1 libpng.txt - A description on how to use and modify libpng
3 libpng version 1.2.6 - August 15, 2004
4 Updated and distributed by Glenn Randers-Pehrson
5 <glennrp@users.sourceforge.net>
6 Copyright (c) 1998-2004 Glenn Randers-Pehrson
7 For conditions of distribution and use, see copyright
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
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.
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
27 This 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
29 file: introduction, structures, reading, writing, and modification and
30 configuration notes for various special platforms. In addition to this
31 file, example.c is a good starting point for using the library, as
32 it is heavily commented and should include everything most people
33 will need. We assume that libpng is already installed; see the
34 INSTALL file for instructions on how to install libpng.
36 Libpng was written as a companion to the PNG specification, as a way
37 of reducing the amount of time and effort it takes to support the PNG
38 file format in application programs.
40 The PNG-1.2 specification is available at <http://www.libpng.org/pub/png>
41 and at <ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/documents/>.
43 The PNG-1.0 specification is available
44 as RFC 2083 <ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/documents/> and as a
45 W3C Recommendation <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC.png.html>. Some
46 additional chunks are described in the special-purpose public chunks
47 documents at <ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/documents/>.
50 about PNG, and the latest version of libpng, can be found at the PNG home
51 page, <http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/>
52 and at <ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/>.
54 Most users will not have to modify the library significantly; advanced
55 users may want to modify it more. All attempts were made to make it as
56 complete as possible, while keeping the code easy to understand.
57 Currently, this library only supports C. Support for other languages
60 Libpng has been designed to handle multiple sessions at one time,
61 to be easily modifiable, to be portable to the vast majority of
62 machines (ANSI, K&R, 16-, 32-, and 64-bit) available, and to be easy
63 to use. The ultimate goal of libpng is to promote the acceptance of
64 the PNG file format in whatever way possible. While there is still
65 work to be done (see the TODO file), libpng should cover the
66 majority of the needs of its users.
68 Libpng uses zlib for its compression and decompression of PNG files.
69 Further information about zlib, and the latest version of zlib, can
70 be found at the zlib home page, <http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/zlib/>.
71 The zlib compression utility is a general purpose utility that is
72 useful for more than PNG files, and can be used without libpng.
73 See the documentation delivered with zlib for more details.
74 You can usually find the source files for the zlib utility wherever you
75 find the libpng source files.
77 Libpng is thread safe, provided the threads are using different
78 instances of the structures. Each thread should have its own
79 png_struct and png_info instances, and thus its own image.
80 Libpng does not protect itself against two threads using the
81 same instance of a structure. Note: thread safety may be defeated
82 by use of some of the MMX assembler code in pnggccrd.c, which is only
83 compiled when the user defines PNG_THREAD_UNSAFE_OK.
88 There are two main structures that are important to libpng, png_struct
89 and png_info. The first, png_struct, is an internal structure that
90 will not, for the most part, be used by a user except as the first
91 variable passed to every libpng function call.
93 The png_info structure is designed to provide information about the
94 PNG file. At one time, the fields of png_info were intended to be
95 directly accessible to the user. However, this tended to cause problems
96 with applications using dynamically loaded libraries, and as a result
97 a set of interface functions for png_info (the png_get_*() and png_set_*()
98 functions) was developed. The fields of png_info are still available for
99 older applications, but it is suggested that applications use the new
100 interfaces if at all possible.
102 Applications that do make direct access to the members of png_struct (except
103 for png_ptr->jmpbuf) must be recompiled whenever the library is updated,
104 and applications that make direct access to the members of png_info must
105 be recompiled if they were compiled or loaded with libpng version 1.0.6,
106 in which the members were in a different order. In version 1.0.7, the
107 members of the png_info structure reverted to the old order, as they were
108 in versions 0.97c through 1.0.5. Starting with version 2.0.0, both
109 structures are going to be hidden, and the contents of the structures will
110 only be accessible through the png_get/png_set functions.
112 The png.h header file is an invaluable reference for programming with libpng.
113 And while I'm on the topic, make sure you include the libpng header file:
119 We'll now walk you through the possible functions to call when reading
120 in a PNG file sequentially, briefly explaining the syntax and purpose
121 of each one. See example.c and png.h for more detail. While
122 progressive reading is covered in the next section, you will still
123 need some of the functions discussed in this section to read a PNG
128 You will want to do the I/O initialization(*) before you get into libpng,
129 so if it doesn't work, you don't have much to undo. Of course, you
130 will also want to insure that you are, in fact, dealing with a PNG
131 file. Libpng provides a simple check to see if a file is a PNG file.
132 To use it, pass in the first 1 to 8 bytes of the file to the function
133 png_sig_cmp(), and it will return 0 if the bytes match the corresponding
134 bytes of the PNG signature, or nonzero otherwise. Of course, the more bytes
135 you pass in, the greater the accuracy of the prediction.
137 If you are intending to keep the file pointer open for use in libpng,
138 you must ensure you don't read more than 8 bytes from the beginning
139 of the file, and you also have to make a call to png_set_sig_bytes_read()
140 with the number of bytes you read from the beginning. Libpng will
141 then only check the bytes (if any) that your program didn't read.
143 (*): If you are not using the standard I/O functions, you will need
144 to replace them with custom functions. See the discussion under
148 FILE *fp = fopen(file_name, "rb");
153 fread(header, 1, number, fp);
154 is_png = !png_sig_cmp(header, 0, number);
161 Next, png_struct and png_info need to be allocated and initialized. In
162 order to ensure that the size of these structures is correct even with a
163 dynamically linked libpng, there are functions to initialize and
164 allocate the structures. We also pass the library version, optional
165 pointers to error handling functions, and a pointer to a data struct for
166 use by the error functions, if necessary (the pointer and functions can
167 be NULL if the default error handlers are to be used). See the section
168 on Changes to Libpng below regarding the old initialization functions.
169 The structure allocation functions quietly return NULL if they fail to
170 create the structure, so your application should check for that.
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);
178 png_infop info_ptr = png_create_info_struct(png_ptr);
181 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr,
182 (png_infopp)NULL, (png_infopp)NULL);
186 png_infop end_info = png_create_info_struct(png_ptr);
189 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr,
194 If you want to use your own memory allocation routines,
195 define PNG_USER_MEM_SUPPORTED and use
196 png_create_read_struct_2() instead of png_create_read_struct():
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);
203 The error handling routines passed to png_create_read_struct()
204 and the memory alloc/free routines passed to png_create_struct_2()
205 are only necessary if you are not using the libpng supplied error
206 handling and memory alloc/free functions.
208 When libpng encounters an error, it expects to longjmp back
209 to your routine. Therefore, you will need to call setjmp and pass
210 your png_jmpbuf(png_ptr). If you read the file from different
211 routines, you will need to update the jmpbuf field every time you enter
212 a new routine that will call a png_*() function.
214 See your documentation of setjmp/longjmp for your compiler for more
215 information on setjmp/longjmp. See the discussion on libpng error
216 handling in the Customizing Libpng section below for more information
217 on the libpng error handling. If an error occurs, and libpng longjmp's
218 back to your setjmp, you will want to call png_destroy_read_struct() to
221 if (setjmp(png_jmpbuf(png_ptr)))
223 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr,
229 If you would rather avoid the complexity of setjmp/longjmp issues,
230 you can compile libpng with PNG_SETJMP_NOT_SUPPORTED, in which case
231 errors will result in a call to PNG_ABORT() which defaults to abort().
233 Now you need to set up the input code. The default for libpng is to
234 use the C function fread(). If you use this, you will need to pass a
235 valid FILE * in the function png_init_io(). Be sure that the file is
236 opened in binary mode. If you wish to handle reading data in another
237 way, you need not call the png_init_io() function, but you must then
238 implement the libpng I/O methods discussed in the Customizing Libpng
241 png_init_io(png_ptr, fp);
243 If you had previously opened the file and read any of the signature from
244 the beginning in order to see if this was a PNG file, you need to let
245 libpng know that there are some bytes missing from the start of the file.
247 png_set_sig_bytes(png_ptr, number);
249 Setting up callback code
251 You can set up a callback function to handle any unknown chunks in the
252 input stream. You must supply the function
254 read_chunk_callback(png_ptr ptr,
255 png_unknown_chunkp chunk);
257 /* The unknown chunk structure contains your
262 /* Note that libpng has already taken care of
265 /* put your code here. Return one of the
268 return (-n); /* chunk had an error */
269 return (0); /* did not recognize */
270 return (n); /* success */
273 (You can give your function another name that you like instead of
274 "read_chunk_callback")
276 To inform libpng about your function, use
278 png_set_read_user_chunk_fn(png_ptr, user_chunk_ptr,
279 read_chunk_callback);
281 This names not only the callback function, but also a user pointer that
282 you can retrieve with
284 png_get_user_chunk_ptr(png_ptr);
286 At this point, you can set up a callback function that will be
287 called after each row has been read, which you can use to control
288 a progress meter or the like. It's demonstrated in pngtest.c.
289 You must supply a function
291 void read_row_callback(png_ptr ptr, png_uint_32 row,
294 /* put your code here */
297 (You can give it another name that you like instead of "read_row_callback")
299 To inform libpng about your function, use
301 png_set_read_status_fn(png_ptr, read_row_callback);
303 Width and height limits
305 The PNG specification allows the width and height of an image to be as
306 large as 2^31-1 (0x7fffffff), or about 2.147 billion rows and columns.
307 Since very few applications really need to process such large images,
308 we have imposed an arbitrary 1-million limit on rows and columns.
309 Larger images will be rejected immediately with a png_error() call. If
310 you wish to override this limit, you can use
312 png_set_user_limits(png_ptr, width_max, height_max);
314 to set your own limits, or use width_max = height_max = 0x7fffffffL
315 to allow all valid dimensions (libpng may reject some very large images
316 anyway because of potential buffer overflow conditions).
318 You should put this statement after you create the PNG structure and
319 before calling png_read_info(), png_read_png(), or png_process_data().
320 If you need to retrieve the limits that are being applied, use
322 width_max = png_get_user_width_max(png_ptr);
323 height_max = png_get_user_height_max(png_ptr);
325 Unknown-chunk handling
327 Now you get to set the way the library processes unknown chunks in the
328 input PNG stream. Both known and unknown chunks will be read. Normal
329 behavior is that known chunks will be parsed into information in
330 various info_ptr members; unknown chunks will be discarded. To change
333 png_set_keep_unknown_chunks(png_ptr, keep,
334 chunk_list, num_chunks);
335 keep - 0: do not handle as unknown
337 2: keep only if safe-to-copy
338 3: keep even if unsafe-to-copy
339 You can use these definitions:
340 PNG_HANDLE_CHUNK_AS_DEFAULT 0
341 PNG_HANDLE_CHUNK_NEVER 1
342 PNG_HANDLE_CHUNK_IF_SAFE 2
343 PNG_HANDLE_CHUNK_ALWAYS 3
344 chunk_list - list of chunks affected (a byte string,
345 five bytes per chunk, NULL or '\0' if
347 num_chunks - number of chunks affected; if 0, all
348 unknown chunks are affected. If nonzero,
349 only the chunks in the list are affected
351 Unknown chunks declared in this way will be saved as raw data onto a
352 list of png_unknown_chunk structures. If a chunk that is normally
353 known to libpng is named in the list, it will be handled as unknown,
354 according to the "keep" directive. If a chunk is named in successive
355 instances of png_set_keep_unknown_chunks(), the final instance will
356 take precedence. The IHDR and IEND chunks should not be named in
357 chunk_list; if they are, libpng will process them normally anyway.
359 The high-level read interface
361 At this point there are two ways to proceed; through the high-level
362 read interface, or through a sequence of low-level read operations.
363 You can use the high-level interface if (a) you are willing to read
364 the entire image into memory, and (b) the input transformations
365 you want to do are limited to the following set:
367 PNG_TRANSFORM_IDENTITY No transformation
368 PNG_TRANSFORM_STRIP_16 Strip 16-bit samples to
370 PNG_TRANSFORM_STRIP_ALPHA Discard the alpha channel
371 PNG_TRANSFORM_PACKING Expand 1, 2 and 4-bit
373 PNG_TRANSFORM_PACKSWAP Change order of packed
375 PNG_TRANSFORM_EXPAND Perform set_expand()
376 PNG_TRANSFORM_INVERT_MONO Invert monochrome images
377 PNG_TRANSFORM_SHIFT Normalize pixels to the
379 PNG_TRANSFORM_BGR Flip RGB to BGR, RGBA
381 PNG_TRANSFORM_SWAP_ALPHA Flip RGBA to ARGB or GA
383 PNG_TRANSFORM_INVERT_ALPHA Change alpha from opacity
385 PNG_TRANSFORM_SWAP_ENDIAN Byte-swap 16-bit samples
387 (This excludes setting a background color, doing gamma transformation,
388 dithering, and setting filler.) If this is the case, simply do this:
390 png_read_png(png_ptr, info_ptr, png_transforms, NULL)
392 where png_transforms is an integer containing the logical OR of
393 some set of transformation flags. This call is equivalent to png_read_info(),
394 followed the set of transformations indicated by the transform mask,
395 then png_read_image(), and finally png_read_end().
397 (The final parameter of this call is not yet used. Someday it might point
398 to transformation parameters required by some future input transform.)
400 After you have called png_read_png(), you can retrieve the image data
403 row_pointers = png_get_rows(png_ptr, info_ptr);
405 where row_pointers is an array of pointers to the pixel data for each row:
407 png_bytep row_pointers[height];
409 If you know your image size and pixel size ahead of time, you can allocate
410 row_pointers prior to calling png_read_png() with
412 if (height > PNG_UINT_32_MAX/png_sizeof(png_byte))
414 "Image is too tall to process in memory");
415 if (width > PNG_UINT_32_MAX/pixel_size)
417 "Image is too wide to process in memory");
418 row_pointers = png_malloc(png_ptr,
419 height*png_sizeof(png_bytep));
420 for (int i=0; i<height, i++)
421 row_pointers[i]=png_malloc(png_ptr,
423 png_set_rows(png_ptr, info_ptr, &row_pointers);
425 Alternatively you could allocate your image in one big block and define
426 row_pointers[i] to point into the proper places in your block.
