(png_ptr, fp);
1545
1546Write callbacks
1547
1548At this point, you can set up a callback function that will be
1549called after each row has been written, which you can use to control
1550a progress meter or the like. It's demonstrated in pngtest.c.
1551You must supply a function
1552
1553 void write_row_callback(png_ptr, png_uint_32 row,
1554 int pass);
1555 {
1556 /* put your code here */
1557 }
1558
1559(You can give it another name that you like instead of "write_row_callback")
1560
1561To inform libpng about your function, use
1562
1563 png_set_write_status_fn(png_ptr, write_row_callback);
1564
1565You now have the option of modifying how the compression library will
1566run. The following functions are mainly for testing, but may be useful
1567in some cases, like if you need to write PNG files extremely fast and
1568are willing to give up some compression, or if you want to get the
1569maximum possible compression at the expense of slower writing. If you
1570have no special needs in this area, let the library do what it wants by
1571not calling this function at all, as it has been tuned to deliver a good
1572speed/compression ratio. The second parameter to png_set_filter() is
1573the filter method, for which the only valid values are 0 (as of the
1574July 1999 PNG specification, version 1.2) or 64 (if you are writing
1575a PNG datastream that is to be embedded in a MNG datastream). The third
1576parameter is a flag that indicates which filter type(s) are to be tested
1577for each scanline. See the PNG specification for details on the specific filter
1578types.
1579
1580
1581 /* turn on or off filtering, and/or choose
1582 specific filters. You can use either a single
1583 PNG_FILTER_VALUE_NAME or the logical OR of one
1584 or more PNG_FILTER_NAME masks. */
1585 png_set_filter(png_ptr, 0,
1586 PNG_FILTER_NONE | PNG_FILTER_VALUE_NONE |
1587 PNG_FILTER_SUB | PNG_FILTER_VALUE_SUB |
1588 PNG_FILTER_UP | PNG_FILTER_VALUE_UP |
1589 PNG_FILTER_AVE | PNG_FILTER_VALUE_AVE |
1590 PNG_FILTER_PAETH | PNG_FILTER_VALUE_PAETH|
1591 PNG_ALL_FILTERS);
1592
1593If an application
1594wants to start and stop using particular filters during compression,
1595it should start out with all of the filters (to ensure that the previous
1596row of pixels will be stored in case it's needed later), and then add
1597and remove them after the start of compression.
1598
1599If you are writing a PNG datastream that is to be embedded in a MNG
1600datastream, the second parameter can be either 0 or 64.
1601
1602The png_set_compression_*() functions interface to the zlib compression
1603library, and should mostly be ignored unless you really know what you are
1604doing. The only generally useful call is png_set_compression_level()
1605which changes how much time zlib spends on trying to compress the image
1606data. See the Compression Library (zlib.h and algorithm.txt, distributed
1607with zlib) for details on the compression levels.
1608
1609 /* set the zlib compression level */
1610 png_set_compression_level(png_ptr,
1611 Z_BEST_COMPRESSION);
1612
1613 /* set other zlib parameters */
1614 png_set_compression_mem_level(png_ptr, 8);
1615 png_set_compression_strategy(png_ptr,
1616 Z_DEFAULT_STRATEGY);
1617 png_set_compression_window_bits(png_ptr, 15);
1618 png_set_compression_method(png_ptr, 8);
1619 png_set_compression_buffer_size(png_ptr, 8192)
1620
1621extern PNG_EXPORT(void,png_set_zbuf_size)
1622
1623Setting the contents of info for output
1624
1625You now need to fill in the png_info structure with all the data you
1626wish to write before the actual image. Note that the only thing you
1627are allowed to write after the image is the text chunks and the time
1628chunk (as of PNG Specification 1.2, anyway). See png_write_end() and
1629the latest PNG specification for more information on that. If you
1630wish to write them before the image, fill them in now, and flag that
1631data as being valid. If you want to wait until after the data, don't
1632fill them until png_write_end(). For all the fields in png_info and
1633their data types, see png.h. For explanations of what the fields
1634contain, see the PNG specification.
1635
1636Some of the more important parts of the png_info are:
1637
1638 png_set_IHDR(png_ptr, info_ptr, width, height,
1639 bit_depth, color_type, interlace_type,
1640 compression_type, filter_method)
1641 width - holds the width of the image
1642 in pixels (up to 2^31).
1643 height - holds the height of the image
1644 in pixels (up to 2^31).
1645 bit_depth - holds the bit depth of one of the
1646 image channels.
1647 (valid values are 1, 2, 4, 8, 16
1648 and depend also on the
1649 color_type. See also significant
1650 bits (sBIT) below).
1651 color_type - describes which color/alpha
1652 channels are present.
1653 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY
1654 (bit depths 1, 2, 4, 8, 16)
1655 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY_ALPHA
1656 (bit depths 8, 16)
1657 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_PALETTE
1658 (bit depths 1, 2, 4, 8)
1659 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB
1660 (bit_depths 8, 16)
1661 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA
1662 (bit_depths 8, 16)
1663
1664 PNG_COLOR_MASK_PALETTE
1665 PNG_COLOR_MASK_COLOR
1666 PNG_COLOR_MASK_ALPHA
1667
1668 interlace_type - PNG_INTERLACE_NONE or
1669 PNG_INTERLACE_ADAM7
1670 compression_type - (must be
1671 PNG_COMPRESSION_TYPE_DEFAULT)
1672 filter_method - (must be PNG_FILTER_TYPE_DEFAULT
1673 or, if you are writing a PNG to
1674 be embedded in a MNG datastream,
1675 can also be
1676 PNG_INTRAPIXEL_DIFFERENCING)
1677
1678 png_set_PLTE(png_ptr, info_ptr, palette,
1679 num_palette);
1680 palette - the palette for the file
1681 (array of png_color)
1682 num_palette - number of entries in the palette
1683
1684 png_set_gAMA(png_ptr, info_ptr, gamma);
1685 gamma - the gamma the image was created
1686 at (PNG_INFO_gAMA)
1687
1688 png_set_sRGB(png_ptr, info_ptr, srgb_intent);
1689 srgb_intent - the rendering intent
1690 (PNG_INFO_sRGB) The presence of
1691 the sRGB chunk means that the pixel
1692 data is in the sRGB color space.
1693 This chunk also implies specific
1694 values of gAMA and cHRM. Rendering
1695 intent is the CSS-1 property that
1696 has been defined by the International
1697 Color Consortium
1698 (http://www.color.org).
1699 It can be one of
1700 PNG_sRGB_INTENT_SATURATION,
1701 PNG_sRGB_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
1702 PNG_sRGB_INTENT_ABSOLUTE, or
1703 PNG_sRGB_INTENT_RELATIVE.
1704
1705
1706 png_set_sRGB_gAMA_and_cHRM(png_ptr, info_ptr,
1707 srgb_intent);
1708 srgb_intent - the rendering intent
1709 (PNG_INFO_sRGB) The presence of the
1710 sRGB chunk means that the pixel
1711 data is in the sRGB color space.
1712 This function also causes gAMA and
1713 cHRM chunks with the specific values
1714 that are consistent with sRGB to be
1715 written.
1716
1717 png_set_iCCP(png_ptr, info_ptr, name, compression_type,
1718 profile, proflen);
1719 name - The profile name.
1720 compression - The compression type; always
1721 PNG_COMPRESSION_TYPE_BASE for PNG 1.0.
1722 You may give NULL to this argument to
1723 ignore it.
