transferring images through ORBit and gdk_draw_rgb_image

[Peter Van Osta <pvosta unionbio-eu com>]

Hi,

For our application I will have to tranfer image data, mostly form the
server to the client. On the client side I will use "gdk_draw_rgb_image"
and guchar buffers to put the images into a GTK interface.

As far as I can find out, the best way to transfer iamge data from the
server to the client is to use a "sequence". The bitmaps in the server
can be 32 bit RGBX images (sometimes 8bit images and 16bit images). For
display purposes I guess it is best to transfer them all to RGBX buffers
and pump these through to the client. Is the way shown here, the best
way to define the buffer:

typedef sequence<char,4> rgbximg;

This would need an additional allocation step of 4ximages-size*char ?
Each of the RGBX channels could be put into rgbximg[0,...,4] ?

If possible I would prefer sending different datatypes through to the
client, depending on the image type, but I don't know how to program a
type of data which could deal with this ? I could not find a simple way
to display non-RGB iamges with "gdk_draw_rgb_image". If that was the
case, I could "draw" the bitmaps diffently, depending on the image type.
Mapping N-bit images to "guchar" should be feasible for display purposes
?

Allocating/reallocating the image buffer on the client side when
changing image sizes could be an issue. Displaying images fo different
sizes into the smae window, how is that done ?

Best regards and many thanks in advance,

Peter Van Osta