428 If you use png_set_rows(), the application is responsible for freeing
429 row_pointers (and row_pointers[i], if they were separately allocated).
431 If you don't allocate row_pointers ahead of time, png_read_png() will
432 do it, and it'll be free'ed when you call png_destroy_*().
434 The low-level read interface
436 If you are going the low-level route, you are now ready to read all
437 the file information up to the actual image data. You do this with a
438 call to png_read_info().
440 png_read_info(png_ptr, info_ptr);
442 This will process all chunks up to but not including the image data.
444 Querying the info structure
446 Functions are used to get the information from the info_ptr once it
447 has been read. Note that these fields may not be completely filled
448 in until png_read_end() has read the chunk data following the image.
450 png_get_IHDR(png_ptr, info_ptr, &width, &height,
451 &bit_depth, &color_type, &interlace_type,
452 &compression_type, &filter_method);
454 width - holds the width of the image
455 in pixels (up to 2^31).
456 height - holds the height of the image
457 in pixels (up to 2^31).
458 bit_depth - holds the bit depth of one of the
459 image channels. (valid values are
460 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and depend also on
461 the color_type. See also
462 significant bits (sBIT) below).
463 color_type - describes which color/alpha channels
466 (bit depths 1, 2, 4, 8, 16)
467 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY_ALPHA
469 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_PALETTE
470 (bit depths 1, 2, 4, 8)
473 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA
476 PNG_COLOR_MASK_PALETTE
480 filter_method - (must be PNG_FILTER_TYPE_BASE
481 for PNG 1.0, and can also be
482 PNG_INTRAPIXEL_DIFFERENCING if
483 the PNG datastream is embedded in
484 a MNG-1.0 datastream)
485 compression_type - (must be PNG_COMPRESSION_TYPE_BASE
487 interlace_type - (PNG_INTERLACE_NONE or
489 Any or all of interlace_type, compression_type, of
490 filter_method can be NULL if you are
491 not interested in their values.
493 channels = png_get_channels(png_ptr, info_ptr);
494 channels - number of channels of info for the
495 color type (valid values are 1 (GRAY,
496 PALETTE), 2 (GRAY_ALPHA), 3 (RGB),
497 4 (RGB_ALPHA or RGB + filler byte))
498 rowbytes = png_get_rowbytes(png_ptr, info_ptr);
499 rowbytes - number of bytes needed to hold a row
501 signature = png_get_signature(png_ptr, info_ptr);
502 signature - holds the signature read from the
503 file (if any). The data is kept in
504 the same offset it would be if the
505 whole signature were read (i.e. if an
506 application had already read in 4
507 bytes of signature before starting
508 libpng, the remaining 4 bytes would
509 be in signature[4] through signature[7]
510 (see png_set_sig_bytes())).
513 width = png_get_image_width(png_ptr,
515 height = png_get_image_height(png_ptr,
517 bit_depth = png_get_bit_depth(png_ptr,
519 color_type = png_get_color_type(png_ptr,
521 filter_method = png_get_filter_type(png_ptr,
523 compression_type = png_get_compression_type(png_ptr,
525 interlace_type = png_get_interlace_type(png_ptr,
529 These are also important, but their validity depends on whether the chunk
530 has been read. The png_get_valid(png_ptr, info_ptr, PNG_INFO_<chunk>) and
531 png_get_<chunk>(png_ptr, info_ptr, ...) functions return non-zero if the
532 data has been read, or zero if it is missing. The parameters to the
533 png_get_<chunk> are set directly if they are simple data types, or a pointer
534 into the info_ptr is returned for any complex types.
536 png_get_PLTE(png_ptr, info_ptr, &palette,
538 palette - the palette for the file
540 num_palette - number of entries in the palette
542 png_get_gAMA(png_ptr, info_ptr, &gamma);
543 gamma - the gamma the file is written
546 png_get_sRGB(png_ptr, info_ptr, &srgb_intent);
547 srgb_intent - the rendering intent (PNG_INFO_sRGB)
548 The presence of the sRGB chunk
549 means that the pixel data is in the
550 sRGB color space. This chunk also
551 implies specific values of gAMA and
554 png_get_iCCP(png_ptr, info_ptr, &name,
555 &compression_type, &profile, &proflen);
556 name - The profile name.
557 compression - The compression type; always
558 PNG_COMPRESSION_TYPE_BASE for PNG 1.0.
559 You may give NULL to this argument to
561 profile - International Color Consortium color
562 profile data. May contain NULs.
563 proflen - length of profile data in bytes.
565 png_get_sBIT(png_ptr, info_ptr, &sig_bit);
566 sig_bit - the number of significant bits for
567 (PNG_INFO_sBIT) each of the gray,
568 red, green, and blue channels,
569 whichever are appropriate for the
570 given color type (png_color_16)
572 png_get_tRNS(png_ptr, info_ptr, &trans, &num_trans,
574 trans - array of transparent entries for
575 palette (PNG_INFO_tRNS)
576 trans_values - graylevel or color sample values of
577 the single transparent color for
578 non-paletted images (PNG_INFO_tRNS)
579 num_trans - number of transparent entries
582 png_get_hIST(png_ptr, info_ptr, &hist);
584 hist - histogram of palette (array of
587 png_get_tIME(png_ptr, info_ptr, &mod_time);
588 mod_time - time image was last modified
591 png_get_bKGD(png_ptr, info_ptr, &background);
592 background - background color (PNG_VALID_bKGD)
593 valid 16-bit red, green and blue
594 values, regardless of color_type
596 num_comments = png_get_text(png_ptr, info_ptr,
597 &text_ptr, &num_text);
598 num_comments - number of comments
599 text_ptr - array of png_text holding image
601 text_ptr[i].compression - type of compression used
602 on "text" PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_NONE
603 PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt
604 PNG_ITXT_COMPRESSION_NONE
605 PNG_ITXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt
606 text_ptr[i].key - keyword for comment. Must contain
608 text_ptr[i].text - text comments for current
609 keyword. Can be empty.
610 text_ptr[i].text_length - length of text string,
611 after decompression, 0 for iTXt
612 text_ptr[i].itxt_length - length of itxt string,
613 after decompression, 0 for tEXt/zTXt
614 text_ptr[i].lang - language of comment (empty
616 text_ptr[i].lang_key - keyword in UTF-8
617 (empty string for unknown).
618 num_text - number of comments (same as
619 num_comments; you can put NULL here
620 to avoid the duplication)
621 Note while png_set_text() will accept text, language,
622 and translated keywords that can be NULL pointers, the
623 structure returned by png_get_text will always contain
624 regular zero-terminated C strings. They might be
625 empty strings but they will never be NULL pointers.
627 num_spalettes = png_get_sPLT(png_ptr, info_ptr,
629 palette_ptr - array of palette structures holding
630 contents of one or more sPLT chunks
632 num_spalettes - number of sPLT chunks read.
634 png_get_oFFs(png_ptr, info_ptr, &offset_x, &offset_y,
636 offset_x - positive offset from the left edge
638 offset_y - positive offset from the top edge
640 unit_type - PNG_OFFSET_PIXEL, PNG_OFFSET_MICROMETER
642 png_get_pHYs(png_ptr, info_ptr, &res_x, &res_y,
644 res_x - pixels/unit physical resolution in
646 res_y - pixels/unit physical resolution in
648 unit_type - PNG_RESOLUTION_UNKNOWN,
651 png_get_sCAL(png_ptr, info_ptr, &unit, &width,
653 unit - physical scale units (an integer)
654 width - width of a pixel in physical scale units
655 height - height of a pixel in physical scale units
656 (width and height are doubles)
658 png_get_sCAL_s(png_ptr, info_ptr, &unit, &width,
660 unit - physical scale units (an integer)
661 width - width of a pixel in physical scale units
662 height - height of a pixel in physical scale units
663 (width and height are strings like "2.54")
665 num_unknown_chunks = png_get_unknown_chunks(png_ptr,
667 unknowns - array of png_unknown_chunk
668 structures holding unknown chunks
669 unknowns[i].name - name of unknown chunk
670 unknowns[i].data - data of unknown chunk
671 unknowns[i].size - size of unknown chunk's data
672 unknowns[i].location - position of chunk in file
674 The value of "i" corresponds to the order in which the
675 chunks were read from the PNG file or inserted with the
676 png_set_unknown_chunks() function.
678 The data from the pHYs chunk can be retrieved in several convenient
681 res_x = png_get_x_pixels_per_meter(png_ptr,
683 res_y = png_get_y_pixels_per_meter(png_ptr,
685 res_x_and_y = png_get_pixels_per_meter(png_ptr,
687 res_x = png_get_x_pixels_per_inch(png_ptr,
689 res_y = png_get_y_pixels_per_inch(png_ptr,
691 res_x_and_y = png_get_pixels_per_inch(png_ptr,
693 aspect_ratio = png_get_pixel_aspect_ratio(png_ptr,
696 (Each of these returns 0 [signifying "unknown"] if
697 the data is not present or if res_x is 0;
698 res_x_and_y is 0 if res_x != res_y)
700 The data from the oFFs chunk can be retrieved in several convenient
703 x_offset = png_get_x_offset_microns(png_ptr, info_ptr);
704 y_offset = png_get_y_offset_microns(png_ptr, info_ptr);
705 x_offset = png_get_x_offset_inches(png_ptr, info_ptr);
706 y_offset = png_get_y_offset_inches(png_ptr, info_ptr);
708 (Each of these returns 0 [signifying "unknown" if both
709 x and y are 0] if the data is not present or if the
710 chunk is present but the unit is the pixel)
712 For more information, see the png_info definition in png.h and the
713 PNG specification for chunk contents. Be careful with trusting
714 rowbytes, as some of the transformations could increase the space
715 needed to hold a row (expand, filler, gray_to_rgb, etc.).
716 See png_read_update_info(), below.
718 A quick word about text_ptr and num_text. PNG stores comments in
719 keyword/text pairs, one pair per chunk, with no limit on the number
720 of text chunks, and a 2^31 byte limit on their size. While there are
721 suggested keywords, there is no requirement to restrict the use to these
722 strings. It is strongly suggested that keywords and text be sensible
723 to humans (that's the point), so don't use abbreviations. Non-printing
724 symbols are not allowed. See the PNG specification for more details.
725 There is also no requirement to have text after the keyword.
727 Keywords should be limited to 79 Latin-1 characters without leading or
728 trailing spaces, but non-consecutive spaces are allowed within the
729 keyword. It is possible to have the same keyword any number of times.
730 The text_ptr is an array of png_text structures, each holding a
731 pointer to a language string, a pointer to a keyword and a pointer to
732 a text string. The text string, language code, and translated
733 keyword may be empty or NULL pointers. The keyword/text
734 pairs are put into the array in the order that they are received.
735 However, some or all of the text chunks may be after the image, so, to
736 make sure you have read all the text chunks, don't mess with these
737 until after you read the stuff after the image. This will be
738 mentioned again below in the discussion that goes with png_read_end().
740 Input transformations
742 After you've read the header information, you can set up the library
743 to handle any special transformations of the image data. The various
744 ways to transform the data will be described in the order that they
745 should occur. This is important, as some of these change the color
746 type and/or bit depth of the data, and some others only work on
747 certain color types and bit depths. Even though each transformation
748 checks to see if it has data that it can do something with, you should
749 make sure to only enable a transformation if it will be valid for the
750 data. For example, don't swap red and blue on grayscale data.
752 The colors used for the background and transparency values should be
753 supplied in the same format/depth as the current image data. They
754 are stored in the same format/depth as the image data in a bKGD or tRNS
755 chunk, so this is what libpng expects for this data. The colors are
756 transformed to keep in sync with the image data when an application
757 calls the png_read_update_info() routine (see below).
759 Data will be decoded into the supplied row buffers packed into bytes
760 unless the library has been told to transform it into another format.
761 For example, 4 bit/pixel paletted or grayscale data will be returned
762 2 pixels/byte with the leftmost pixel in the high-order bits of the
763 byte, unless png_set_packing() is called. 8-bit RGB data will be stored
764 in RGB RGB RGB format unless png_set_filler() is called to insert filler
765 bytes, either before or after each RGB triplet. 16-bit RGB data will
766 be returned RRGGBB RRGGBB, with the most significant byte of the color
767 value first, unless png_set_strip_16() is called to transform it to
768 regular RGB RGB triplets, or png_set_filler() is called to insert
769 filler bytes, either before or after each RRGGBB triplet. Similarly,
770 8-bit or 16-bit grayscale data can be modified with png_set_filler()
771 or png_set_strip_16().
773 The following code transforms grayscale images of less than 8 to 8 bits,
774 changes paletted images to RGB, and adds a full alpha channel if there is
775 transparency information in a tRNS chunk. This is most useful on
776 grayscale images with bit depths of 2 or 4 or if there is a multiple-image
777 viewing application that wishes to treat all images in the same way.
779 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_PALETTE)
780 png_set_palette_to_rgb(png_ptr);
782 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY &&
783 bit_depth < 8) png_set_gray_1_2_4_to_8(png_ptr);
785 if (png_get_valid(png_ptr, info_ptr,
786 PNG_INFO_tRNS)) png_set_tRNS_to_alpha(png_ptr);
788 These three functions are actually aliases for png_set_expand(), added
789 in libpng version 1.0.4, with the function names expanded to improve code
790 readability. In some future version they may actually do different
793 PNG can have files with 16 bits per channel. If you only can handle
794 8 bits per channel, this will strip the pixels down to 8 bit.