1724 profile - International Color Consortium color
1725 profile data. May contain NULs.
1726 proflen - length of profile data in bytes.
1727
1728 png_set_sBIT(png_ptr, info_ptr, sig_bit);
1729 sig_bit - the number of significant bits for
1730 (PNG_INFO_sBIT) each of the gray, red,
1731 green, and blue channels, whichever are
1732 appropriate for the given color type
1733 (png_color_16)
1734
1735 png_set_tRNS(png_ptr, info_ptr, trans, num_trans,
1736 trans_values);
1737 trans - array of transparent entries for
1738 palette (PNG_INFO_tRNS)
1739 trans_values - graylevel or color sample values of
1740 the single transparent color for
1741 non-paletted images (PNG_INFO_tRNS)
1742 num_trans - number of transparent entries
1743 (PNG_INFO_tRNS)
1744
1745 png_set_hIST(png_ptr, info_ptr, hist);
1746 (PNG_INFO_hIST)
1747 hist - histogram of palette (array of
1748 png_uint_16)
1749
1750 png_set_tIME(png_ptr, info_ptr, mod_time);
1751 mod_time - time image was last modified
1752 (PNG_VALID_tIME)
1753
1754 png_set_bKGD(png_ptr, info_ptr, background);
1755 background - background color (PNG_VALID_bKGD)
1756
1757 png_set_text(png_ptr, info_ptr, text_ptr, num_text);
1758 text_ptr - array of png_text holding image
1759 comments
1760 text_ptr[i].compression - type of compression used
1761 on "text" PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_NONE
1762 PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt
1763 PNG_ITXT_COMPRESSION_NONE
1764 PNG_ITXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt
1765 text_ptr[i].key - keyword for comment. Must contain
1766 1-79 characters.
1767 text_ptr[i].text - text comments for current
1768 keyword. Can be NULL or empty.
1769 text_ptr[i].text_length - length of text string,
1770 after decompression, 0 for iTXt
1771 text_ptr[i].itxt_length - length of itxt string,
1772 after decompression, 0 for tEXt/zTXt
1773 text_ptr[i].lang - language of comment (NULL or
1774 empty for unknown).
1775 text_ptr[i].translated_keyword - keyword in UTF-8 (NULL
1776 or empty for unknown).
1777 num_text - number of comments
1778
1779 png_set_sPLT(png_ptr, info_ptr, &palette_ptr,
1780 num_spalettes);
1781 palette_ptr - array of png_sPLT_struct structures
1782 to be added to the list of palettes
1783 in the info structure.
1784 num_spalettes - number of palette structures to be
1785 added.
1786
1787 png_set_oFFs(png_ptr, info_ptr, offset_x, offset_y,
1788 unit_type);
1789 offset_x - positive offset from the left
1790 edge of the screen
1791 offset_y - positive offset from the top
1792 edge of the screen
1793 unit_type - PNG_OFFSET_PIXEL, PNG_OFFSET_MICROMETER
1794
1795 png_set_pHYs(png_ptr, info_ptr, res_x, res_y,
1796 unit_type);
1797 res_x - pixels/unit physical resolution
1798 in x direction
1799 res_y - pixels/unit physical resolution
1800 in y direction
1801 unit_type - PNG_RESOLUTION_UNKNOWN,
1802 PNG_RESOLUTION_METER
1803
1804 png_set_sCAL(png_ptr, info_ptr, unit, width, height)
1805 unit - physical scale units (an integer)
1806 width - width of a pixel in physical scale units
1807 height - height of a pixel in physical scale units
1808 (width and height are doubles)
1809
1810 png_set_sCAL_s(png_ptr, info_ptr, unit, width, height)
1811 unit - physical scale units (an integer)
1812 width - width of a pixel in physical scale units
1813 height - height of a pixel in physical scale units
1814 (width and height are strings like "2.54")
1815
1816 png_set_unknown_chunks(png_ptr, info_ptr, &unknowns,
1817 num_unknowns)
1818 unknowns - array of png_unknown_chunk
1819 structures holding unknown chunks
1820 unknowns[i].name - name of unknown chunk
1821 unknowns[i].data - data of unknown chunk
1822 unknowns[i].size - size of unknown chunk's data
1823 unknowns[i].location - position to write chunk in file
1824 0: do not write chunk
1825 PNG_HAVE_IHDR: before PLTE
1826 PNG_HAVE_PLTE: before IDAT
1827 PNG_AFTER_IDAT: after IDAT
1828
1829The "location" member is set automatically according to
1830what part of the output file has already been written.
1831You can change its value after calling png_set_unknown_chunks()
1832as demonstrated in pngtest.c. Within each of the "locations",
1833the chunks are sequenced according to their position in the
1834structure (that is, the value of "i", which is the order in which
1835the chunk was either read from the input file or defined with
1836png_set_unknown_chunks).
1837
1838A quick word about text and num_text. text is an array of png_text
1839structures. num_text is the number of valid structures in the array.
1840Each png_text structure holds a language code, a keyword, a text value,
1841and a compression type.
1842
1843The compression types have the same valid numbers as the compression
1844types of the image data. Currently, the only valid number is zero.
1845However, you can store text either compressed or uncompressed, unlike
1846images, which always have to be compressed. So if you don't want the
1847text compressed, set the compression type to PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_NONE.
1848Because tEXt and zTXt chunks don't have a language field, if you
1849specify PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_NONE or PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt
1850any language code or translated keyword will not be written out.
1851
1852Until text gets around 1000 bytes, it is not worth compressing it.
1853After the text has been written out to the file, the compression type
1854is set to PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_NONE_WR or PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt_WR,
1855so that it isn't written out again at the end (in case you are calling
1856png_write_end() with the same struct.
1857
1858The keywords that are given in the PNG Specification are:
1859
1860 Title Short (one line) title or
1861 caption for image
1862 Author Name of image's creator
1863 Description Description of image (possibly long)
1864 Copyright Copyright notice
1865 Creation Time Time of original image creation
1866 (usually RFC 1123 format, see below)
1867 Software Software used to create the image
1868 Disclaimer Legal disclaimer
1869 Warning Warning of nature of content
1870 Source Device used to create the image
1871 Comment Miscellaneous comment; conversion
1872 from other image format
1873
1874The keyword-text pairs work like this. Keywords should be short
1875simple descriptions of what the comment is about. Some typical
1876keywords are found in the PNG specification, as is some recommendations
1877on keywords. You can repeat keywords in a file. You can even write
1878some text before the image and some after. For example, you may want
1879to put a description of the image before the image, but leave the
1880disclaimer until after, so viewers working over modem connections
1881don't have to wait for the disclaimer to go over the modem before
1882they start seeing the image. Finally, keywords should be full
1883words, not abbreviations. Keywords and text are in the ISO 8859-1
1884(Latin-1) character set (a superset of regular ASCII) and can not
1885contain NUL characters, and should not contain control or other
1886unprintable characters. To make the comments widely readable, stick
1887with basic ASCII, and avoid machine specific character set extensions
1888like the IBM-PC character set. The keyword must be present, but
1889you can leave off the text string on non-compressed pairs.
1890Compressed pairs must have a text string, as only the text string
1891is compressed anyway, so the compression would be meaningless.
1892
1893PNG supports modification time via the png_time structure. Two
1894conversion routines are provided, png_convert_from_time_t() for
1895time_t and png_convert_from_struct_tm() for struct tm. The
1896time_t routine uses gmtime(). You don't have to use either of
1897these, but if you wish to fill in the png_time structure directly,
1898you should provide the time in universal time (GMT) if possible
1899instead of your local time. Note that the year number is the full
1900year (e.g. 1998, rather than 98 - PNG is year 2000 compliant!), and
1901that months start with 1.
