From: "Floris van den Berg" <flvdberg@wxs.nl> Newsgroups: alt.comp.programming,alt.games.programming,comp.graphics.algorithms,comp.lang.python,comp.programming,nl.comp.programmeren Subject: [ANNOUNCE] FreeImage 2.0.0 out! To: python-list@python.org Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 15:02:05 +0100 Hi there, Via this post we want to announce the new version of FreeImage (2.0.0). Attached below is the FreeImage FAQ, which will provide all the info you need to use this poweful c++ library for Windows. FreeImage can be downloaded from: http://home.wxs.nl/~flvdberg ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 01) WHAT IS FREEIMAGE -------------------- FreeImage is an Open Source project, initiated by Floris van den Berg, for developers who would like to support popular graphics image formats like BMP, JPEG, TIFF and PCX and others as needed by today's multimedia applications in their C++ applications for Windows. Key points in the design of FreeImage are: - Ease of use; FreeImage's functions are easy to learn. - Fast; the FreeImage functions are as optimized as possible. - Multithreading safe; FreeImage works both in single- and multithreaded programs and works together with all kinds of additional libraries. - Compatible with all 32-bit versions of Windows, including Windows 2000. Formats supported: BMP, ICO, JPEG/JIF, KOALA, Kodak PhotoCD, PCX, PNG, PNM, TARGA, TIFF and WBMP FreeImage is seperated into three groups of functions: * Load functions (FI_LoadXXX); Loads a certain bitmap type into memory. * Info functions; Retrieves information from a loaded bitmap. Possible information includes image size, bit depth and palette information. * Conversion functions; converts a bitmap to another bitdepth 02) WHO IS FREEIMAGE FOR? ------------------------- FreeImage is designed for multimedia specialists (users of C++, Python or Magenta II) working on Windows or Linux. FreeImage doesn't work on any other platform than Windows or Linux at this moment. Support for other platforms is considered. FreeImage only compiles under Microsoft Visual C++ 6. If you want to use FreeImage with any other compiler, you will have to download the sourcecode and modify it so that it works with this new compiler. FreeImage ships with project-files for MSVC6. 03) LICENSING FREEIMAGE ----------------------- FreeImage is free to the public and ships with full source code. The source is protected by law though. This means you have to agree to the license agreement before you use FreeImage. You can find a copy of the license agreement on http://home.wxs.nl/~flvdberg 04) BECOMING A DEVELOPMENT TEAM MEMBER -------------------------------------- I am currently looking for experienced graphics programmers who can help to further design and develop FreeImage. The idea is to create a dedicated team of developers who want to spend some free time writing bitmap loaders for new graphic formats and enhance already working routines. Communication will go using e-mail (freeimage@wxs.nl) and the web. The following things need to be done design wise: - look into a way to generate seperate targets for the same source, hence merging the DLL and static library versions of FreeImage code-wise. - design a system to modify FreeImage's internal image format, for easy porting. - design a resource script loader, so that bitmaps can be easily appended to a Windows EXE file The following things need to be done development wise: - add more graphic formats - add more image effects (for the upcoming library FreeEffects) - enhance existing image effects, particulary 16 bit alpha blending If you can do one or more of the above things, or maybe something completely different we didn't think about yet, you can be a valuable - and highly appreciated - member of the FreeImage Development Team! 05) CONTACT ----------- My e-mail address is: freeimage@wxs.nl -- http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list