797 png_set_strip_16(png_ptr);
799 If, for some reason, you don't need the alpha channel on an image,
800 and you want to remove it rather than combining it with the background
801 (but the image author certainly had in mind that you *would* combine
802 it with the background, so that's what you should probably do):
804 if (color_type & PNG_COLOR_MASK_ALPHA)
805 png_set_strip_alpha(png_ptr);
807 In PNG files, the alpha channel in an image
808 is the level of opacity. If you need the alpha channel in an image to
809 be the level of transparency instead of opacity, you can invert the
810 alpha channel (or the tRNS chunk data) after it's read, so that 0 is
811 fully opaque and 255 (in 8-bit or paletted images) or 65535 (in 16-bit
812 images) is fully transparent, with
814 png_set_invert_alpha(png_ptr);
816 PNG files pack pixels of bit depths 1, 2, and 4 into bytes as small as
817 they can, resulting in, for example, 8 pixels per byte for 1 bit
818 files. This code expands to 1 pixel per byte without changing the
819 values of the pixels:
822 png_set_packing(png_ptr);
824 PNG files have possible bit depths of 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16. All pixels
825 stored in a PNG image have been "scaled" or "shifted" up to the next
826 higher possible bit depth (e.g. from 5 bits/sample in the range [0,31] to
827 8 bits/sample in the range [0, 255]). However, it is also possible to
828 convert the PNG pixel data back to the original bit depth of the image.
829 This call reduces the pixels back down to the original bit depth:
831 png_color_8p sig_bit;
833 if (png_get_sBIT(png_ptr, info_ptr, &sig_bit))
834 png_set_shift(png_ptr, sig_bit);
836 PNG files store 3-color pixels in red, green, blue order. This code
837 changes the storage of the pixels to blue, green, red:
839 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB ||
840 color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA)
841 png_set_bgr(png_ptr);
843 PNG files store RGB pixels packed into 3 or 6 bytes. This code expands them
844 into 4 or 8 bytes for windowing systems that need them in this format:
846 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB)
847 png_set_filler(png_ptr, filler, PNG_FILLER_BEFORE);
849 where "filler" is the 8 or 16-bit number to fill with, and the location is
850 either PNG_FILLER_BEFORE or PNG_FILLER_AFTER, depending upon whether
851 you want the filler before the RGB or after. This transformation
852 does not affect images that already have full alpha channels. To add an
853 opaque alpha channel, use filler=0xff or 0xffff and PNG_FILLER_AFTER which
854 will generate RGBA pixels.
856 If you are reading an image with an alpha channel, and you need the
857 data as ARGB instead of the normal PNG format RGBA:
859 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA)
860 png_set_swap_alpha(png_ptr);
862 For some uses, you may want a grayscale image to be represented as
863 RGB. This code will do that conversion:
865 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY ||
866 color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY_ALPHA)
867 png_set_gray_to_rgb(png_ptr);
869 Conversely, you can convert an RGB or RGBA image to grayscale or grayscale
872 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB ||
873 color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA)
874 png_set_rgb_to_gray_fixed(png_ptr, error_action,
875 int red_weight, int green_weight);
877 error_action = 1: silently do the conversion
878 error_action = 2: issue a warning if the original
879 image has any pixel where
880 red != green or red != blue
881 error_action = 3: issue an error and abort the
882 conversion if the original
883 image has any pixel where
884 red != green or red != blue
886 red_weight: weight of red component times 100000
887 green_weight: weight of green component times 100000
888 If either weight is negative, default
889 weights (21268, 71514) are used.
891 If you have set error_action = 1 or 2, you can
892 later check whether the image really was gray, after processing
893 the image rows, with the png_get_rgb_to_gray_status(png_ptr) function.
894 It will return a png_byte that is zero if the image was gray or
895 1 if there were any non-gray pixels. bKGD and sBIT data
896 will be silently converted to grayscale, using the green channel
897 data, regardless of the error_action setting.
899 With red_weight+green_weight<=100000,
900 the normalized graylevel is computed:
902 int rw = red_weight * 65536;
903 int gw = green_weight * 65536;
904 int bw = 65536 - (rw + gw);
905 gray = (rw*red + gw*green + bw*blue)/65536;
907 The default values approximate those recommended in the Charles
908 Poynton's Color FAQ, <http://www.inforamp.net/~poynton/>
909 Copyright (c) 1998-01-04 Charles Poynton poynton@inforamp.net
911 Y = 0.212671 * R + 0.715160 * G + 0.072169 * B
913 Libpng approximates this with
915 Y = 0.21268 * R + 0.7151 * G + 0.07217 * B
917 which can be expressed with integers as
919 Y = (6969 * R + 23434 * G + 2365 * B)/32768
921 The calculation is done in a linear colorspace, if the image gamma
924 If you have a grayscale and you are using png_set_expand_depth(),
925 png_set_expand(), or png_set_gray_to_rgb to change to truecolor or to
926 a higher bit-depth, you must either supply the background color as a gray
927 value at the original file bit-depth (need_expand = 1) or else supply the
928 background color as an RGB triplet at the final, expanded bit depth
929 (need_expand = 0). Similarly, if you are reading a paletted image, you
930 must either supply the background color as a palette index (need_expand = 1)
931 or as an RGB triplet that may or may not be in the palette (need_expand = 0).
933 png_color_16 my_background;
934 png_color_16p image_background;
936 if (png_get_bKGD(png_ptr, info_ptr, &image_background))
937 png_set_background(png_ptr, image_background,
938 PNG_BACKGROUND_GAMMA_FILE, 1, 1.0);
940 png_set_background(png_ptr, &my_background,
941 PNG_BACKGROUND_GAMMA_SCREEN, 0, 1.0);
943 The png_set_background() function tells libpng to composite images
944 with alpha or simple transparency against the supplied background
945 color. If the PNG file contains a bKGD chunk (PNG_INFO_bKGD valid),
946 you may use this color, or supply another color more suitable for
947 the current display (e.g., the background color from a web page). You
948 need to tell libpng whether the color is in the gamma space of the
949 display (PNG_BACKGROUND_GAMMA_SCREEN for colors you supply), the file
950 (PNG_BACKGROUND_GAMMA_FILE for colors from the bKGD chunk), or one
951 that is neither of these gammas (PNG_BACKGROUND_GAMMA_UNIQUE - I don't
952 know why anyone would use this, but it's here).
954 To properly display PNG images on any kind of system, the application needs
955 to know what the display gamma is. Ideally, the user will know this, and
956 the application will allow them to set it. One method of allowing the user
957 to set the display gamma separately for each system is to check for a
958 SCREEN_GAMMA or DISPLAY_GAMMA environment variable, which will hopefully be
961 Note that display_gamma is the overall gamma correction required to produce
962 pleasing results, which depends on the lighting conditions in the surrounding
963 environment. In a dim or brightly lit room, no compensation other than
964 the physical gamma exponent of the monitor is needed, while in a dark room
965 a slightly smaller exponent is better.
967 double gamma, screen_gamma;
969 if (/* We have a user-defined screen
972 screen_gamma = user_defined_screen_gamma;
974 /* One way that applications can share the same
975 screen gamma value */
976 else if ((gamma_str = getenv("SCREEN_GAMMA"))
979 screen_gamma = (double)atof(gamma_str);
981 /* If we don't have another value */
984 screen_gamma = 2.2; /* A good guess for a
985 PC monitor in a bright office or a dim room */
986 screen_gamma = 2.0; /* A good guess for a
987 PC monitor in a dark room */
988 screen_gamma = 1.7 or 1.0; /* A good
989 guess for Mac systems */
992 The png_set_gamma() function handles gamma transformations of the data.
993 Pass both the file gamma and the current screen_gamma. If the file does
994 not have a gamma value, you can pass one anyway if you have an idea what
995 it is (usually 0.45455 is a good guess for GIF images on PCs). Note
996 that file gammas are inverted from screen gammas. See the discussions
997 on gamma in the PNG specification for an excellent description of what
998 gamma is, and why all applications should support it. It is strongly
999 recommended that PNG viewers support gamma correction.
1001 if (png_get_gAMA(png_ptr, info_ptr, &gamma))
1002 png_set_gamma(png_ptr, screen_gamma, gamma);
1004 png_set_gamma(png_ptr, screen_gamma, 0.45455);
1006 If you need to reduce an RGB file to a paletted file, or if a paletted
1007 file has more entries then will fit on your screen, png_set_dither()
1008 will do that. Note that this is a simple match dither that merely
1009 finds the closest color available. This should work fairly well with
1010 optimized palettes, and fairly badly with linear color cubes. If you
1011 pass a palette that is larger then maximum_colors, the file will
1012 reduce the number of colors in the palette so it will fit into
1013 maximum_colors. If there is a histogram, it will use it to make
1014 more intelligent choices when reducing the palette. If there is no
1015 histogram, it may not do as good a job.
1017 if (color_type & PNG_COLOR_MASK_COLOR)
1019 if (png_get_valid(png_ptr, info_ptr,
1022 png_uint_16p histogram = NULL;
1024 png_get_hIST(png_ptr, info_ptr,
1026 png_set_dither(png_ptr, palette, num_palette,
1027 max_screen_colors, histogram, 1);
1031 png_color std_color_cube[MAX_SCREEN_COLORS] =
1034 png_set_dither(png_ptr, std_color_cube,
1035 MAX_SCREEN_COLORS, MAX_SCREEN_COLORS,
1040 PNG files describe monochrome as black being zero and white being one.
1041 The following code will reverse this (make black be one and white be
1044 if (bit_depth == 1 && color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY)
1045 png_set_invert_mono(png_ptr);
1047 This function can also be used to invert grayscale and gray-alpha images:
1049 if (color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY ||
1050 color_type == PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY_ALPHA)
1051 png_set_invert_mono(png_ptr);
1053 PNG files store 16 bit pixels in network byte order (big-endian,
1054 ie. most significant bits first). This code changes the storage to the
1055 other way (little-endian, i.e. least significant bits first, the
1056 way PCs store them):
1058 if (bit_depth == 16)
1059 png_set_swap(png_ptr);
1061 If you are using packed-pixel images (1, 2, or 4 bits/pixel), and you
1062 need to change the order the pixels are packed into bytes, you can use:
1065 png_set_packswap(png_ptr);
1067 Finally, you can write your own transformation function if none of
1068 the existing ones meets your needs. This is done by setting a callback
1071 png_set_read_user_transform_fn(png_ptr,
1074 You must supply the function
1076 void read_transform_fn(png_ptr ptr, row_info_ptr
1077 row_info, png_bytep data)
1079 See pngtest.c for a working example. Your function will be called
1080 after all of the other transformations have been processed.
1082 You can also set up a pointer to a user structure for use by your
1083 callback function, and you can inform libpng that your transform
1084 function will change the number of channels or bit depth with the
1087 png_set_user_transform_info(png_ptr, user_ptr,
1088 user_depth, user_channels);
1090 The user's application, not libpng, is responsible for allocating and
1091 freeing any memory required for the user structure.
1093 You can retrieve the pointer via the function
1094 png_get_user_transform_ptr(). For example:
1096 voidp read_user_transform_ptr =
1097 png_get_user_transform_ptr(png_ptr);
1099 The last thing to handle is interlacing; this is covered in detail below,
1100 but you must call the function here if you want libpng to handle expansion
1101 of the interlaced image.
1103 number_of_passes = png_set_interlace_handling(png_ptr);
1105 After setting the transformations, libpng can update your png_info
1106 structure to reflect any transformations you've requested with this
1107 call. This is most useful to update the info structure's rowbytes
1108 field so you can use it to allocate your image memory. This function
1109 will also update your palette with the correct screen_gamma and
1110 background if these have been given with the calls above.
1112 png_read_update_info(png_ptr, info_ptr);
1114 After you call png_read_update_info(), you can allocate any
1115 memory you need to hold the image. The row data is simply
1116 raw byte data for all forms of images. As the actual allocation
1117 varies among applications, no example will be given. If you
1118 are allocating one large chunk, you will need to build an
1119 array of pointers to each row, as it will be needed for some
1120 of the functions below.
1124 After you've allocated memory, you can read the image data.
1125 The simplest way to do this is in one function call. If you are
1126 allocating enough memory to hold the whole image, you can just
1127 call png_read_image() and libpng will read in all the image data
1128 and put it in the memory area supplied. You will need to pass in
1129 an array of pointers to each row.
1131 This function automatically handles interlacing, so you don't need
1132 to call png_set_interlace_handling() or call this function multiple
1133 times, or any of that other stuff necessary with png_read_rows().
1135 png_read_image(png_ptr, row_pointers);
1137 where row_pointers is:
1139 png_bytep row_pointers[height];
1141 You can point to void or char or whatever you use for pixels.
1143 If you don't want to read in the whole image at once, you can
1144 use png_read_rows() instead. If there is no interlacing (check
1145 interlace_type == PNG_INTERLACE_NONE), this is simple:
1147 png_read_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers, NULL,
1150 where row_pointers is the same as in the png_read_image() call.
1152 If you are doing this just one row at a time, you can do this with
1153 a single row_pointer instead of an array of row_pointers:
1155 png_bytep row_pointer = row;
1156 png_read_row(png_ptr, row_pointer, NULL);
1158 If the file is interlaced (interlace_type != 0 in the IHDR chunk), things
1159 get somewhat harder. The only current (PNG Specification version 1.2)
1160 interlacing type for PNG is (interlace_type == PNG_INTERLACE_ADAM7)
1161 is a somewhat complicated 2D interlace scheme, known as Adam7, that
1162 breaks down an image into seven smaller images of varying size, based
1165 libpng can fill out those images or it can give them to you "as is".
1166 If you want them filled out, there are two ways to do that. The one
1167 mentioned in the PNG specification is to expand each pixel to cover
1168 those pixels that have not been read yet (the "rectangle" method).
1169 This results in a blocky image for the first pass, which gradually
1170 smooths out as more pixels are read. The other method is the "sparkle"
1171 method, where pixels are drawn only in their final locations, with the
1172 rest of the image remaining whatever colors they were initialized to
1173 before the start of the read. The first method usually looks better,
1174 but tends to be slower, as there are more pixels to put in the rows.
1176 If you don't want libpng to handle the interlacing details, just call
1177 png_read_rows() seven times to read in all seven images. Each of the
1178 images is a valid image by itself, or they can all be combined on an
1179 8x8 grid to form a single image (although if you intend to combine them
1180 you would be far better off using the libpng interlace handling).