1902
1903If you want to store the time of the original image creation, you should
1904use a plain tEXt chunk with the "Creation Time" keyword. This is
1905necessary because the "creation time" of a PNG image is somewhat vague,
1906depending on whether you mean the PNG file, the time the image was
1907created in a non-PNG format, a still photo from which the image was
1908scanned, or possibly the subject matter itself. In order to facilitate
1909machine-readable dates, it is recommended that the "Creation Time"
1910tEXt chunk use RFC 1123 format dates (e.g. "22 May 1997 18:07:10 GMT"),
1911although this isn't a requirement. Unlike the tIME chunk, the
1912"Creation Time" tEXt chunk is not expected to be automatically changed
1913by the software. To facilitate the use of RFC 1123 dates, a function
1914png_convert_to_rfc1123(png_timep) is provided to convert from PNG
1915time to an RFC 1123 format string.
1916
1917Writing unknown chunks
1918
1919You can use the png_set_unknown_chunks function to queue up chunks
1920for writing. You give it a chunk name, raw data, and a size; that's
1921all there is to it. The chunks will be written by the next following
1922png_write_info_before_PLTE, png_write_info, or png_write_end function.
1923Any chunks previously read into the info structure's unknown-chunk
1924list will also be written out in a sequence that satisfies the PNG
1925specification's ordering rules.
1926
1927The high-level write interface
1928
1929At this point there are two ways to proceed; through the high-level
1930write interface, or through a sequence of low-level write operations.
1931You can use the high-level interface if your image data is present
1932in the info structure. All defined output
1933transformations are permitted, enabled by the following masks.
1934
1935 PNG_TRANSFORM_IDENTITY No transformation
1936 PNG_TRANSFORM_PACKING Pack 1, 2 and 4-bit samples
1937 PNG_TRANSFORM_PACKSWAP Change order of packed
1938 pixels to LSB first
1939 PNG_TRANSFORM_INVERT_MONO Invert monochrome images
1940 PNG_TRANSFORM_SHIFT Normalize pixels to the
1941 sBIT depth
1942 PNG_TRANSFORM_BGR Flip RGB to BGR, RGBA
1943 to BGRA
1944 PNG_TRANSFORM_SWAP_ALPHA Flip RGBA to ARGB or GA
1945 to AG
1946 PNG_TRANSFORM_INVERT_ALPHA Change alpha from opacity
1947 to transparency
1948 PNG_TRANSFORM_SWAP_ENDIAN Byte-swap 16-bit samples
1949 PNG_TRANSFORM_STRIP_FILLER Strip out filler bytes.
1950
1951If you have valid image data in the info structure (you can use
1952png_set_rows() to put image data in the info structure), simply do this:
1953
1954 png_write_png(png_ptr, info_ptr, png_transforms, NULL)
1955
1956where png_transforms is an integer containing the logical OR of some set of
1957transformation flags. This call is equivalent to png_write_info(),
1958followed the set of transformations indicated by the transform mask,
1959then png_write_image(), and finally png_write_end().
1960
1961(The final parameter of this call is not yet used. Someday it might point
1962to transformation parameters required by some future output transform.)
1963
1964The low-level write interface
1965
1966If you are going the low-level route instead, you are now ready to
1967write all the file information up to the actual image data. You do
1968this with a call to png_write_info().
1969
1970 png_write_info(png_ptr, info_ptr);
1971
1972Note that there is one transformation you may need to do before
1973png_write_info(). In PNG files, the alpha channel in an image is the
1974level of opacity. If your data is supplied as a level of
1975transparency, you can invert the alpha channel before you write it, so
1976that 0 is fully transparent and 255 (in 8-bit or paletted images) or
197765535 (in 16-bit images) is fully opaque, with
1978
1979 png_set_invert_alpha(png_ptr);
1980
1981This must appear before png_write_info() instead of later with the
1982other transformations because in the case of paletted images the tRNS
1983chunk data has to be inverted before the tRNS chunk is written. If
1984your image is not a paletted image, the tRNS data (which in such cases
1985represents a single color to be rendered as transparent) won't need to
1986be changed, and you can safely do this transformation after your
1987png_write_info() call.
1988
1989If you need to write a private chunk that you want to appear before
1990the PLTE chunk when PLTE is present, you can write the PNG info in
1991two steps, and insert code to write your own chunk between them:
1992
1993 png_write_info_before_PLTE(png_ptr, info_ptr);
1994 png_set_unknown_chunks(png_ptr, info_ptr, ...);
1995 png_write_info(png_ptr, info_ptr);
1996
1997After you've written the file information, you can set up the library
1998to handle any special transformations of the image data. The various
1999ways to transform the data will be described in the order that they
2000should occur. This is important, as some of these change the color
2001type and/or bit depth of the data, and some others only work on
2002certain color types and bit depths. Even though each transformation
2003checks to see if it has data that it can do something with, you should
2004make sure to only enable a transformation if it will be valid for the
2005data. For example, don't swap red and blue on grayscale data.
2006
2007PNG files store RGB pixels packed into 3 or 6 bytes. This code tells
2008the library to strip input data that has 4 or 8 bytes per pixel down
2009to 3 or 6 bytes (or strip 2 or 4-byte grayscale+filler data to 1 or 2
2010bytes per pixel).
2011
2012 png_set_filler(png_ptr, 0, PNG_FILLER_BEFORE);
2013
2014where the 0 is unused, and the location is either PNG_FILLER_BEFORE or
2015PNG_FILLER_AFTER, depending upon whether the filler byte in the pixel
2016is stored XRGB or RGBX.
2017
2018PNG files pack pixels of bit depths 1, 2, and 4 into bytes as small as
2019they can, resulting in, for example, 8 pixels per byte for 1 bit files.
2020If the data is supplied at 1 pixel per byte, use this code, which will
2021correctly pack the pixels into a single byte:
2022
2023 png_set_packing(png_ptr);
2024
2025PNG files reduce possible bit depths to 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16. If your
2026data is of another bit depth, you can write an sBIT chunk into the
2027file so that decoders can recover the original data if desired.
2028
2029 /* Set the true bit depth of the image data */
2030 if (color_type & PNG_COLOR_MASK_COLOR)
2031 {
2032 sig_bit.red = true_bit_depth;
2033 sig_bit.green = true_bit_depth;
2034 sig_bit.blue = true_bit_depth;
2035 }
2036 else
2037 {
2038 sig_bit.gray = true_bit_depth;
2039 }
2040 if (color_type & PNG_COLOR_MASK_ALPHA)
2041 {
2042 sig_bit.alpha = true_bit_depth;
2043 }
2044
2045 png_set_sBIT(png_ptr, info_ptr, &sig_bit);
2046
2047If the data is stored in the row buffer in a bit depth other than
2048one supported by PNG (e.g. 3 bit data in the range 0-7 for a 4-bit PNG),
2049this will scale the values to appear to be the correct bit depth as
2050is required by PNG.
