Re: gdk_rgb_buf and image loading

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

dov imagic weizmann ac il writes: 
> * Currently pixbufs are always stored as at least 24 bits per pixel
>   internally. This is a waste of memory for grey level and bitmap
>   images. It looks like the gdk pixbuf sources have been written in
>   anticipation of support for other bit depths. Are there any plans of
>   actually implementing this?
>

I would guess that 8-bit gray and 1-bit bitmaps might be added (if
someone implemented it, I don't know of anyone with plans), but
probably not much else (sort of the point of the pixbuf is to be
simpler than an XImage, so if you start storing every possible RGB
layout it defeats that purpose).
 
> * Are there any plans of adding an additional depth parameter in
>   addition to width and height to the pixbuf in order to support
>   multiple pages? This would mean making gdk_pixbuf stateful in
>   order to point to what page is currently displayed. This is needed
>   in order to load multi-page tiff and MNG files.
>

We have a GdkPixbufAnimation which would be appropriate for MNG, used
for animated GIF now. For multi-page tiff, I don't understand all the
issues; but there was a thread on this list I'm pretty sure a while
back about it. I don't remember what the conclusion was, but a search
at mail.gnome.org/archives might turn it up.
      
> Aside from this, I found gdk_rgb_pixbuf a real pleasure to use. But
> documentation would be handy. Especially an explanation of the meaning
> of the different interpolation types. I figured out what BILINEAR and
> NEAREST mean, but what are TILES and HYPER?
> 

I never know which of these to pick either.

Havoc