1182 The first pass will return an image 1/8 as wide as the entire image
1183 (every 8th column starting in column 0) and 1/8 as high as the original
1184 (every 8th row starting in row 0), the second will be 1/8 as wide
1185 (starting in column 4) and 1/8 as high (also starting in row 0). The
1186 third pass will be 1/4 as wide (every 4th pixel starting in column 0) and
1187 1/8 as high (every 8th row starting in row 4), and the fourth pass will
1188 be 1/4 as wide and 1/4 as high (every 4th column starting in column 2,
1189 and every 4th row starting in row 0). The fifth pass will return an
1190 image 1/2 as wide, and 1/4 as high (starting at column 0 and row 2),
1191 while the sixth pass will be 1/2 as wide and 1/2 as high as the original
1192 (starting in column 1 and row 0). The seventh and final pass will be as
1193 wide as the original, and 1/2 as high, containing all of the odd
1194 numbered scanlines. Phew!
1196 If you want libpng to expand the images, call this before calling
1197 png_start_read_image() or png_read_update_info():
1199 if (interlace_type == PNG_INTERLACE_ADAM7)
1201 = png_set_interlace_handling(png_ptr);
1203 This will return the number of passes needed. Currently, this
1204 is seven, but may change if another interlace type is added.
1205 This function can be called even if the file is not interlaced,
1206 where it will return one pass.
1208 If you are not going to display the image after each pass, but are
1209 going to wait until the entire image is read in, use the sparkle
1210 effect. This effect is faster and the end result of either method
1211 is exactly the same. If you are planning on displaying the image
1212 after each pass, the "rectangle" effect is generally considered the
1215 If you only want the "sparkle" effect, just call png_read_rows() as
1216 normal, with the third parameter NULL. Make sure you make pass over
1217 the image number_of_passes times, and you don't change the data in the
1218 rows between calls. You can change the locations of the data, just
1219 not the data. Each pass only writes the pixels appropriate for that
1220 pass, and assumes the data from previous passes is still valid.
1222 png_read_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers, NULL,
1225 If you only want the first effect (the rectangles), do the same as
1226 before except pass the row buffer in the third parameter, and leave
1227 the second parameter NULL.
1229 png_read_rows(png_ptr, NULL, row_pointers,
1232 Finishing a sequential read
1234 After you are finished reading the image through either the high- or
1235 low-level interfaces, you can finish reading the file. If you are
1236 interested in comments or time, which may be stored either before or
1237 after the image data, you should pass the separate png_info struct if
1238 you want to keep the comments from before and after the image
1239 separate. If you are not interested, you can pass NULL.
1241 png_read_end(png_ptr, end_info);
1243 When you are done, you can free all memory allocated by libpng like this:
1245 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr,
1248 It is also possible to individually free the info_ptr members that
1249 point to libpng-allocated storage with the following function:
1251 png_free_data(png_ptr, info_ptr, mask, seq)
1252 mask - identifies data to be freed, a mask
1253 containing the logical OR of one or
1255 PNG_FREE_PLTE, PNG_FREE_TRNS,
1256 PNG_FREE_HIST, PNG_FREE_ICCP,
1257 PNG_FREE_PCAL, PNG_FREE_ROWS,
1258 PNG_FREE_SCAL, PNG_FREE_SPLT,
1259 PNG_FREE_TEXT, PNG_FREE_UNKN,
1260 or simply PNG_FREE_ALL
1261 seq - sequence number of item to be freed
1264 This function may be safely called when the relevant storage has
1265 already been freed, or has not yet been allocated, or was allocated
1266 by the user and not by libpng, and will in those
1267 cases do nothing. The "seq" parameter is ignored if only one item
1268 of the selected data type, such as PLTE, is allowed. If "seq" is not
1269 -1, and multiple items are allowed for the data type identified in
1270 the mask, such as text or sPLT, only the n'th item in the structure
1271 is freed, where n is "seq".
1273 The default behavior is only to free data that was allocated internally
1274 by libpng. This can be changed, so that libpng will not free the data,
1275 or so that it will free data that was allocated by the user with png_malloc()
1276 or png_zalloc() and passed in via a png_set_*() function, with
1278 png_data_freer(png_ptr, info_ptr, freer, mask)
1279 mask - which data elements are affected
1280 same choices as in png_free_data()
1282 PNG_DESTROY_WILL_FREE_DATA
1283 PNG_SET_WILL_FREE_DATA
1284 PNG_USER_WILL_FREE_DATA
1286 This function only affects data that has already been allocated.
1287 You can call this function after reading the PNG data but before calling
1288 any png_set_*() functions, to control whether the user or the png_set_*()
1289 function is responsible for freeing any existing data that might be present,
1290 and again after the png_set_*() functions to control whether the user
1291 or png_destroy_*() is supposed to free the data. When the user assumes
1292 responsibility for libpng-allocated data, the application must use
1293 png_free() to free it, and when the user transfers responsibility to libpng
1294 for data that the user has allocated, the user must have used png_malloc()
1295 or png_zalloc() to allocate it.
1297 If you allocated your row_pointers in a single block, as suggested above in
1298 the description of the high level read interface, you must not transfer
1299 responsibility for freeing it to the png_set_rows or png_read_destroy function,
1300 because they would also try to free the individual row_pointers[i].
1302 If you allocated text_ptr.text, text_ptr.lang, and text_ptr.translated_keyword
1303 separately, do not transfer responsibility for freeing text_ptr to libpng,
1304 because when libpng fills a png_text structure it combines these members with
1305 the key member, and png_free_data() will free only text_ptr.key. Similarly,
1306 if you transfer responsibility for free'ing text_ptr from libpng to your
1307 application, your application must not separately free those members.
1309 The png_free_data() function will turn off the "valid" flag for anything
1310 it frees. If you need to turn the flag off for a chunk that was freed by your
1311 application instead of by libpng, you can use
1313 png_set_invalid(png_ptr, info_ptr, mask);
1314 mask - identifies the chunks to be made invalid,
1315 containing the logical OR of one or
1317 PNG_INFO_gAMA, PNG_INFO_sBIT,
1318 PNG_INFO_cHRM, PNG_INFO_PLTE,
1319 PNG_INFO_tRNS, PNG_INFO_bKGD,
1320 PNG_INFO_hIST, PNG_INFO_pHYs,
1321 PNG_INFO_oFFs, PNG_INFO_tIME,
1322 PNG_INFO_pCAL, PNG_INFO_sRGB,
1323 PNG_INFO_iCCP, PNG_INFO_sPLT,
1324 PNG_INFO_sCAL, PNG_INFO_IDAT
1326 For a more compact example of reading a PNG image, see the file example.c.
1328 Reading PNG files progressively
1330 The progressive reader is slightly different then the non-progressive
1331 reader. Instead of calling png_read_info(), png_read_rows(), and
1332 png_read_end(), you make one call to png_process_data(), which calls
1333 callbacks when it has the info, a row, or the end of the image. You
1334 set up these callbacks with png_set_progressive_read_fn(). You don't
1335 have to worry about the input/output functions of libpng, as you are
1336 giving the library the data directly in png_process_data(). I will
1337 assume that you have read the section on reading PNG files above,
1338 so I will only highlight the differences (although I will show
1341 png_structp png_ptr;
1344 /* An example code fragment of how you would
1345 initialize the progressive reader in your
1348 initialize_png_reader()
1350 png_ptr = png_create_read_struct
1351 (PNG_LIBPNG_VER_STRING, (png_voidp)user_error_ptr,
1352 user_error_fn, user_warning_fn);
1355 info_ptr = png_create_info_struct(png_ptr);
1358 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, (png_infopp)NULL,
1363 if (setjmp(png_jmpbuf(png_ptr)))
1365 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr,
1370 /* This one's new. You can provide functions
1371 to be called when the header info is valid,
1372 when each row is completed, and when the image
1373 is finished. If you aren't using all functions,
1374 you can specify NULL parameters. Even when all
1375 three functions are NULL, you need to call
1376 png_set_progressive_read_fn(). You can use
1377 any struct as the user_ptr (cast to a void pointer
1378 for the function call), and retrieve the pointer
1379 from inside the callbacks using the function
1381 png_get_progressive_ptr(png_ptr);
1383 which will return a void pointer, which you have
1384 to cast appropriately.
1386 png_set_progressive_read_fn(png_ptr, (void *)user_ptr,
1387 info_callback, row_callback, end_callback);
1392 /* A code fragment that you call as you receive blocks
1395 process_data(png_bytep buffer, png_uint_32 length)
1397 if (setjmp(png_jmpbuf(png_ptr)))
1399 png_destroy_read_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr,
1404 /* This one's new also. Simply give it a chunk
1405 of data from the file stream (in order, of
1406 course). On machines with segmented memory
1407 models machines, don't give it any more than
1408 64K. The library seems to run fine with sizes
1409 of 4K. Although you can give it much less if
1410 necessary (I assume you can give it chunks of
1411 1 byte, I haven't tried less then 256 bytes
1412 yet). When this function returns, you may
1413 want to display any rows that were generated
1414 in the row callback if you don't already do
1417 png_process_data(png_ptr, info_ptr, buffer, length);
1421 /* This function is called (as set by
1422 png_set_progressive_read_fn() above) when enough data
1423 has been supplied so all of the header has been
1427 info_callback(png_structp png_ptr, png_infop info)
1429 /* Do any setup here, including setting any of
1430 the transformations mentioned in the Reading
1431 PNG files section. For now, you _must_ call
1432 either png_start_read_image() or
1433 png_read_update_info() after all the
1434 transformations are set (even if you don't set
1435 any). You may start getting rows before
1436 png_process_data() returns, so this is your
1437 last chance to prepare for that.
1441 /* This function is called when each row of image
1444 row_callback(png_structp png_ptr, png_bytep new_row,
1445 png_uint_32 row_num, int pass)
1447 /* If the image is interlaced, and you turned
1448 on the interlace handler, this function will
1449 be called for every row in every pass. Some
1450 of these rows will not be changed from the
1451 previous pass. When the row is not changed,
1452 the new_row variable will be NULL. The rows
1453 and passes are called in order, so you don't
1454 really need the row_num and pass, but I'm
1455 supplying them because it may make your life
1458 For the non-NULL rows of interlaced images,
1459 you must call png_progressive_combine_row()
1460 passing in the row and the old row. You can
1461 call this function for NULL rows (it will just
1462 return) and for non-interlaced images (it just
1463 does the memcpy for you) if it will make the
1464 code easier. Thus, you can just do this for
1468 png_progressive_combine_row(png_ptr, old_row,
1471 /* where old_row is what was displayed for
1472 previously for the row. Note that the first
1473 pass (pass == 0, really) will completely cover
1474 the old row, so the rows do not have to be
1475 initialized. After the first pass (and only
1476 for interlaced images), you will have to pass
1477 the current row, and the function will combine
1478 the old row and the new row.
1483 end_callback(png_structp png_ptr, png_infop info)
1485 /* This function is called after the whole image
1486 has been read, including any chunks after the
1487 image (up to and including the IEND). You
1488 will usually have the same info chunk as you
1489 had in the header, although some data may have
1490 been added to the comments and time fields.
1492 Most people won't do much here, perhaps setting
1493 a flag that marks the image as finished.
1501 Much of this is very similar to reading. However, everything of
1502 importance is repeated here, so you won't have to constantly look
1503 back up in the reading section to understand writing.
1507 You will want to do the I/O initialization before you get into libpng,
1508 so if it doesn't work, you don't have anything to undo. If you are not
1509 using the standard I/O functions, you will need to replace them with
1510 custom writing functions. See the discussion under Customizing libpng.
1512 FILE *fp = fopen(file_name, "wb");
1518 Next, png_struct and png_info need to be allocated and initialized.
1519 As these can be both relatively large, you may not want to store these
1520 on the stack, unless you have stack space to spare. Of course, you
1521 will want to check if they return NULL. If you are also reading,
1522 you won't want to name your read structure and your write structure
1523 both "png_ptr"; you can call them anything you like, such as
1524 "read_ptr" and "write_ptr". Look at pngtest.c, for example.
1526 png_structp png_ptr = png_create_write_struct
1527 (PNG_LIBPNG_VER_STRING, (png_voidp)user_error_ptr,
1528 user_error_fn, user_warning_fn);
1532 png_infop info_ptr = png_create_info_struct(png_ptr);
1535 png_destroy_write_struct(&png_ptr,
1540 If you want to use your own memory allocation routines,
1541 define PNG_USER_MEM_SUPPORTED and use
1542 png_create_write_struct_2() instead of png_create_write_struct():
1544 png_structp png_ptr = png_create_write_struct_2
1545 (PNG_LIBPNG_VER_STRING, (png_voidp)user_error_ptr,
1546 user_error_fn, user_warning_fn, (png_voidp)
1547 user_mem_ptr, user_malloc_fn, user_free_fn);
1549 After you have these structures, you will need to set up the
1550 error handling. When libpng encounters an error, it expects to
1551 longjmp() back to your routine. Therefore, you will need to call
1552 setjmp() and pass the png_jmpbuf(png_ptr). If you
1553 write the file from different routines, you will need to update
1554 the png_jmpbuf(png_ptr) every time you enter a new routine that will
1555 call a png_*() function. See your documentation of setjmp/longjmp
1556 for your compiler for more information on setjmp/longjmp. See
1557 the discussion on libpng error handling in the Customizing Libpng
1558 section below for more information on the libpng error handling.
1560 if (setjmp(png_jmpbuf(png_ptr)))
1562 png_destroy_write_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr);
1569 If you would rather avoid the complexity of setjmp/longjmp issues,
1570 you can compile libpng with PNG_SETJMP_NOT_SUPPORTED, in which case
1571 errors will result in a call to PNG_ABORT() which defaults to abort().
1573 Now you need to set up the output code. The default for libpng is to
1574 use the C function fwrite(). If you use this, you will need to pass a
1575 valid FILE * in the function png_init_io(). Be sure that the file is
1576 opened in binary mode. Again, if you wish to handle writing data in
1577 another way, see the discussion on libpng I/O handling in the Customizing
1578 Libpng section below.
1580 png_init_io(png_ptr, fp);
1584 At this point, you can set up a callback function that will be
1585 called after each row has been written, which you can use to control
1586 a progress meter or the like. It's demonstrated in pngtest.c.