2051
2052 png_set_shift(png_ptr, &sig_bit);
2053
2054PNG files store 16 bit pixels in network byte order (big-endian,
2055ie. most significant bits first). This code would be used if they are
2056supplied the other way (little-endian, i.e. least significant bits
2057first, the way PCs store them):
2058
2059 if (bit_depth > 8)
2060 png_set_swap(png_ptr);
2061
2062If you are using packed-pixel images (1, 2, or 4 bits/pixel), and you
2063need to change the order the pixels are packed into bytes, you can use:
2064
2065 if (bit_depth < 8)
2066 png_set_packswap(png_ptr);
2067
2068PNG files store 3 color pixels in red, green, blue order. This code
2069would be used if they are supplied as blue, green, red:
2070
2071 png_set_bgr(png_ptr);
2072
2073PNG files describe monochrome as black being zero and white being
2074one. This code would be used if the pixels are supplied with this reversed
2075(black being one and white being zero):
2076
2077 png_set_invert_mono(png_ptr);
2078
2079Finally, you can write your own transformation function if none of
2080the existing ones meets your needs. This is done by setting a callback
2081with
2082
2083 png_set_write_user_transform_fn(png_ptr,
2084 write_transform_fn);
2085
2086You must supply the function
2087
2088 void write_transform_fn(png_ptr ptr, row_info_ptr
2089 row_info, png_bytep data)
2090
2091See pngtest.c for a working example. Your function will be called
2092before any of the other transformations are processed.
2093
2094You can also set up a pointer to a user structure for use by your
2095callback function.
2096
2097 png_set_user_transform_info(png_ptr, user_ptr, 0, 0);
2098
2099The user_channels and user_depth parameters of this function are ignored
2100when writing; you can set them to zero as shown.
2101
2102You can retrieve the pointer via the function png_get_user_transform_ptr().
2103For example:
2104
2105 voidp write_user_transform_ptr =
2106 png_get_user_transform_ptr(png_ptr);
2107
2108It is possible to have libpng flush any pending output, either manually,
2109or automatically after a certain number of lines have been written. To
2110flush the output stream a single time call:
2111
2112 png_write_flush(png_ptr);
2113
2114and to have libpng flush the output stream periodically after a certain
2115number of scanlines have been written, call:
2116
2117 png_set_flush(png_ptr, nrows);
2118
2119Note that the distance between rows is from the last time png_write_flush()
2120was called, or the first row of the image if it has never been called.
2121So if you write 50 lines, and then png_set_flush 25, it will flush the
2122output on the next scanline, and every 25 lines thereafter, unless
2123png_write_flush() is called before 25 more lines have been written.
2124If nrows is too small (less than about 10 lines for a 640 pixel wide
2125RGB image) the image compression may decrease noticeably (although this
2126may be acceptable for real-time applications). Infrequent flushing will
2127only degrade the compression performance by a few percent over images
2128that do not use flushing.
2129
2130Writing the image data
2131
2132That's it for the transformations. Now you can write the image data.
2133The simplest way to do this is in one function call. If you have the
2134whole image in memory, you can just call png_write_image() and libpng
2135will write the image. You will need to pass in an array of pointers to
2136each row. This function automatically handles interlacing, so you don't
2137need to call png_set_interlace_handling() or call this function multiple
2138times, or any of that other stuff necessary with png_write_rows().
2139
2140 png_write_image(png_ptr, row_pointers);
2141
2142where row_pointers is:
2143
2144 png_byte *row_pointers[height];
2145
2146You can point to void or char or whatever you use for pixels.
2147
2148If you don't want to write the whole image at once, you can
2149use png_write_rows() instead. If the file is not interlaced,
2150this is simple:
2151
2152 png_write_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers,
2153 number_of_rows);
2154
2155row_pointers is the same as in the png_write_image() call.
2156
2157If you are just writing one row at a time, you can do this with
2158a single row_pointer instead of an array of row_pointers:
2159
2160 png_bytep row_pointer = row;
2161
2162 png_write_row(png_ptr, row_pointer);
2163
2164When the file is interlaced, things can get a good deal more
2165complicated. The only currently (as of the PNG Specification
2166version 1.2, dated July 1999) defined interlacing scheme for PNG files
2167is the "Adam7" interlace scheme, that breaks down an
2168image into seven smaller images of varying size. libpng will build
2169these images for you, or you can do them yourself. If you want to
2170build them yourself, see the PNG specification for details of which
2171pixels to write when.
2172
2173If you don't want libpng to handle the interlacing details, just
2174use png_set_interlace_handling() and call png_write_rows() the
2175correct number of times to write all seven sub-images.
2176
2177If you want libpng to build the sub-images, call this before you start
2178writing any rows:
2179
2180 number_of_passes =
2181 png_set_interlace_handling(png_ptr);
2182
2183This will return the number of passes needed. Currently, this
2184is seven, but may change if another interlace type is added.
2185
2186Then write the complete image number_of_passes times.
2187
2188 png_write_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers,
2189 number_of_rows);
2190
2191As some of these rows are not used, and thus return immediately,
2192you may want to read about interlacing in the PNG specification,
2193and only update the rows that are actually used.
2194
2195Finishing a sequential write
2196
2197After you are finished writing the image, you should finish writing
2198the file. If you are interested in writing comments or time, you should
2199pass an appropriately filled png_info pointer. If you are not interested,
2200you can pass NULL.
2201
2202 png_write_end(png_ptr, info_ptr);
2203
2204When you are done, you can free all memory used by libpng like this:
2205
2206 png_destroy_write_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr);
2207
2208It is also possible to individually free the info_ptr members that
2209point to libpng-allocated storage with the following function:
2210
2211 png_free_data(png_ptr, info_ptr, mask, seq)
2212 mask - identifies data to be freed, a mask
2213 containing the logical OR of one or
2214 more of
2215 PNG_FREE_PLTE, PNG_FREE_TRNS,
2216 PNG_FREE_HIST, PNG_FREE_ICCP,
2217 PNG_FREE_PCAL, PNG_FREE_ROWS,
2218 PNG_FREE_SCAL, PNG_FREE_SPLT,
2219 PNG_FREE_TEXT, PNG_FREE_UNKN,
2220 or simply PNG_FREE_ALL
2221 seq - sequence number of item to be freed
2222 (-1 for all items)
2223
2224This function may be safely called when the relevant storage has
2225already been freed, or has not yet been allocated, or was allocated
2226by the user and not by libpng, and will in those
2227cases do nothing. The "seq" parameter is ignored if only one item
2228of the selected data type, such as PLTE, is allowed. If "seq" is not
2229-1, and multiple items are allowed for the data type identified in
2230the mask, such as text or sPLT, only the n'th item in the structure
2231is freed, where n is "seq".
2232
2233If you allocated data such as a palette that you passed
2234in to libpng with png_set_*, you must not free it until just before the call to
2235png_destroy_write_struct().
2236
2237The default behavior is only to free data that was allocated internally
2238by libpng. This can be changed, so that libpng will not free the data,
2239or so that it will free data that was allocated by the user with png_malloc()
2240or png_zalloc() and passed in via a png_set_*() function, with
2241
2242 png_data_freer(png_ptr, info_ptr, freer, mask)
2243 mask - which data elements are affected
2244 same choices as in png_free_data()
2245 freer - one of
2246 PNG_DESTROY_WILL_FREE_DATA
2247 PNG_SET_WILL_FREE_DATA
2248 PNG_USER_WILL_FREE_DATA
2249
2250For example, to transfer responsibility for some data from a read structure
2251to a write structure, you could use
2252
2253 png_data_freer(read_ptr, read_info_ptr,
2254 PNG_USER_WILL_FREE_DATA,
2255 PNG_FREE_PLTE|PNG_FREE_tRNS|PNG_FREE_hIST)
2256 png_data_freer(write_ptr, write_info_ptr,
2257 PNG_DESTROY_WILL_FREE_DATA,
2258 PNG_FREE_PLTE|PNG_FREE_tRNS|PNG_FREE_hIST)
2259
2260thereby briefly reassigning responsibility for freeing to the user but
2261immediately afterwards reassigning it once more to the write_destroy
2262function. Having done this, it would then be safe to destroy the read
2263structure and continue to use the PLTE, tRNS, and hIST data in the write
2264structure.
