SDL_image 1.2.3: Overview

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# 1. Overview

A Little Bit About Me

I am currently, as I write this document, a programmer for Raytheon. There I do all sorts of communications, network, GUI, and other general programming tasks in C/C++ on the Solaris and sometimes Linux Operating Systems.

Feel free to contact me: jcatki@jcatki.no-ip.org

I am also usually on IRC at irc.freenode.net in the #SDL channel as LIM

Why is this for you?

Images provide the basic visual building blocks for any user interface. Colors and fun shapes are the stuff that we as kids looked at for hours at a time while trying to shoot down big aliens and rescue pixelated princesses. Now it's our turn to make the images that others will remember later in life perhaps. Now how do we get this dang images into our SDL programs, and be flexible in the handling of the images so that we don't even have to worry about what various formats they may be in? This is where SDLimage makes all of our lives easier. This document doesn't help you make artwork, but it will give you the functional knowledge on how to get that art into your game. Now go forth and make your Stick Figure of Justice, someone else might fill in for your lack of artistry, at least you won't have to make much of an effort to include the new and better art into your code.

This is the README in the SDL_image source archive.

    SDL_image 1.2

    The latest version of this library is available from:
    SDL_image Homepage

    This is a simple library to load images of various formats as SDL surfaces.
    This library supports BMP, PNM (PPM/PGM/PBM), XPM, LBM, PCX, GIF, JPEG, PNG,
    TGA, and TIFF formats.

    API:
    #include "SDL_image.h"

    	SDL_Surface *IMG_Load(const char *file);
    or
    	SDL_Surface *IMG_Load_RW(SDL_RWops *src, int freesrc);
    or
    	SDL_Surface *IMG_LoadTyped_RW(SDL_RWops *src, int freesrc, char *type);

    where type is a string specifying the format (i.e. "PNG" or "pcx").
    Note that IMG_Load_RW cannot load TGA images.

    To create a surface from an XPM image included in C source, use:

    	SDL_Surface *IMG_ReadXPMFromArray(char **xpm);

    An example program 'showimage' is included, with source in showimage.c

    JPEG support requires the JPEG library:
        IJG Homepage
    PNG support requires the PNG library:
        PNG Homepage
      and the Zlib library:
        Zlib Homepage
    TIFF support requires the TIFF library:
        SGI TIFF FTP Site

    This library is under the GNU Library General Public License, see the file
    "COPYING" for details.  Certain image loaders may be under a different
    license, see the individual image loader source files for details.

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