1587 You must supply a function
1589 void write_row_callback(png_ptr, png_uint_32 row,
1592 /* put your code here */
1595 (You can give it another name that you like instead of "write_row_callback")
1597 To inform libpng about your function, use
1599 png_set_write_status_fn(png_ptr, write_row_callback);
1601 You now have the option of modifying how the compression library will
1602 run. The following functions are mainly for testing, but may be useful
1603 in some cases, like if you need to write PNG files extremely fast and
1604 are willing to give up some compression, or if you want to get the
1605 maximum possible compression at the expense of slower writing. If you
1606 have no special needs in this area, let the library do what it wants by
1607 not calling this function at all, as it has been tuned to deliver a good
1608 speed/compression ratio. The second parameter to png_set_filter() is
1609 the filter method, for which the only valid values are 0 (as of the
1610 July 1999 PNG specification, version 1.2) or 64 (if you are writing
1611 a PNG datastream that is to be embedded in a MNG datastream). The third
1612 parameter is a flag that indicates which filter type(s) are to be tested
1613 for each scanline. See the PNG specification for details on the specific filter
1617 /* turn on or off filtering, and/or choose
1618 specific filters. You can use either a single
1619 PNG_FILTER_VALUE_NAME or the logical OR of one
1620 or more PNG_FILTER_NAME masks. */
1621 png_set_filter(png_ptr, 0,
1622 PNG_FILTER_NONE | PNG_FILTER_VALUE_NONE |
1623 PNG_FILTER_SUB | PNG_FILTER_VALUE_SUB |
1624 PNG_FILTER_UP | PNG_FILTER_VALUE_UP |
1625 PNG_FILTER_AVE | PNG_FILTER_VALUE_AVE |
1626 PNG_FILTER_PAETH | PNG_FILTER_VALUE_PAETH|
1630 wants to start and stop using particular filters during compression,
1631 it should start out with all of the filters (to ensure that the previous
1632 row of pixels will be stored in case it's needed later), and then add
1633 and remove them after the start of compression.
1635 If you are writing a PNG datastream that is to be embedded in a MNG
1636 datastream, the second parameter can be either 0 or 64.
1638 The png_set_compression_*() functions interface to the zlib compression
1639 library, and should mostly be ignored unless you really know what you are
1640 doing. The only generally useful call is png_set_compression_level()
1641 which changes how much time zlib spends on trying to compress the image
1642 data. See the Compression Library (zlib.h and algorithm.txt, distributed
1643 with zlib) for details on the compression levels.
1645 /* set the zlib compression level */
1646 png_set_compression_level(png_ptr,
1647 Z_BEST_COMPRESSION);
1649 /* set other zlib parameters */
1650 png_set_compression_mem_level(png_ptr, 8);
1651 png_set_compression_strategy(png_ptr,
1652 Z_DEFAULT_STRATEGY);
1653 png_set_compression_window_bits(png_ptr, 15);
1654 png_set_compression_method(png_ptr, 8);
1655 png_set_compression_buffer_size(png_ptr, 8192)
1657 extern PNG_EXPORT(void,png_set_zbuf_size)
1659 Setting the contents of info for output
1661 You now need to fill in the png_info structure with all the data you
1662 wish to write before the actual image. Note that the only thing you
1663 are allowed to write after the image is the text chunks and the time
1664 chunk (as of PNG Specification 1.2, anyway). See png_write_end() and
1665 the latest PNG specification for more information on that. If you
1666 wish to write them before the image, fill them in now, and flag that
1667 data as being valid. If you want to wait until after the data, don't
1668 fill them until png_write_end(). For all the fields in png_info and
1669 their data types, see png.h. For explanations of what the fields
1670 contain, see the PNG specification.
1672 Some of the more important parts of the png_info are:
1674 png_set_IHDR(png_ptr, info_ptr, width, height,
1675 bit_depth, color_type, interlace_type,
1676 compression_type, filter_method)
1677 width - holds the width of the image
1678 in pixels (up to 2^31).
1679 height - holds the height of the image
1680 in pixels (up to 2^31).
1681 bit_depth - holds the bit depth of one of the
1683 (valid values are 1, 2, 4, 8, 16
1684 and depend also on the
1685 color_type. See also significant
1687 color_type - describes which color/alpha
1688 channels are present.
1690 (bit depths 1, 2, 4, 8, 16)
1691 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_GRAY_ALPHA
1693 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_PALETTE
1694 (bit depths 1, 2, 4, 8)
1697 PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB_ALPHA
1700 PNG_COLOR_MASK_PALETTE
1701 PNG_COLOR_MASK_COLOR
1702 PNG_COLOR_MASK_ALPHA
1704 interlace_type - PNG_INTERLACE_NONE or
1706 compression_type - (must be
1707 PNG_COMPRESSION_TYPE_DEFAULT)
1708 filter_method - (must be PNG_FILTER_TYPE_DEFAULT
1709 or, if you are writing a PNG to
1710 be embedded in a MNG datastream,
1712 PNG_INTRAPIXEL_DIFFERENCING)
1714 png_set_PLTE(png_ptr, info_ptr, palette,
1716 palette - the palette for the file
1717 (array of png_color)
1718 num_palette - number of entries in the palette
1720 png_set_gAMA(png_ptr, info_ptr, gamma);
1721 gamma - the gamma the image was created
1724 png_set_sRGB(png_ptr, info_ptr, srgb_intent);
1725 srgb_intent - the rendering intent
1726 (PNG_INFO_sRGB) The presence of
1727 the sRGB chunk means that the pixel
1728 data is in the sRGB color space.
1729 This chunk also implies specific
1730 values of gAMA and cHRM. Rendering
1731 intent is the CSS-1 property that
1732 has been defined by the International
1734 (http://www.color.org).
1736 PNG_sRGB_INTENT_SATURATION,
1737 PNG_sRGB_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
1738 PNG_sRGB_INTENT_ABSOLUTE, or
1739 PNG_sRGB_INTENT_RELATIVE.
1742 png_set_sRGB_gAMA_and_cHRM(png_ptr, info_ptr,
1744 srgb_intent - the rendering intent
1745 (PNG_INFO_sRGB) The presence of the
1746 sRGB chunk means that the pixel
1747 data is in the sRGB color space.
1748 This function also causes gAMA and
1749 cHRM chunks with the specific values
1750 that are consistent with sRGB to be
1753 png_set_iCCP(png_ptr, info_ptr, name, compression_type,
1755 name - The profile name.
1756 compression - The compression type; always
1757 PNG_COMPRESSION_TYPE_BASE for PNG 1.0.
1758 You may give NULL to this argument to
1760 profile - International Color Consortium color
1761 profile data. May contain NULs.
1762 proflen - length of profile data in bytes.
1764 png_set_sBIT(png_ptr, info_ptr, sig_bit);
1765 sig_bit - the number of significant bits for
1766 (PNG_INFO_sBIT) each of the gray, red,
1767 green, and blue channels, whichever are
1768 appropriate for the given color type
1771 png_set_tRNS(png_ptr, info_ptr, trans, num_trans,
1773 trans - array of transparent entries for
1774 palette (PNG_INFO_tRNS)
1775 trans_values - graylevel or color sample values of
1776 the single transparent color for
1777 non-paletted images (PNG_INFO_tRNS)
1778 num_trans - number of transparent entries
1781 png_set_hIST(png_ptr, info_ptr, hist);
1783 hist - histogram of palette (array of
1786 png_set_tIME(png_ptr, info_ptr, mod_time);
1787 mod_time - time image was last modified
1790 png_set_bKGD(png_ptr, info_ptr, background);
1791 background - background color (PNG_VALID_bKGD)
1793 png_set_text(png_ptr, info_ptr, text_ptr, num_text);
1794 text_ptr - array of png_text holding image
1796 text_ptr[i].compression - type of compression used
1797 on "text" PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_NONE
1798 PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt
1799 PNG_ITXT_COMPRESSION_NONE
1800 PNG_ITXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt
1801 text_ptr[i].key - keyword for comment. Must contain
1803 text_ptr[i].text - text comments for current
1804 keyword. Can be NULL or empty.
1805 text_ptr[i].text_length - length of text string,
1806 after decompression, 0 for iTXt
1807 text_ptr[i].itxt_length - length of itxt string,
1808 after decompression, 0 for tEXt/zTXt
1809 text_ptr[i].lang - language of comment (NULL or
1811 text_ptr[i].translated_keyword - keyword in UTF-8 (NULL
1812 or empty for unknown).
1813 num_text - number of comments
1815 png_set_sPLT(png_ptr, info_ptr, &palette_ptr,
1817 palette_ptr - array of png_sPLT_struct structures
1818 to be added to the list of palettes
1819 in the info structure.
1820 num_spalettes - number of palette structures to be
1823 png_set_oFFs(png_ptr, info_ptr, offset_x, offset_y,
1825 offset_x - positive offset from the left
1827 offset_y - positive offset from the top
1829 unit_type - PNG_OFFSET_PIXEL, PNG_OFFSET_MICROMETER
1831 png_set_pHYs(png_ptr, info_ptr, res_x, res_y,
1833 res_x - pixels/unit physical resolution
1835 res_y - pixels/unit physical resolution
1837 unit_type - PNG_RESOLUTION_UNKNOWN,
1838 PNG_RESOLUTION_METER
1840 png_set_sCAL(png_ptr, info_ptr, unit, width, height)
1841 unit - physical scale units (an integer)
1842 width - width of a pixel in physical scale units
1843 height - height of a pixel in physical scale units
1844 (width and height are doubles)
1846 png_set_sCAL_s(png_ptr, info_ptr, unit, width, height)
1847 unit - physical scale units (an integer)
1848 width - width of a pixel in physical scale units
1849 height - height of a pixel in physical scale units
1850 (width and height are strings like "2.54")
1852 png_set_unknown_chunks(png_ptr, info_ptr, &unknowns,
1854 unknowns - array of png_unknown_chunk
1855 structures holding unknown chunks
1856 unknowns[i].name - name of unknown chunk
1857 unknowns[i].data - data of unknown chunk
1858 unknowns[i].size - size of unknown chunk's data
1859 unknowns[i].location - position to write chunk in file
1860 0: do not write chunk
1861 PNG_HAVE_IHDR: before PLTE
1862 PNG_HAVE_PLTE: before IDAT
1863 PNG_AFTER_IDAT: after IDAT
1865 The "location" member is set automatically according to
1866 what part of the output file has already been written.
1867 You can change its value after calling png_set_unknown_chunks()
1868 as demonstrated in pngtest.c. Within each of the "locations",
1869 the chunks are sequenced according to their position in the
1870 structure (that is, the value of "i", which is the order in which
1871 the chunk was either read from the input file or defined with
1872 png_set_unknown_chunks).
1874 A quick word about text and num_text. text is an array of png_text
1875 structures. num_text is the number of valid structures in the array.
1876 Each png_text structure holds a language code, a keyword, a text value,
1877 and a compression type.
1879 The compression types have the same valid numbers as the compression
1880 types of the image data. Currently, the only valid number is zero.
1881 However, you can store text either compressed or uncompressed, unlike
1882 images, which always have to be compressed. So if you don't want the
1883 text compressed, set the compression type to PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_NONE.
1884 Because tEXt and zTXt chunks don't have a language field, if you
1885 specify PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_NONE or PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt
1886 any language code or translated keyword will not be written out.
1888 Until text gets around 1000 bytes, it is not worth compressing it.
1889 After the text has been written out to the file, the compression type
1890 is set to PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_NONE_WR or PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_zTXt_WR,
1891 so that it isn't written out again at the end (in case you are calling
1892 png_write_end() with the same struct.
1894 The keywords that are given in the PNG Specification are:
1896 Title Short (one line) title or
1898 Author Name of image's creator
1899 Description Description of image (possibly long)
1900 Copyright Copyright notice
1901 Creation Time Time of original image creation
1902 (usually RFC 1123 format, see below)
1903 Software Software used to create the image
1904 Disclaimer Legal disclaimer
1905 Warning Warning of nature of content
1906 Source Device used to create the image
1907 Comment Miscellaneous comment; conversion
1908 from other image format
1910 The keyword-text pairs work like this. Keywords should be short
1911 simple descriptions of what the comment is about. Some typical
1912 keywords are found in the PNG specification, as is some recommendations
1913 on keywords. You can repeat keywords in a file. You can even write
1914 some text before the image and some after. For example, you may want
1915 to put a description of the image before the image, but leave the
1916 disclaimer until after, so viewers working over modem connections
1917 don't have to wait for the disclaimer to go over the modem before
1918 they start seeing the image. Finally, keywords should be full
1919 words, not abbreviations. Keywords and text are in the ISO 8859-1
1920 (Latin-1) character set (a superset of regular ASCII) and can not
1921 contain NUL characters, and should not contain control or other
1922 unprintable characters. To make the comments widely readable, stick
1923 with basic ASCII, and avoid machine specific character set extensions
1924 like the IBM-PC character set. The keyword must be present, but
1925 you can leave off the text string on non-compressed pairs.
1926 Compressed pairs must have a text string, as only the text string
1927 is compressed anyway, so the compression would be meaningless.
1929 PNG supports modification time via the png_time structure. Two
1930 conversion routines are provided, png_convert_from_time_t() for
1931 time_t and png_convert_from_struct_tm() for struct tm. The
1932 time_t routine uses gmtime(). You don't have to use either of
1933 these, but if you wish to fill in the png_time structure directly,
1934 you should provide the time in universal time (GMT) if possible
1935 instead of your local time. Note that the year number is the full
1936 year (e.g. 1998, rather than 98 - PNG is year 2000 compliant!), and
1937 that months start with 1.