2265
2266This function only affects data that has already been allocated.
2267You can call this function before calling after the png_set_*() functions
2268to control whether the user or png_destroy_*() is supposed to free the data.
2269When the user assumes responsibility for libpng-allocated data, the
2270application must use
2271png_free() to free it, and when the user transfers responsibility to libpng
2272for data that the user has allocated, the user must have used png_malloc()
2273or png_zalloc() to allocate it.
2274
2275If you allocated text_ptr.text, text_ptr.lang, and text_ptr.translated_keyword
2276separately, do not transfer responsibility for freeing text_ptr to libpng,
2277because when libpng fills a png_text structure it combines these members with
2278the key member, and png_free_data() will free only text_ptr.key. Similarly,
2279if you transfer responsibility for free'ing text_ptr from libpng to your
2280application, your application must not separately free those members.
2281For a more compact example of writing a PNG image, see the file example.c.
2282
2283V. Modifying/Customizing libpng:
2284
2285There are three issues here. The first is changing how libpng does
2286standard things like memory allocation, input/output, and error handling.
2287The second deals with more complicated things like adding new chunks,
2288adding new transformations, and generally changing how libpng works.
2289Both of those are compile-time issues; that is, they are generally
2290determined at the time the code is written, and there is rarely a need
2291to provide the user with a means of changing them. The third is a
2292run-time issue: choosing between and/or tuning one or more alternate
2293versions of computationally intensive routines; specifically, optimized
2294assembly-language (and therefore compiler- and platform-dependent)
2295versions.
2296
2297Memory allocation, input/output, and error handling
2298
2299All of the memory allocation, input/output, and error handling in libpng
2300goes through callbacks that are user-settable. The default routines are
2301in pngmem.c, pngrio.c, pngwio.c, and pngerror.c, respectively. To change
2302these functions, call the appropriate png_set_*_fn() function.
2303
2304Memory allocation is done through the functions png_malloc()
2305and png_free(). These currently just call the standard C functions. If
2306your pointers can't access more then 64K at a time, you will want to set
2307MAXSEG_64K in zlib.h. Since it is unlikely that the method of handling
2308memory allocation on a platform will change between applications, these
2309functions must be modified in the library at compile time. If you prefer
2310to use a different method of allocating and freeing data, you can use
2311png_create_read_struct_2() or png_create_write_struct_2() to register
2312your own functions as described above.
2313
2314These functions also provide a void pointer that can be retrieved via
2315
2316 mem_ptr=png_get_mem_ptr(png_ptr);
2317
2318Your replacement memory functions must have prototypes as follows:
2319
2320 png_voidp malloc_fn(png_structp png_ptr,
2321 png_size_t size);
2322 void free_fn(png_structp png_ptr, png_voidp ptr);
2323
2324Your malloc_fn() should return NULL in case of failure. The png_malloc()
2325function will call png_error() if it receives a NULL from the system
2326memory allocator or from your replacement malloc_fn().
2327
2328Input/Output in libpng is done through png_read() and png_write(),
2329which currently just call fread() and fwrite(). The FILE * is stored in
2330png_struct and is initialized via png_init_io(). If you wish to change
2331the method of I/O, the library supplies callbacks that you can set
2332through the function png_set_read_fn() and png_set_write_fn() at run
2333time, instead of calling the png_init_io() function. These functions
2334also provide a void pointer that can be retrieved via the function
2335png_get_io_ptr(). For example:
2336
2337 png_set_read_fn(png_structp read_ptr,
2338 voidp read_io_ptr, png_rw_ptr read_data_fn)
2339
2340 png_set_write_fn(png_structp write_ptr,
2341 voidp write_io_ptr, png_rw_ptr write_data_fn,
2342 png_flush_ptr output_flush_fn);
2343
2344 voidp read_io_ptr = png_get_io_ptr(read_ptr);
2345 voidp write_io_ptr = png_get_io_ptr(write_ptr);
2346
2347The replacement I/O functions must have prototypes as follows:
2348
2349 void user_read_data(png_structp png_ptr,
2350 png_bytep data, png_size_t length);
2351 void user_write_data(png_structp png_ptr,
2352 png_bytep data, png_size_t length);
2353 void user_flush_data(png_structp png_ptr);
2354
2355Supplying NULL for the read, write, or flush functions sets them back
2356to using the default C stream functions. It is an error to read from
2357a write stream, and vice versa.
2358
2359Error handling in libpng is done through png_error() and png_warning().
2360Errors handled through png_error() are fatal, meaning that png_error()
2361should never return to its caller. Currently, this is handled via
2362setjmp() and longjmp() (unless you have compiled libpng with
2363PNG_SETJMP_NOT_SUPPORTED, in which case it is handled via PNG_ABORT()),
2364but you could change this to do things like exit() if you should wish.
2365
2366On non-fatal errors, png_warning() is called
2367to print a warning message, and then control returns to the calling code.
2368By default png_error() and png_warning() print a message on stderr via
2369fprintf() unless the library is compiled with PNG_NO_CONSOLE_IO defined
2370(because you don't want the messages) or PNG_NO_STDIO defined (because
2371fprintf() isn't available). If you wish to change the behavior of the error
2372functions, you will need to set up your own message callbacks. These
2373functions are normally supplied at the time that the png_struct is created.
2374It is also possible to redirect errors and warnings to your own replacement
2375functions after png_create_*_struct() has been called by calling:
2376
2377 png_set_error_fn(png_structp png_ptr,
2378 png_voidp error_ptr, png_error_ptr error_fn,
2379 png_error_ptr warning_fn);
2380
2381 png_voidp error_ptr = png_get_error_ptr(png_ptr);
2382
2383If NULL is supplied for either error_fn or warning_fn, then the libpng
2384default function will be used, calling fprintf() and/or longjmp() if a
2385problem is encountered. The replacement error functions should have
2386parameters as follows:
2387
2388 void user_error_fn(png_structp png_ptr,
2389 png_const_charp error_msg);
2390 void user_warning_fn(png_structp png_ptr,
2391 png_const_charp warning_msg);
2392
2393The motivation behind using setjmp() and longjmp() is the C++ throw and
2394catch exception handling methods. This makes the code much easier to write,
2395as there is no need to check every return code of every function call.
2396However, there are some uncertainties about the status of local variables
2397after a longjmp, so the user may want to be careful about doing anything after
2398setjmp returns non-zero besides returning itself. Consult your compiler
2399documentation for more details. For an alternative approach, you may wish
2400to use the "cexcept" facility (see http://cexcept.sourceforge.net).
2401
2402Custom chunks
2403
2404If you need to read or write custom chunks, you may need to get deeper
2405into the libpng code. The library now has mechanisms for storing
2406and writing chunks of unknown type; you can even declare callbacks
2407for custom chunks. Hoewver, this may not be good enough if the
2408library code itself needs to know about interactions between your
2409chunk and existing `intrinsic' chunks.
