Loading png

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Hey can QB Load png....is there code to do it?

Could you post it? :o Ummm...Please post it. thnx.

[Neo]

Personally I don't know about the PNG file format, but with a little bit of studying the format you might be able to make a program that can read PNGs.

http://www.wotsit.org
^^ very handy for explanations about many different types of file formats

Sorry I have no code

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Thanks for a link though

[na_th_an]

You can try GIF which are almost as good as PNG8 images. There are some loaders at the ABC packets.I recommend Rich Gieldreich's, the assembly one. You can put it in your lib easily and use it for QB. It's the fastest (almost instant loading) and works in all video modes.

http://www.qbasicnews.com/abc/showsnippe...snippet=73

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Ok.
I heard of Rich.

Ummm....1 thing. Arn't png + gif almost the same thing? Also...Arn't gifs copywritten?

[shiftLynx]

PNG gaurantees lossless compression; GIFs don't. I think the problem about the software patent is a little fuzzy; apparently it expired not long ago, but I don't know what the state on it is.

In my opinion, the PNG format has been designed in a developer-friendly way (the patent releases the algorithm to be used freely with absolutely no royalties, credits, etc. etc.).

The specific problem with GIF was that it used LZW compression, which is/was a patented compression algorithm.

-shiftLynx

P.S. While the subject has been brought up... http://petition.eurolinux.org/

[Antoni Gual]

BTW: The compression in Gif is lossless too.

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

How come when I take a pic in bmp and make one a gif + one a png, the gif looks all wierd colors and the png looks exactly fine? :-?

[shiftLynx]

That's because PNG supports different bit-depths (probably 32bpp in your test). GIF only supports 8-bit images.

Something else that's quite cool about PNGs: not only can you have transparency (as in GIFs), but apparently translucency works in 32bpp assuming your paint program saves the alpha layer properly.

-shiftLynx

[Antoni Gual]

GIF is limited to 256 colors. For 24 bits images graphics editors must create an optimized palette and/or do some dithering to obtain a 8 bits image : this is where you loose information, the compression itself is not lossy. Try to compress an 8 bits image...