1939 If you want to store the time of the original image creation, you should
1940 use a plain tEXt chunk with the "Creation Time" keyword. This is
1941 necessary because the "creation time" of a PNG image is somewhat vague,
1942 depending on whether you mean the PNG file, the time the image was
1943 created in a non-PNG format, a still photo from which the image was
1944 scanned, or possibly the subject matter itself. In order to facilitate
1945 machine-readable dates, it is recommended that the "Creation Time"
1946 tEXt chunk use RFC 1123 format dates (e.g. "22 May 1997 18:07:10 GMT"),
1947 although this isn't a requirement. Unlike the tIME chunk, the
1948 "Creation Time" tEXt chunk is not expected to be automatically changed
1949 by the software. To facilitate the use of RFC 1123 dates, a function
1950 png_convert_to_rfc1123(png_timep) is provided to convert from PNG
1951 time to an RFC 1123 format string.
1953 Writing unknown chunks
1955 You can use the png_set_unknown_chunks function to queue up chunks
1956 for writing. You give it a chunk name, raw data, and a size; that's
1957 all there is to it. The chunks will be written by the next following
1958 png_write_info_before_PLTE, png_write_info, or png_write_end function.
1959 Any chunks previously read into the info structure's unknown-chunk
1960 list will also be written out in a sequence that satisfies the PNG
1961 specification's ordering rules.
1963 The high-level write interface
1965 At this point there are two ways to proceed; through the high-level
1966 write interface, or through a sequence of low-level write operations.
1967 You can use the high-level interface if your image data is present
1968 in the info structure. All defined output
1969 transformations are permitted, enabled by the following masks.
1971 PNG_TRANSFORM_IDENTITY No transformation
1972 PNG_TRANSFORM_PACKING Pack 1, 2 and 4-bit samples
1973 PNG_TRANSFORM_PACKSWAP Change order of packed
1975 PNG_TRANSFORM_INVERT_MONO Invert monochrome images
1976 PNG_TRANSFORM_SHIFT Normalize pixels to the
1978 PNG_TRANSFORM_BGR Flip RGB to BGR, RGBA
1980 PNG_TRANSFORM_SWAP_ALPHA Flip RGBA to ARGB or GA
1982 PNG_TRANSFORM_INVERT_ALPHA Change alpha from opacity
1984 PNG_TRANSFORM_SWAP_ENDIAN Byte-swap 16-bit samples
1985 PNG_TRANSFORM_STRIP_FILLER Strip out filler bytes.
1987 If you have valid image data in the info structure (you can use
1988 png_set_rows() to put image data in the info structure), simply do this:
1990 png_write_png(png_ptr, info_ptr, png_transforms, NULL)
1992 where png_transforms is an integer containing the logical OR of some set of
1993 transformation flags. This call is equivalent to png_write_info(),
1994 followed the set of transformations indicated by the transform mask,
1995 then png_write_image(), and finally png_write_end().
1997 (The final parameter of this call is not yet used. Someday it might point
1998 to transformation parameters required by some future output transform.)
2000 The low-level write interface
2002 If you are going the low-level route instead, you are now ready to
2003 write all the file information up to the actual image data. You do
2004 this with a call to png_write_info().
2006 png_write_info(png_ptr, info_ptr);
2008 Note that there is one transformation you may need to do before
2009 png_write_info(). In PNG files, the alpha channel in an image is the
2010 level of opacity. If your data is supplied as a level of
2011 transparency, you can invert the alpha channel before you write it, so
2012 that 0 is fully transparent and 255 (in 8-bit or paletted images) or
2013 65535 (in 16-bit images) is fully opaque, with
2015 png_set_invert_alpha(png_ptr);
2017 This must appear before png_write_info() instead of later with the
2018 other transformations because in the case of paletted images the tRNS
2019 chunk data has to be inverted before the tRNS chunk is written. If
2020 your image is not a paletted image, the tRNS data (which in such cases
2021 represents a single color to be rendered as transparent) won't need to
2022 be changed, and you can safely do this transformation after your
2023 png_write_info() call.
2025 If you need to write a private chunk that you want to appear before
2026 the PLTE chunk when PLTE is present, you can write the PNG info in
2027 two steps, and insert code to write your own chunk between them:
2029 png_write_info_before_PLTE(png_ptr, info_ptr);
2030 png_set_unknown_chunks(png_ptr, info_ptr, ...);
2031 png_write_info(png_ptr, info_ptr);
2033 After you've written the file information, you can set up the library
2034 to handle any special transformations of the image data. The various
2035 ways to transform the data will be described in the order that they
2036 should occur. This is important, as some of these change the color
2037 type and/or bit depth of the data, and some others only work on
2038 certain color types and bit depths. Even though each transformation
2039 checks to see if it has data that it can do something with, you should
2040 make sure to only enable a transformation if it will be valid for the
2041 data. For example, don't swap red and blue on grayscale data.
2043 PNG files store RGB pixels packed into 3 or 6 bytes. This code tells
2044 the library to strip input data that has 4 or 8 bytes per pixel down
2045 to 3 or 6 bytes (or strip 2 or 4-byte grayscale+filler data to 1 or 2
2048 png_set_filler(png_ptr, 0, PNG_FILLER_BEFORE);
2050 where the 0 is unused, and the location is either PNG_FILLER_BEFORE or
2051 PNG_FILLER_AFTER, depending upon whether the filler byte in the pixel
2052 is stored XRGB or RGBX.
2054 PNG files pack pixels of bit depths 1, 2, and 4 into bytes as small as
2055 they can, resulting in, for example, 8 pixels per byte for 1 bit files.
2056 If the data is supplied at 1 pixel per byte, use this code, which will
2057 correctly pack the pixels into a single byte:
2059 png_set_packing(png_ptr);
2061 PNG files reduce possible bit depths to 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16. If your
2062 data is of another bit depth, you can write an sBIT chunk into the
2063 file so that decoders can recover the original data if desired.
2065 /* Set the true bit depth of the image data */
2066 if (color_type & PNG_COLOR_MASK_COLOR)
2068 sig_bit.red = true_bit_depth;
2069 sig_bit.green = true_bit_depth;
2070 sig_bit.blue = true_bit_depth;
2074 sig_bit.gray = true_bit_depth;
2076 if (color_type & PNG_COLOR_MASK_ALPHA)
2078 sig_bit.alpha = true_bit_depth;
2081 png_set_sBIT(png_ptr, info_ptr, &sig_bit);
2083 If the data is stored in the row buffer in a bit depth other than
2084 one supported by PNG (e.g. 3 bit data in the range 0-7 for a 4-bit PNG),
2085 this will scale the values to appear to be the correct bit depth as
2088 png_set_shift(png_ptr, &sig_bit);
2090 PNG files store 16 bit pixels in network byte order (big-endian,
2091 ie. most significant bits first). This code would be used if they are
2092 supplied the other way (little-endian, i.e. least significant bits
2093 first, the way PCs store them):
2096 png_set_swap(png_ptr);
2098 If you are using packed-pixel images (1, 2, or 4 bits/pixel), and you
2099 need to change the order the pixels are packed into bytes, you can use:
2102 png_set_packswap(png_ptr);
2104 PNG files store 3 color pixels in red, green, blue order. This code
2105 would be used if they are supplied as blue, green, red:
2107 png_set_bgr(png_ptr);
2109 PNG files describe monochrome as black being zero and white being
2110 one. This code would be used if the pixels are supplied with this reversed
2111 (black being one and white being zero):
2113 png_set_invert_mono(png_ptr);
2115 Finally, you can write your own transformation function if none of
2116 the existing ones meets your needs. This is done by setting a callback
2119 png_set_write_user_transform_fn(png_ptr,
2120 write_transform_fn);
2122 You must supply the function
2124 void write_transform_fn(png_ptr ptr, row_info_ptr
2125 row_info, png_bytep data)
2127 See pngtest.c for a working example. Your function will be called
2128 before any of the other transformations are processed.
2130 You can also set up a pointer to a user structure for use by your
2133 png_set_user_transform_info(png_ptr, user_ptr, 0, 0);
2135 The user_channels and user_depth parameters of this function are ignored
2136 when writing; you can set them to zero as shown.
2138 You can retrieve the pointer via the function png_get_user_transform_ptr().
2141 voidp write_user_transform_ptr =
2142 png_get_user_transform_ptr(png_ptr);
2144 It is possible to have libpng flush any pending output, either manually,
2145 or automatically after a certain number of lines have been written. To
2146 flush the output stream a single time call:
2148 png_write_flush(png_ptr);
2150 and to have libpng flush the output stream periodically after a certain
2151 number of scanlines have been written, call:
2153 png_set_flush(png_ptr, nrows);
2155 Note that the distance between rows is from the last time png_write_flush()
2156 was called, or the first row of the image if it has never been called.
2157 So if you write 50 lines, and then png_set_flush 25, it will flush the
2158 output on the next scanline, and every 25 lines thereafter, unless
2159 png_write_flush() is called before 25 more lines have been written.
2160 If nrows is too small (less than about 10 lines for a 640 pixel wide
2161 RGB image) the image compression may decrease noticeably (although this
2162 may be acceptable for real-time applications). Infrequent flushing will
2163 only degrade the compression performance by a few percent over images
2164 that do not use flushing.
2166 Writing the image data
2168 That's it for the transformations. Now you can write the image data.
2169 The simplest way to do this is in one function call. If you have the
2170 whole image in memory, you can just call png_write_image() and libpng
2171 will write the image. You will need to pass in an array of pointers to
2172 each row. This function automatically handles interlacing, so you don't
2173 need to call png_set_interlace_handling() or call this function multiple
2174 times, or any of that other stuff necessary with png_write_rows().
2176 png_write_image(png_ptr, row_pointers);
2178 where row_pointers is:
2180 png_byte *row_pointers[height];
2182 You can point to void or char or whatever you use for pixels.
2184 If you don't want to write the whole image at once, you can
2185 use png_write_rows() instead. If the file is not interlaced,
2188 png_write_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers,
2191 row_pointers is the same as in the png_write_image() call.
2193 If you are just writing one row at a time, you can do this with
2194 a single row_pointer instead of an array of row_pointers:
2196 png_bytep row_pointer = row;
2198 png_write_row(png_ptr, row_pointer);
2200 When the file is interlaced, things can get a good deal more
2201 complicated. The only currently (as of the PNG Specification
2202 version 1.2, dated July 1999) defined interlacing scheme for PNG files
2203 is the "Adam7" interlace scheme, that breaks down an
2204 image into seven smaller images of varying size. libpng will build
2205 these images for you, or you can do them yourself. If you want to
2206 build them yourself, see the PNG specification for details of which
2207 pixels to write when.
2209 If you don't want libpng to handle the interlacing details, just
2210 use png_set_interlace_handling() and call png_write_rows() the
2211 correct number of times to write all seven sub-images.
2213 If you want libpng to build the sub-images, call this before you start
2217 png_set_interlace_handling(png_ptr);
2219 This will return the number of passes needed. Currently, this
2220 is seven, but may change if another interlace type is added.
2222 Then write the complete image number_of_passes times.
2224 png_write_rows(png_ptr, row_pointers,
2227 As some of these rows are not used, and thus return immediately,
2228 you may want to read about interlacing in the PNG specification,
2229 and only update the rows that are actually used.
2231 Finishing a sequential write
2233 After you are finished writing the image, you should finish writing
2234 the file. If you are interested in writing comments or time, you should
2235 pass an appropriately filled png_info pointer. If you are not interested,
2238 png_write_end(png_ptr, info_ptr);
2240 When you are done, you can free all memory used by libpng like this:
2242 png_destroy_write_struct(&png_ptr, &info_ptr);
2244 It is also possible to individually free the info_ptr members that
2245 point to libpng-allocated storage with the following function:
2247 png_free_data(png_ptr, info_ptr, mask, seq)
2248 mask - identifies data to be freed, a mask
2249 containing the logical OR of one or
2251 PNG_FREE_PLTE, PNG_FREE_TRNS,
2252 PNG_FREE_HIST, PNG_FREE_ICCP,
2253 PNG_FREE_PCAL, PNG_FREE_ROWS,
2254 PNG_FREE_SCAL, PNG_FREE_SPLT,
2255 PNG_FREE_TEXT, PNG_FREE_UNKN,
2256 or simply PNG_FREE_ALL
2257 seq - sequence number of item to be freed
2260 This function may be safely called when the relevant storage has
2261 already been freed, or has not yet been allocated, or was allocated
2262 by the user and not by libpng, and will in those
2263 cases do nothing. The "seq" parameter is ignored if only one item
2264 of the selected data type, such as PLTE, is allowed. If "seq" is not
2265 -1, and multiple items are allowed for the data type identified in
2266 the mask, such as text or sPLT, only the n'th item in the structure
2267 is freed, where n is "seq".
2269 If you allocated data such as a palette that you passed
2270 in to libpng with png_set_*, you must not free it until just before the call to
2271 png_destroy_write_struct().
2273 The default behavior is only to free data that was allocated internally
2274 by libpng. This can be changed, so that libpng will not free the data,
2275 or so that it will free data that was allocated by the user with png_malloc()
2276 or png_zalloc() and passed in via a png_set_*() function, with
2278 png_data_freer(png_ptr, info_ptr, freer, mask)
2279 mask - which data elements are affected
2280 same choices as in png_free_data()
2282 PNG_DESTROY_WILL_FREE_DATA
2283 PNG_SET_WILL_FREE_DATA
2284 PNG_USER_WILL_FREE_DATA
2286 For example, to transfer responsibility for some data from a read structure
2287 to a write structure, you could use
2289 png_data_freer(read_ptr, read_info_ptr,
2290 PNG_USER_WILL_FREE_DATA,
2291 PNG_FREE_PLTE|PNG_FREE_tRNS|PNG_FREE_hIST)
2292 png_data_freer(write_ptr, write_info_ptr,
2293 PNG_DESTROY_WILL_FREE_DATA,
2294 PNG_FREE_PLTE|PNG_FREE_tRNS|PNG_FREE_hIST)
2296 thereby briefly reassigning responsibility for freeing to the user but
2297 immediately afterwards reassigning it once more to the write_destroy
2298 function. Having done this, it would then be safe to destroy the read
2299 structure and continue to use the PLTE, tRNS, and hIST data in the write
2302 This function only affects data that has already been allocated.
2303 You can call this function before calling after the png_set_*() functions
2304 to control whether the user or png_destroy_*() is supposed to free the data.