2410
2411If you need to write a new intrinsic chunk, first read the PNG
2412specification. Acquire a first level of
2413understanding of how it works. Pay particular attention to the
2414sections that describe chunk names, and look at how other chunks were
2415designed, so you can do things similarly. Second, check out the
2416sections of libpng that read and write chunks. Try to find a chunk
2417that is similar to yours and use it as a template. More details can
2418be found in the comments inside the code. It is best to handle unknown
2419chunks in a generic method, via callback functions, instead of by
2420modifying libpng functions.
2421
2422If you wish to write your own transformation for the data, look through
2423the part of the code that does the transformations, and check out some of
2424the simpler ones to get an idea of how they work. Try to find a similar
2425transformation to the one you want to add and copy off of it. More details
2426can be found in the comments inside the code itself.
2427
2428Configuring for 16 bit platforms
2429
2430You will want to look into zconf.h to tell zlib (and thus libpng) that
2431it cannot allocate more then 64K at a time. Even if you can, the memory
2432won't be accessible. So limit zlib and libpng to 64K by defining MAXSEG_64K.
2433
2434Configuring for DOS
2435
2436For DOS users who only have access to the lower 640K, you will
2437have to limit zlib's memory usage via a png_set_compression_mem_level()
2438call. See zlib.h or zconf.h in the zlib library for more information.
2439
2440Configuring for Medium Model
2441
2442Libpng's support for medium model has been tested on most of the popular
2443compilers. Make sure MAXSEG_64K gets defined, USE_FAR_KEYWORD gets
2444defined, and FAR gets defined to far in pngconf.h, and you should be
2445all set. Everything in the library (except for zlib's structure) is
2446expecting far data. You must use the typedefs with the p or pp on
2447the end for pointers (or at least look at them and be careful). Make
2448note that the rows of data are defined as png_bytepp, which is an
2449unsigned char far * far *.
2450
2451Configuring for gui/windowing platforms:
2452
2453You will need to write new error and warning functions that use the GUI
2454interface, as described previously, and set them to be the error and
2455warning functions at the time that png_create_*_struct() is called,
2456in order to have them available during the structure initialization.
2457They can be changed later via png_set_error_fn(). On some compilers,
2458you may also have to change the memory allocators (png_malloc, etc.).
2459
2460Configuring for compiler xxx:
2461
2462All includes for libpng are in pngconf.h. If you need to add/change/delete
2463an include, this is the place to do it. The includes that are not
2464needed outside libpng are protected by the PNG_INTERNAL definition,
2465which is only defined for those routines inside libpng itself. The
2466files in libpng proper only include png.h, which includes pngconf.h.
2467
2468Configuring zlib:
2469
2470There are special functions to configure the compression. Perhaps the
2471most useful one changes the compression level, which currently uses
2472input compression values in the range 0 - 9. The library normally
2473uses the default compression level (Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION = 6). Tests
2474have shown that for a large majority of images, compression values in
2475the range 3-6 compress nearly as well as higher levels, and do so much
2476faster. For online applications it may be desirable to have maximum speed
2477(Z_BEST_SPEED = 1). With versions of zlib after v0.99, you can also
2478specify no compression (Z_NO_COMPRESSION = 0), but this would create
2479files larger than just storing the raw bitmap. You can specify the
2480compression level by calling:
2481
2482 png_set_compression_level(png_ptr, level);
2483
2484Another useful one is to reduce the memory level used by the library.
2485The memory level defaults to 8, but it can be lowered if you are
2486short on memory (running DOS, for example, where you only have 640K).
2487Note that the memory level does have an effect on compression; among
2488other things, lower levels will result in sections of incompressible
2489data being emitted in smaller stored blocks, with a correspondingly
2490larger relative overhead of up to 15% in the worst case.
2491
2492 png_set_compression_mem_level(png_ptr, level);
2493
2494The other functions are for configuring zlib. They are not recommended
2495for normal use and may result in writing an invalid PNG file. See
2496zlib.h for more information on what these mean.
2497
2498 png_set_compression_strategy(png_ptr,
2499 strategy);
2500 png_set_compression_window_bits(png_ptr,
2501 window_bits);
2502 png_set_compression_method(png_ptr, method);
2503 png_set_compression_buffer_size(png_ptr, size);
2504
2505Controlling row filtering
2506
2507If you want to control whether libpng uses filtering or not, which
2508filters are used, and how it goes about picking row filters, you
2509can call one of these functions. The selection and configuration
2510of row filters can have a significant impact on the size and
2511encoding speed and a somewhat lesser impact on the decoding speed
2512of an image. Filtering is enabled by default for RGB and grayscale
2513images (with and without alpha), but not for paletted images nor
2514for any images with bit depths less than 8 bits/pixel.
2515
2516The 'method' parameter sets the main filtering method, which is
2517currently only '0' in the PNG 1.2 specification. The 'filters'
2518parameter sets which filter(s), if any, should be used for each
2519scanline. Possible values are PNG_ALL_FILTERS and PNG_NO_FILTERS
2520to turn filtering on and off, respectively.
2521
2522Individual filter types are PNG_FILTER_NONE, PNG_FILTER_SUB,
2523PNG_FILTER_UP, PNG_FILTER_AVG, PNG_FILTER_PAETH, which can be bitwise
2524ORed together with '|' to specify one or more filters to use.
2525These filters are described in more detail in the PNG specification.
2526If you intend to change the filter type during the course of writing
2527the image, you should start with flags set for all of the filters
2528you intend to use so that libpng can initialize its internal
2529structures appropriately for all of the filter types. (Note that this
2530means the first row must always be adaptively filtered, because libpng
2531currently does not allocate the filter buffers until png_write_row()
2532is called for the first time.)
2533
2534 filters = PNG_FILTER_NONE | PNG_FILTER_SUB
2535 PNG_FILTER_UP | PNG_FILTER_AVE |
2536 PNG_FILTER_PAETH | PNG_ALL_FILTERS;
2537
2538 png_set_filter(png_ptr, PNG_FILTER_TYPE_BASE,
2539 filters);
2540 The second parameter can also be
2541 PNG_INTRAPIXEL_DIFFERENCING if you are
2542 writing a PNG to be embedded in a MNG
2543 datastream. This parameter must be the
2544 same as the value of filter_method used
2545 in png_set_IHDR().
2546
2547It is also possible to influence how libpng chooses from among the
2548available filters. This is done in one or both of two ways - by
2549telling it how important it is to keep the same filter for successive
2550rows, and by telling it the relative computational costs of the filters.
2551
2552 double weights[3] = {1.5, 1.3, 1.1},
2553 costs[PNG_FILTER_VALUE_LAST] =
2554 {1.0, 1.3, 1.3, 1.5, 1.7};
2555
2556 png_set_filter_heuristics(png_ptr,
2557 PNG_FILTER_HEURISTIC_WEIGHTED, 3,
2558 weights, costs);
2559
2560The weights are multiplying factors that indicate to libpng that the
2561row filter should be the same for successive rows unless another row filter
2562is that many times better than the previous filter. In the above example,
2563if the previous 3 filters were SUB, SUB, NONE, the SUB filter could have a
2564"sum of absolute differences" 1.5 x 1.3 times higher than other filters
2565and still be chosen, while the NONE filter could have a sum 1.1 times
2566higher than other filters and still be chosen. Unspecified weights are
2567taken to be 1.0, and the specified weights should probably be declining
2568like those above in order to emphasize recent filters over older filters.
2569
2570The filter costs specify for each filter type a relative decoding cost
2571to be considered when selecting row filters. This means that filters
2572with higher costs are less likely to be chosen over filters with lower
2573costs, unless their "sum of absolute differences" is that much smaller.
