[Gimp-developer] Gimp and MPO files

[Pavel <pavel pamsoft cz>]

Hi Gimp developers,

if you are considering to include support for MPO files in Gimp, you can
freely use the code I have developed recently. It is available here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpoutils/

MPO stands for Multiple Picture Object. It is basically JPEG file, which
utilizes App2 EXIF blocks to include more than one image into the single
file. Although it can store virtually any number of pictures, the main
usage at the moment is for storing stereo images, captured by Fujifilm
Finepix Real 3D camera, Nintendo 3DS or some model of HTC phone. The
format also seems to be widely supported by recent models of 3D TVs.

Although I personally don't need the support by Gimp, since it is quite
easy to split the images, load them as layers into Gimp, make required
changes, adjustments, etc., save them as new images and join them back
using my utility, I can see that there were some requests of this kind
already:
http://www.gimpusers.com/forums/gimp-developer/14313-reading-and-saving-of-3d-mpo-files-in-gimp

There exists a plugin also mentioned in that thread, which can load an
MPO image into Gimp. However, I don't recommend to use this one, since
it does not analyze the App headers at all and leaves the App2 blocks in
the decomposed JPEG image. This might confuse application and devices
which understand MPO.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks, Pavel