2305 When the user assumes responsibility for libpng-allocated data, the
2306 application must use
2307 png_free() to free it, and when the user transfers responsibility to libpng
2308 for data that the user has allocated, the user must have used png_malloc()
2309 or png_zalloc() to allocate it.
2311 If you allocated text_ptr.text, text_ptr.lang, and text_ptr.translated_keyword
2312 separately, do not transfer responsibility for freeing text_ptr to libpng,
2313 because when libpng fills a png_text structure it combines these members with
2314 the key member, and png_free_data() will free only text_ptr.key. Similarly,
2315 if you transfer responsibility for free'ing text_ptr from libpng to your
2316 application, your application must not separately free those members.
2317 For a more compact example of writing a PNG image, see the file example.c.
2319 V. Modifying/Customizing libpng:
2321 There are three issues here. The first is changing how libpng does
2322 standard things like memory allocation, input/output, and error handling.
2323 The second deals with more complicated things like adding new chunks,
2324 adding new transformations, and generally changing how libpng works.
2325 Both of those are compile-time issues; that is, they are generally
2326 determined at the time the code is written, and there is rarely a need
2327 to provide the user with a means of changing them. The third is a
2328 run-time issue: choosing between and/or tuning one or more alternate
2329 versions of computationally intensive routines; specifically, optimized
2330 assembly-language (and therefore compiler- and platform-dependent)
2333 Memory allocation, input/output, and error handling
2335 All of the memory allocation, input/output, and error handling in libpng
2336 goes through callbacks that are user-settable. The default routines are
2337 in pngmem.c, pngrio.c, pngwio.c, and pngerror.c, respectively. To change
2338 these functions, call the appropriate png_set_*_fn() function.
2340 Memory allocation is done through the functions png_malloc()
2341 and png_free(). These currently just call the standard C functions. If
2342 your pointers can't access more then 64K at a time, you will want to set
2343 MAXSEG_64K in zlib.h. Since it is unlikely that the method of handling
2344 memory allocation on a platform will change between applications, these
2345 functions must be modified in the library at compile time. If you prefer
2346 to use a different method of allocating and freeing data, you can use
2347 png_create_read_struct_2() or png_create_write_struct_2() to register
2348 your own functions as described above.
2349 These functions also provide a void pointer that can be retrieved via
2351 mem_ptr=png_get_mem_ptr(png_ptr);
2353 Your replacement memory functions must have prototypes as follows:
2355 png_voidp malloc_fn(png_structp png_ptr,
2357 void free_fn(png_structp png_ptr, png_voidp ptr);
2359 Your malloc_fn() must return NULL in case of failure. The png_malloc()
2360 function will normally call png_error() if it receives a NULL from the
2361 system memory allocator or from your replacement malloc_fn().
2363 Input/Output in libpng is done through png_read() and png_write(),
2364 which currently just call fread() and fwrite(). The FILE * is stored in
2365 png_struct and is initialized via png_init_io(). If you wish to change
2366 the method of I/O, the library supplies callbacks that you can set
2367 through the function png_set_read_fn() and png_set_write_fn() at run
2368 time, instead of calling the png_init_io() function. These functions
2369 also provide a void pointer that can be retrieved via the function
2370 png_get_io_ptr(). For example:
2372 png_set_read_fn(png_structp read_ptr,
2373 voidp read_io_ptr, png_rw_ptr read_data_fn)
2375 png_set_write_fn(png_structp write_ptr,
2376 voidp write_io_ptr, png_rw_ptr write_data_fn,
2377 png_flush_ptr output_flush_fn);
2379 voidp read_io_ptr = png_get_io_ptr(read_ptr);
2380 voidp write_io_ptr = png_get_io_ptr(write_ptr);
2382 The replacement I/O functions must have prototypes as follows:
2384 void user_read_data(png_structp png_ptr,
2385 png_bytep data, png_size_t length);
2386 void user_write_data(png_structp png_ptr,
2387 png_bytep data, png_size_t length);
2388 void user_flush_data(png_structp png_ptr);
2390 Supplying NULL for the read, write, or flush functions sets them back
2391 to using the default C stream functions. It is an error to read from
2392 a write stream, and vice versa.
2394 Error handling in libpng is done through png_error() and png_warning().
2395 Errors handled through png_error() are fatal, meaning that png_error()
2396 should never return to its caller. Currently, this is handled via
2397 setjmp() and longjmp() (unless you have compiled libpng with
2398 PNG_SETJMP_NOT_SUPPORTED, in which case it is handled via PNG_ABORT()),
2399 but you could change this to do things like exit() if you should wish.
2401 On non-fatal errors, png_warning() is called
2402 to print a warning message, and then control returns to the calling code.
2403 By default png_error() and png_warning() print a message on stderr via
2404 fprintf() unless the library is compiled with PNG_NO_CONSOLE_IO defined
2405 (because you don't want the messages) or PNG_NO_STDIO defined (because
2406 fprintf() isn't available). If you wish to change the behavior of the error
2407 functions, you will need to set up your own message callbacks. These
2408 functions are normally supplied at the time that the png_struct is created.
2409 It is also possible to redirect errors and warnings to your own replacement
2410 functions after png_create_*_struct() has been called by calling:
2412 png_set_error_fn(png_structp png_ptr,
2413 png_voidp error_ptr, png_error_ptr error_fn,
2414 png_error_ptr warning_fn);
2416 png_voidp error_ptr = png_get_error_ptr(png_ptr);
2418 If NULL is supplied for either error_fn or warning_fn, then the libpng
2419 default function will be used, calling fprintf() and/or longjmp() if a
2420 problem is encountered. The replacement error functions should have
2421 parameters as follows:
2423 void user_error_fn(png_structp png_ptr,
2424 png_const_charp error_msg);
2425 void user_warning_fn(png_structp png_ptr,
2426 png_const_charp warning_msg);
2428 The motivation behind using setjmp() and longjmp() is the C++ throw and
2429 catch exception handling methods. This makes the code much easier to write,
2430 as there is no need to check every return code of every function call.
2431 However, there are some uncertainties about the status of local variables
2432 after a longjmp, so the user may want to be careful about doing anything after
2433 setjmp returns non-zero besides returning itself. Consult your compiler
2434 documentation for more details. For an alternative approach, you may wish
2435 to use the "cexcept" facility (see http://cexcept.sourceforge.net).
2439 If you need to read or write custom chunks, you may need to get deeper
2440 into the libpng code. The library now has mechanisms for storing
2441 and writing chunks of unknown type; you can even declare callbacks
2442 for custom chunks. Hoewver, this may not be good enough if the
2443 library code itself needs to know about interactions between your
2444 chunk and existing `intrinsic' chunks.
2446 If you need to write a new intrinsic chunk, first read the PNG
2447 specification. Acquire a first level of
2448 understanding of how it works. Pay particular attention to the
2449 sections that describe chunk names, and look at how other chunks were
2450 designed, so you can do things similarly. Second, check out the
2451 sections of libpng that read and write chunks. Try to find a chunk
2452 that is similar to yours and use it as a template. More details can
2453 be found in the comments inside the code. It is best to handle unknown
2454 chunks in a generic method, via callback functions, instead of by
2455 modifying libpng functions.
2457 If you wish to write your own transformation for the data, look through
2458 the part of the code that does the transformations, and check out some of
2459 the simpler ones to get an idea of how they work. Try to find a similar
2460 transformation to the one you want to add and copy off of it. More details
2461 can be found in the comments inside the code itself.
2463 Configuring for 16 bit platforms
2465 You will want to look into zconf.h to tell zlib (and thus libpng) that
2466 it cannot allocate more then 64K at a time. Even if you can, the memory
2467 won't be accessible. So limit zlib and libpng to 64K by defining MAXSEG_64K.
2471 For DOS users who only have access to the lower 640K, you will
2472 have to limit zlib's memory usage via a png_set_compression_mem_level()
2473 call. See zlib.h or zconf.h in the zlib library for more information.
2475 Configuring for Medium Model
2477 Libpng's support for medium model has been tested on most of the popular
2478 compilers. Make sure MAXSEG_64K gets defined, USE_FAR_KEYWORD gets
2479 defined, and FAR gets defined to far in pngconf.h, and you should be
2480 all set. Everything in the library (except for zlib's structure) is
2481 expecting far data. You must use the typedefs with the p or pp on
2482 the end for pointers (or at least look at them and be careful). Make
2483 note that the rows of data are defined as png_bytepp, which is an
2484 unsigned char far * far *.
2486 Configuring for gui/windowing platforms:
2488 You will need to write new error and warning functions that use the GUI
2489 interface, as described previously, and set them to be the error and
2490 warning functions at the time that png_create_*_struct() is called,
2491 in order to have them available during the structure initialization.
2492 They can be changed later via png_set_error_fn(). On some compilers,
2493 you may also have to change the memory allocators (png_malloc, etc.).
2495 Configuring for compiler xxx:
2497 All includes for libpng are in pngconf.h. If you need to add/change/delete
2498 an include, this is the place to do it. The includes that are not
2499 needed outside libpng are protected by the PNG_INTERNAL definition,
2500 which is only defined for those routines inside libpng itself. The
2501 files in libpng proper only include png.h, which includes pngconf.h.
2505 There are special functions to configure the compression. Perhaps the
2506 most useful one changes the compression level, which currently uses
2507 input compression values in the range 0 - 9. The library normally
2508 uses the default compression level (Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION = 6). Tests
2509 have shown that for a large majority of images, compression values in
2510 the range 3-6 compress nearly as well as higher levels, and do so much
2511 faster. For online applications it may be desirable to have maximum speed
2512 (Z_BEST_SPEED = 1). With versions of zlib after v0.99, you can also
2513 specify no compression (Z_NO_COMPRESSION = 0), but this would create
2514 files larger than just storing the raw bitmap. You can specify the
2515 compression level by calling:
2517 png_set_compression_level(png_ptr, level);
2519 Another useful one is to reduce the memory level used by the library.
2520 The memory level defaults to 8, but it can be lowered if you are
2521 short on memory (running DOS, for example, where you only have 640K).
2522 Note that the memory level does have an effect on compression; among
2523 other things, lower levels will result in sections of incompressible
2524 data being emitted in smaller stored blocks, with a correspondingly
2525 larger relative overhead of up to 15% in the worst case.
2527 png_set_compression_mem_level(png_ptr, level);
2529 The other functions are for configuring zlib. They are not recommended
2530 for normal use and may result in writing an invalid PNG file. See
2531 zlib.h for more information on what these mean.
2533 png_set_compression_strategy(png_ptr,
2535 png_set_compression_window_bits(png_ptr,
2537 png_set_compression_method(png_ptr, method);
2538 png_set_compression_buffer_size(png_ptr, size);
2540 Controlling row filtering
2542 If you want to control whether libpng uses filtering or not, which
2543 filters are used, and how it goes about picking row filters, you
2544 can call one of these functions. The selection and configuration
2545 of row filters can have a significant impact on the size and
2546 encoding speed and a somewhat lesser impact on the decoding speed
2547 of an image. Filtering is enabled by default for RGB and grayscale
2548 images (with and without alpha), but not for paletted images nor
2549 for any images with bit depths less than 8 bits/pixel.
2551 The 'method' parameter sets the main filtering method, which is
2552 currently only '0' in the PNG 1.2 specification. The 'filters'
2553 parameter sets which filter(s), if any, should be used for each
2554 scanline. Possible values are PNG_ALL_FILTERS and PNG_NO_FILTERS
2555 to turn filtering on and off, respectively.
2557 Individual filter types are PNG_FILTER_NONE, PNG_FILTER_SUB,
2558 PNG_FILTER_UP, PNG_FILTER_AVG, PNG_FILTER_PAETH, which can be bitwise
2559 ORed together with '|' to specify one or more filters to use.
2560 These filters are described in more detail in the PNG specification.
2561 If you intend to change the filter type during the course of writing
2562 the image, you should start with flags set for all of the filters
2563 you intend to use so that libpng can initialize its internal
2564 structures appropriately for all of the filter types. (Note that this
2565 means the first row must always be adaptively filtered, because libpng
2566 currently does not allocate the filter buffers until png_write_row()
2567 is called for the first time.)
2569 filters = PNG_FILTER_NONE | PNG_FILTER_SUB
2570 PNG_FILTER_UP | PNG_FILTER_AVE |
2571 PNG_FILTER_PAETH | PNG_ALL_FILTERS;
2573 png_set_filter(png_ptr, PNG_FILTER_TYPE_BASE,
2575 The second parameter can also be
2576 PNG_INTRAPIXEL_DIFFERENCING if you are
2577 writing a PNG to be embedded in a MNG
2578 datastream. This parameter must be the
2579 same as the value of filter_method used
2582 It is also possible to influence how libpng chooses from among the
2583 available filters. This is done in one or both of two ways - by
2584 telling it how important it is to keep the same filter for successive
2585 rows, and by telling it the relative computational costs of the filters.
2587 double weights[3] = {1.5, 1.3, 1.1},
2588 costs[PNG_FILTER_VALUE_LAST] =
2589 {1.0, 1.3, 1.3, 1.5, 1.7};
2591 png_set_filter_heuristics(png_ptr,
2592 PNG_FILTER_HEURISTIC_WEIGHTED, 3,
2595 The weights are multiplying factors that indicate to libpng that the
2596 row filter should be the same for successive rows unless another row filter
2597 is that many times better than the previous filter. In the above example,
2598 if the previous 3 filters were SUB, SUB, NONE, the SUB filter could have a
2599 "sum of absolute differences" 1.5 x 1.3 times higher than other filters
2600 and still be chosen, while the NONE filter could have a sum 1.1 times
2601 higher than other filters and still be chosen. Unspecified weights are
2602 taken to be 1.0, and the specified weights should probably be declining
2603 like those above in order to emphasize recent filters over older filters.
2605 The filter costs specify for each filter type a relative decoding cost
2606 to be considered when selecting row filters. This means that filters
2607 with higher costs are less likely to be chosen over filters with lower
2608 costs, unless their "sum of absolute differences" is that much smaller.