2574The costs do not necessarily reflect the exact computational speeds of
2575the various filters, since this would unduly influence the final image
2576size.
2577
2578Note that the numbers above were invented purely for this example and
2579are given only to help explain the function usage. Little testing has
2580been done to find optimum values for either the costs or the weights.
2581
2582Removing unwanted object code
2583
2584There are a bunch of #define's in pngconf.h that control what parts of
2585libpng are compiled. All the defines end in _SUPPORTED. If you are
2586never going to use a capability, you can change the #define to #undef
2587before recompiling libpng and save yourself code and data space, or
2588you can turn off individual capabilities with defines that begin with
2589PNG_NO_.
2590
2591You can also turn all of the transforms and ancillary chunk capabilities
2592off en masse with compiler directives that define
2593PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_TRANSFORMS, or PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_ANCILLARY_CHUNKS,
2594or all four,
2595along with directives to turn on any of the capabilities that you do
2596want. The PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_TRANSFORMS directives disable
2597the extra transformations but still leave the library fully capable of reading
2598and writing PNG files with all known public chunks
2599Use of the PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_ANCILLARY_CHUNKS directive
2600produces a library that is incapable of reading or writing ancillary chunks.
2601If you are not using the progressive reading capability, you can
2602turn that off with PNG_NO_PROGRESSIVE_READ (don't confuse
2603this with the INTERLACING capability, which you'll still have).
2604
2605All the reading and writing specific code are in separate files, so the
2606linker should only grab the files it needs. However, if you want to
2607make sure, or if you are building a stand alone library, all the
2608reading files start with pngr and all the writing files start with
2609pngw. The files that don't match either (like png.c, pngtrans.c, etc.)
2610are used for both reading and writing, and always need to be included.
2611The progressive reader is in pngpread.c
2612
2613If you are creating or distributing a dynamically linked library (a .so
2614or DLL file), you should not remove or disable any parts of the library,
2615as this will cause applications linked with different versions of the
2616library to fail if they call functions not available in your library.
2617The size of the library itself should not be an issue, because only
2618those sections that are actually used will be loaded into memory.
2619
2620Requesting debug printout
2621
2622The macro definition PNG_DEBUG can be used to request debugging
2623printout. Set it to an integer value in the range 0 to 3. Higher
2624numbers result in increasing amounts of debugging information. The
2625information is printed to the "stderr" file, unless another file
2626name is specified in the PNG_DEBUG_FILE macro definition.
2627
2628When PNG_DEBUG > 0, the following functions (macros) become available:
2629
2630 png_debug(level, message)
2631 png_debug1(level, message, p1)
2632 png_debug2(level, message, p1, p2)
2633
2634in which "level" is compared to PNG_DEBUG to decide whether to print
2635the message, "message" is the formatted string to be printed,
2636and p1 and p2 are parameters that are to be embedded in the string
2637according to printf-style formatting directives. For example,
2638
2639 png_debug1(2, "foo=%d\n", foo);
2640
2641is expanded to
2642
2643 if(PNG_DEBUG > 2)
2644 fprintf(PNG_DEBUG_FILE, "foo=%d\n", foo);
2645
2646When PNG_DEBUG is defined but is zero, the macros aren't defined, but you
2647can still use PNG_DEBUG to control your own debugging:
2648
2649 #ifdef PNG_DEBUG
2650 fprintf(stderr, ...
2651 #endif
2652
2653When PNG_DEBUG = 1, the macros are defined, but only png_debug statements
2654having level = 0 will be printed. There aren't any such statements in
2655this version of libpng, but if you insert some they will be printed.
2656
2657VI. Runtime optimization
2658
2659A new feature in libpng 1.2.0 is the ability to dynamically switch between
2660standard and optimized versions of some routines. Currently these are
2661limited to three computationally intensive tasks when reading PNG files:
2662decoding row filters, expanding interlacing, and combining interlaced or
2663transparent row data with previous row data. Currently the optimized
2664versions are available only for x86 (Intel, AMD, etc.) platforms with
2665MMX support, though this may change in future versions. (For example,
2666the non-MMX assembler optimizations for zlib might become similarly
2667runtime-selectable in future releases, in which case libpng could be
2668extended to support them. Alternatively, the compile-time choice of
2669floating-point versus integer routines for gamma correction might become
2670runtime-selectable.)
2671
2672Because such optimizations tend to be very platform- and compiler-dependent,
2673both in how they are written and in how they perform, the new runtime code
2674in libpng has been written to allow programs to query, enable, and disable
2675either specific optimizations or all such optimizations. For example, to
2676enable all possible optimizations (bearing in mind that some "optimizations"
2677may actually run more slowly in rare cases):
2678
2679 #if defined(PNG_LIBPNG_VER) && (PNG_LIBPNG_VER >= 10200)
2680 png_uint_32 mask, flags;
2681
2682 flags = png_get_asm_flags(png_ptr);
2683 mask = png_get_asm_flagmask(PNG_SELECT_READ | PNG_SELECT_WRITE);
2684 png_set_asm_flags(png_ptr, flags | mask);
2685 #endif
2686
2687To enable only optimizations relevant to reading PNGs, use PNG_SELECT_READ
2688by itself when calling png_get_asm_flagmask(); similarly for optimizing
2689only writing. To disable all optimizations:
2690
2691 #if defined(PNG_LIBPNG_VER) && (PNG_LIBPNG_VER >= 10200)
2692 flags = png_get_asm_flags(png_ptr);
2693 mask = png_get_asm_flagmask(PNG_SELECT_READ | PNG_SELECT_WRITE);
2694 png_set_asm_flags(png_ptr, flags & ~mask);
2695 #endif
2696
2697To enable or disable only MMX-related features, use png_get_mmx_flagmask()
2698in place of png_get_asm_flagmask(). The mmx version takes one additional
2699parameter:
2700
2701 #if defined(PNG_LIBPNG_VER) && (PNG_LIBPNG_VER >= 10200)
2702 int selection = PNG_SELECT_READ | PNG_SELECT_WRITE;
2703 int compilerID;
2704
2705 mask = png_get_mmx_flagmask(selection, &compilerID);
2706 #endif
2707
2708On return, compilerID will indicate which version of the MMX assembler
2709optimizations was compiled. Currently two flavors exist: Microsoft
2710Visual C++ (compilerID == 1) and GNU C (a.k.a. gcc/gas, compilerID == 2).
2711On non-x86 platforms or on systems compiled without MMX optimizations, a
2712value of -1 is used.
2713
2714Note that both png_get_asm_flagmask() and png_get_mmx_flagmask() return
2715all valid, settable optimization bits for the version of the library that's
2716currently in use. In the case of shared (dynamically linked) libraries,
2717this may include optimizations that did not exist at the time the code was
2718written and compiled. It is also possible, of course, to enable only known,
2719specific optimizations; for example:
2720
2721 #if defined(PNG_LIBPNG_VER) && (PNG_LIBPNG_VER >= 10200)
2722 flags = PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_COMBINE_ROW \
2723 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_INTERLACE \
2724 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_SUB \
2725 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_UP \
2726 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_AVG \
2727 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_PAETH ;
2728 png_set_asm_flags(png_ptr, flags);
2729 #endif
2730
2731This method would enable only the MMX read-optimizations available at the
2732time of libpng 1.2.0's release, regardless of whether a later version of
2733the DLL were actually being used. (Also note that these functions did not
2734exist in versions older than 1.2.0, so any attempt to run a dynamically
2735linked app on such an older version would fail.)