2609 The costs do not necessarily reflect the exact computational speeds of
2610 the various filters, since this would unduly influence the final image
2613 Note that the numbers above were invented purely for this example and
2614 are given only to help explain the function usage. Little testing has
2615 been done to find optimum values for either the costs or the weights.
2617 Removing unwanted object code
2619 There are a bunch of #define's in pngconf.h that control what parts of
2620 libpng are compiled. All the defines end in _SUPPORTED. If you are
2621 never going to use a capability, you can change the #define to #undef
2622 before recompiling libpng and save yourself code and data space, or
2623 you can turn off individual capabilities with defines that begin with
2626 You can also turn all of the transforms and ancillary chunk capabilities
2627 off en masse with compiler directives that define
2628 PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_TRANSFORMS, or PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_ANCILLARY_CHUNKS,
2630 along with directives to turn on any of the capabilities that you do
2631 want. The PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_TRANSFORMS directives disable
2632 the extra transformations but still leave the library fully capable of reading
2633 and writing PNG files with all known public chunks
2634 Use of the PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_ANCILLARY_CHUNKS directive
2635 produces a library that is incapable of reading or writing ancillary chunks.
2636 If you are not using the progressive reading capability, you can
2637 turn that off with PNG_NO_PROGRESSIVE_READ (don't confuse
2638 this with the INTERLACING capability, which you'll still have).
2640 All the reading and writing specific code are in separate files, so the
2641 linker should only grab the files it needs. However, if you want to
2642 make sure, or if you are building a stand alone library, all the
2643 reading files start with pngr and all the writing files start with
2644 pngw. The files that don't match either (like png.c, pngtrans.c, etc.)
2645 are used for both reading and writing, and always need to be included.
2646 The progressive reader is in pngpread.c
2648 If you are creating or distributing a dynamically linked library (a .so
2649 or DLL file), you should not remove or disable any parts of the library,
2650 as this will cause applications linked with different versions of the
2651 library to fail if they call functions not available in your library.
2652 The size of the library itself should not be an issue, because only
2653 those sections that are actually used will be loaded into memory.
2655 Requesting debug printout
2657 The macro definition PNG_DEBUG can be used to request debugging
2658 printout. Set it to an integer value in the range 0 to 3. Higher
2659 numbers result in increasing amounts of debugging information. The
2660 information is printed to the "stderr" file, unless another file
2661 name is specified in the PNG_DEBUG_FILE macro definition.
2663 When PNG_DEBUG > 0, the following functions (macros) become available:
2665 png_debug(level, message)
2666 png_debug1(level, message, p1)
2667 png_debug2(level, message, p1, p2)
2669 in which "level" is compared to PNG_DEBUG to decide whether to print
2670 the message, "message" is the formatted string to be printed,
2671 and p1 and p2 are parameters that are to be embedded in the string
2672 according to printf-style formatting directives. For example,
2674 png_debug1(2, "foo=%d\n", foo);
2679 fprintf(PNG_DEBUG_FILE, "foo=%d\n", foo);
2681 When PNG_DEBUG is defined but is zero, the macros aren't defined, but you
2682 can still use PNG_DEBUG to control your own debugging:
2688 When PNG_DEBUG = 1, the macros are defined, but only png_debug statements
2689 having level = 0 will be printed. There aren't any such statements in
2690 this version of libpng, but if you insert some they will be printed.
2692 VI. Runtime optimization
2694 A new feature in libpng 1.2.0 is the ability to dynamically switch between
2695 standard and optimized versions of some routines. Currently these are
2696 limited to three computationally intensive tasks when reading PNG files:
2697 decoding row filters, expanding interlacing, and combining interlaced or
2698 transparent row data with previous row data. Currently the optimized
2699 versions are available only for x86 (Intel, AMD, etc.) platforms with
2700 MMX support, though this may change in future versions. (For example,
2701 the non-MMX assembler optimizations for zlib might become similarly
2702 runtime-selectable in future releases, in which case libpng could be
2703 extended to support them. Alternatively, the compile-time choice of
2704 floating-point versus integer routines for gamma correction might become
2705 runtime-selectable.)
2707 Because such optimizations tend to be very platform- and compiler-dependent,
2708 both in how they are written and in how they perform, the new runtime code
2709 in libpng has been written to allow programs to query, enable, and disable
2710 either specific optimizations or all such optimizations. For example, to
2711 enable all possible optimizations (bearing in mind that some "optimizations"
2712 may actually run more slowly in rare cases):
2714 #if defined(PNG_LIBPNG_VER) && (PNG_LIBPNG_VER >= 10200)
2715 png_uint_32 mask, flags;
2717 flags = png_get_asm_flags(png_ptr);
2718 mask = png_get_asm_flagmask(PNG_SELECT_READ | PNG_SELECT_WRITE);
2719 png_set_asm_flags(png_ptr, flags | mask);
2722 To enable only optimizations relevant to reading PNGs, use PNG_SELECT_READ
2723 by itself when calling png_get_asm_flagmask(); similarly for optimizing
2724 only writing. To disable all optimizations:
2726 #if defined(PNG_LIBPNG_VER) && (PNG_LIBPNG_VER >= 10200)
2727 flags = png_get_asm_flags(png_ptr);
2728 mask = png_get_asm_flagmask(PNG_SELECT_READ | PNG_SELECT_WRITE);
2729 png_set_asm_flags(png_ptr, flags & ~mask);
2732 To enable or disable only MMX-related features, use png_get_mmx_flagmask()
2733 in place of png_get_asm_flagmask(). The mmx version takes one additional
2736 #if defined(PNG_LIBPNG_VER) && (PNG_LIBPNG_VER >= 10200)
2737 int selection = PNG_SELECT_READ | PNG_SELECT_WRITE;
2740 mask = png_get_mmx_flagmask(selection, &compilerID);
2743 On return, compilerID will indicate which version of the MMX assembler
2744 optimizations was compiled. Currently two flavors exist: Microsoft
2745 Visual C++ (compilerID == 1) and GNU C (a.k.a. gcc/gas, compilerID == 2).
2746 On non-x86 platforms or on systems compiled without MMX optimizations, a
2747 value of -1 is used.
2749 Note that both png_get_asm_flagmask() and png_get_mmx_flagmask() return
2750 all valid, settable optimization bits for the version of the library that's
2751 currently in use. In the case of shared (dynamically linked) libraries,
2752 this may include optimizations that did not exist at the time the code was
2753 written and compiled. It is also possible, of course, to enable only known,
2754 specific optimizations; for example:
2756 #if defined(PNG_LIBPNG_VER) && (PNG_LIBPNG_VER >= 10200)
2757 flags = PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_COMBINE_ROW \
2758 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_INTERLACE \
2759 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_SUB \
2760 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_UP \
2761 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_AVG \
2762 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_PAETH ;
2763 png_set_asm_flags(png_ptr, flags);
2766 This method would enable only the MMX read-optimizations available at the
2767 time of libpng 1.2.0's release, regardless of whether a later version of
2768 the DLL were actually being used. (Also note that these functions did not
2769 exist in versions older than 1.2.0, so any attempt to run a dynamically
2770 linked app on such an older version would fail.)
2772 To determine whether the processor supports MMX instructions at all, use
2773 the png_mmx_support() function:
2775 #if defined(PNG_LIBPNG_VER) && (PNG_LIBPNG_VER >= 10200)
2776 mmxsupport = png_mmx_support();
2779 It returns -1 if MMX support is not compiled into libpng, 0 if MMX code
2780 is compiled but MMX is not supported by the processor, or 1 if MMX support
2781 is fully available. Note that png_mmx_support(), png_get_mmx_flagmask(),
2782 and png_get_asm_flagmask() all may be called without allocating and ini-
2783 tializing any PNG structures (for example, as part of a usage screen or
2786 The following code can be used to prevent an application from using the
2787 thread_unsafe features, even if libpng was built with PNG_THREAD_UNSAFE_OK
2790 #if defined(PNG_USE_PNGGCCRD) && defined(PNG_ASSEMBLER_CODE_SUPPORTED) \
2791 && defined(PNG_THREAD_UNSAFE_OK)
2792 /* Disable thread-unsafe features of pnggccrd */
2793 if (png_access_version() >= 10200)
2795 png_uint_32 mmx_disable_mask = 0;
2796 png_uint_32 asm_flags;
2798 mmx_disable_mask |= ( PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_COMBINE_ROW \
2799 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_SUB \
2800 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_AVG \
2801 | PNG_ASM_FLAG_MMX_READ_FILTER_PAETH );
2802 asm_flags = png_get_asm_flags(png_ptr);
2803 png_set_asm_flags(png_ptr, asm_flags & ~mmx_disable_mask);
2807 For more extensive examples of runtime querying, enabling and disabling
2808 of optimized features, see contrib/gregbook/readpng2.c in the libpng
2809 source-code distribution.
2813 The MNG specification (available at http://www.libpng.org/pub/mng) allows
2814 certain extensions to PNG for PNG images that are embedded in MNG datastreams.
2815 Libpng can support some of these extensions. To enable them, use the
2816 png_permit_mng_features() function:
2818 feature_set = png_permit_mng_features(png_ptr, mask)
2819 mask is a png_uint_32 containing the logical OR of the
2820 features you want to enable. These include
2821 PNG_FLAG_MNG_EMPTY_PLTE
2822 PNG_FLAG_MNG_FILTER_64
2823 PNG_ALL_MNG_FEATURES
2824 feature_set is a png_uint_32 that is the logical AND of
2825 your mask with the set of MNG features that is
2826 supported by the version of libpng that you are using.
2828 It is an error to use this function when reading or writing a standalone
2829 PNG file with the PNG 8-byte signature. The PNG datastream must be wrapped
2830 in a MNG datastream. As a minimum, it must have the MNG 8-byte signature
2831 and the MHDR and MEND chunks. Libpng does not provide support for these
2832 or any other MNG chunks; your application must provide its own support for
2833 them. You may wish to consider using libmng (available at
2834 http://www.libmng.com) instead.
2836 VII. Changes to Libpng from version 0.88
2838 It should be noted that versions of libpng later than 0.96 are not
2839 distributed by the original libpng author, Guy Schalnat, nor by
2840 Andreas Dilger, who had taken over from Guy during 1996 and 1997, and
2841 distributed versions 0.89 through 0.96, but rather by another member
2842 of the original PNG Group, Glenn Randers-Pehrson. Guy and Andreas are
2843 still alive and well, but they have moved on to other things.
2845 The old libpng functions png_read_init(), png_write_init(),
2846 png_info_init(), png_read_destroy(), and png_write_destroy() have been
2847 moved to PNG_INTERNAL in version 0.95 to discourage their use. These
2848 functions will be removed from libpng version 2.0.0.
2850 The preferred method of creating and initializing the libpng structures is
2851 via the png_create_read_struct(), png_create_write_struct(), and
2852 png_create_info_struct() because they isolate the size of the structures
2853 from the application, allow version error checking, and also allow the
2854 use of custom error handling routines during the initialization, which
2855 the old functions do not. The functions png_read_destroy() and
2856 png_write_destroy() do not actually free the memory that libpng
2857 allocated for these structs, but just reset the data structures, so they
2858 can be used instead of png_destroy_read_struct() and
2859 png_destroy_write_struct() if you feel there is too much system overhead
2860 allocating and freeing the png_struct for each image read.
2862 Setting the error callbacks via png_set_message_fn() before
2863 png_read_init() as was suggested in libpng-0.88 is no longer supported
2864 because this caused applications that do not use custom error functions
2865 to fail if the png_ptr was not initialized to zero. It is still possible
2866 to set the error callbacks AFTER png_read_init(), or to change them with
2867 png_set_error_fn(), which is essentially the same function, but with a new
2868 name to force compilation errors with applications that try to use the old
2871 Starting with version 1.0.7, you can find out which version of the library
2872 you are using at run-time:
2874 png_uint_32 libpng_vn = png_access_version_number();
2876 The number libpng_vn is constructed from the major version, minor
2877 version with leading zero, and release number with leading zero,
2878 (e.g., libpng_vn for version 1.0.7 is 10007).
2880 You can also check which version of png.h you used when compiling your
2883 png_uint_32 application_vn = PNG_LIBPNG_VER;
2885 VII. Y2K Compliance in libpng
2889 Since the PNG Development group is an ad-hoc body, we can't make
2890 an official declaration.
2892 This is your unofficial assurance that libpng from version 0.71 and
2893 upward through 1.2.6 are Y2K compliant. It is my belief that earlier
2894 versions were also Y2K compliant.
2896 Libpng only has three year fields. One is a 2-byte unsigned integer that
2897 will hold years up to 65535. The other two hold the date in text
2898 format, and will hold years up to 9999.
2901 "png_uint_16 year" in png_time_struct.
2904 "png_charp time_buffer" in png_struct and
2905 "near_time_buffer", which is a local character string in png.c.
2907 There are seven time-related functions:
2909 png_convert_to_rfc_1123() in png.c
2910 (formerly png_convert_to_rfc_1152() in error)
2911 png_convert_from_struct_tm() in pngwrite.c, called
2913 png_convert_from_time_t() in pngwrite.c
2914 png_get_tIME() in pngget.c
2915 png_handle_tIME() in pngrutil.c, called in pngread.c
2916 png_set_tIME() in pngset.c
2917 png_write_tIME() in pngwutil.c, called in pngwrite.c
2919 All appear to handle dates properly in a Y2K environment. The
2920 png_convert_from_time_t() function calls gmtime() to convert from system
2921 clock time, which returns (year - 1900), which we properly convert to
2922 the full 4-digit year. There is a possibility that applications using
2923 libpng are not passing 4-digit years into the png_convert_to_rfc_1123()
2924 function, or that they are incorrectly passing only a 2-digit year
2925 instead of "year - 1900" into the png_convert_from_struct_tm() function,
2926 but this is not under our control. The libpng documentation has always
2927 stated that it works with 4-digit years, and the APIs have been
2930 The tIME chunk itself is also Y2K compliant. It uses a 2-byte unsigned
2931 integer to hold the year, and can hold years as large as 65535.
2933 zlib, upon which libpng depends, is also Y2K compliant. It contains
2934 no date-related code.
2937 Glenn Randers-Pehrson
2939 PNG Development Group