2736
2737To determine whether the processor supports MMX instructions at all, use
2738the png_mmx_support() function:
2739
2740 #if defined(PNG_LIBPNG_VER) && (PNG_LIBPNG_VER >= 10200)
2741 mmxsupport = png_mmx_support();
2742 #endif
2743
2744It returns -1 if MMX support is not compiled into libpng, 0 if MMX code
2745is compiled but MMX is not supported by the processor, or 1 if MMX support
2746is fully available. Note that png_mmx_support(), png_get_mmx_flagmask(),
2747and png_get_asm_flagmask() all may be called without allocating and ini-
2748tializing any PNG structures (for example, as part of a usage screen or
2749"about" box).
2750
2751The following code can be used to prevent an application from using the
2752thread_unsafe features, even if libpng was built with PNG_THREAD_UNSAFE_OK
2753defined:
2754
2755#if defined(PNG_USE_PNGGCCRD) && defined(PNG_ASSEMBLER_CODE_SUPPORTED) \
2756 && defined(PNG_THREAD_UNSAFE_OK)
2757 /* Disable thread-unsafe features of pnggccrd */
2758 if (png_access_version() >= 10200)
2759 {
2760 png_uint_32 mmx_disable_mask = 0;
2761 png_uint_32 asm_flags;
2762
2763 mmx_disable_mask |= ( PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_COMBINE_ROW \
2764 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_SUB \
2765 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_AVG \
2766 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_PAETH );
2767 asm_flags = png_get_asm_flags(png_ptr);
2768 png_set_asm_flags(png_ptr, asm_flags & ~mmx_disable_mask);
2769 }
2770#endif
2771
2772For more extensive examples of runtime querying, enabling and disabling
2773of optimized features, see contrib/gregbook/readpng2.c in the libpng
2774source-code distribution.
2775
2776
2777VII. MNG support
2778
2779The MNG specification (available at http://www.libpng.org/pub/mng) allows
2780certain extensions to PNG for PNG images that are embedded in MNG datastreams.
2781Libpng can support some of these extensions. To enable them, use the
2782png_permit_mng_features() function:
2783
2784 feature_set = png_permit_mng_features(png_ptr, mask)
2785 mask is a png_uint_32 containing the logical OR of the
2786 features you want to enable. These include
2787 PNG_FLAG_MNG_EMPTY_PLTE
2788 PNG_FLAG_MNG_FILTER_64
2789 PNG_ALL_MNG_FEATURES
2790 feature_set is a png_32_uint that is the logical AND of
2791 your mask with the set of MNG features that is
2792 supported by the version of libpng that you are using.
2793
2794It is an error to use this function when reading or writing a standalone
2795PNG file with the PNG 8-byte signature. The PNG datastream must be wrapped
2796in a MNG datastream. As a minimum, it must have the MNG 8-byte signature
2797and the MHDR and MEND chunks. Libpng does not provide support for these
2798or any other MNG chunks; your application must provide its own support for
2799them. You may wish to consider using libmng (available at
2800http://www.libmng.com) instead.
2801
2802VIII. Changes to Libpng from version 0.88
2803
2804It should be noted that versions of libpng later than 0.96 are not
2805distributed by the original libpng author, Guy Schalnat, nor by
2806Andreas Dilger, who had taken over from Guy during 1996 and 1997, and
2807distributed versions 0.89 through 0.96, but rather by another member
2808of the original PNG Group, Glenn Randers-Pehrson. Guy and Andreas are
2809still alive and well, but they have moved on to other things.
2810
2811The old libpng functions png_read_init(), png_write_init(),
2812png_info_init(), png_read_destroy(), and png_write_destroy() have been
2813moved to PNG_INTERNAL in version 0.95 to discourage their use. These
2814functions will be removed from libpng version 2.0.0.
2815
2816The preferred method of creating and initializing the libpng structures is
2817via the png_create_read_struct(), png_create_write_struct(), and
2818png_create_info_struct() because they isolate the size of the structures
2819from the application, allow version error checking, and also allow the
2820use of custom error handling routines during the initialization, which
2821the old functions do not. The functions png_read_destroy() and
2822png_write_destroy() do not actually free the memory that libpng
2823allocated for these structs, but just reset the data structures, so they
2824can be used instead of png_destroy_read_struct() and
2825png_destroy_write_struct() if you feel there is too much system overhead
2826allocating and freeing the png_struct for each image read.
2827
2828Setting the error callbacks via png_set_message_fn() before
2829png_read_init() as was suggested in libpng-0.88 is no longer supported
2830because this caused applications that do not use custom error functions
2831to fail if the png_ptr was not initialized to zero. It is still possible
2832to set the error callbacks AFTER png_read_init(), or to change them with
2833png_set_error_fn(), which is essentially the same function, but with a new
2834name to force compilation errors with applications that try to use the old
2835method.
2836
2837Starting with version 1.0.7, you can find out which version of the library
2838you are using at run-time:
2839
2840 png_uint_32 libpng_vn = png_access_version_number();
2841
2842The number libpng_vn is constructed from the major version, minor
2843version with leading zero, and release number with leading zero,
2844(e.g., libpng_vn for version 1.0.7 is 10007).
2845
2846You can also check which version of png.h you used when compiling your
2847application:
2848
2849 png_uint_32 application_vn = PNG_LIBPNG_VER;
2850
2851IX. Y2K Compliance in libpng
2852
2853September 18, 2002
2854
2855Since the PNG Development group is an ad-hoc body, we can't make
2856an official declaration.
2857
2858This is your unofficial assurance that libpng from version 0.71 and
2859upward through 1.2.5rc3 are Y2K compliant. It is my belief that earlier
2860versions were also Y2K compliant.
2861
2862Libpng only has three year fields. One is a 2-byte unsigned integer that
2863will hold years up to 65535. The other two hold the date in text
2864format, and will hold years up to 9999.
2865
2866The integer is
2867 "png_uint_16 year" in png_time_struct.
2868
2869The strings are
2870 "png_charp time_buffer" in png_struct and
2871 "near_time_buffer", which is a local character string in png.c.
2872
2873There are seven time-related functions:
2874
2875 png_convert_to_rfc_1123() in png.c
2876 (formerly png_convert_to_rfc_1152() in error)
2877 png_convert_from_struct_tm() in pngwrite.c, called
2878 in pngwrite.c
2879 png_convert_from_time_t() in pngwrite.c
2880 png_get_tIME() in pngget.c
2881 png_handle_tIME() in pngrutil.c, called in pngread.c
2882 png_set_tIME() in pngset.c
2883 png_write_tIME() in pngwutil.c, called in pngwrite.c
2884
2885All appear to handle dates properly in a Y2K environment. The
2886png_convert_from_time_t() function calls gmtime() to convert from system
2887clock time, which returns (year - 1900), which we properly convert to
2888the full 4-digit year. There is a possibility that applications using
2889libpng are not passing 4-digit years into the png_convert_to_rfc_1123()
2890function, or that they are incorrectly passing only a 2-digit year
2891instead of "year - 1900" into the png_convert_from_struct_tm() function,
2892but this is not under our control. The libpng documentation has always
2893stated that it works with 4-digit years, and the APIs have been
2894documented as such.
2895
2896The tIME chunk itself is also Y2K compliant. It uses a 2-byte unsigned
2897integer to hold the year, and can hold years as large as 65535.
2898
2899zlib, upon which libpng depends, is also Y2K compliant. It contains
2900no date-related code.
2901
2902
2903 Glenn Randers-Pehrson
2904 libpng maintainer
2905 PNG Development Group