“The ImageIO framework, introduced in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, allows applications to read and write popular image file formats. ImageIO works in conjunction with Quartz and is designed for maximum performance, convienient metadata access, and color management. As the definitive way to access image data on Mac OS X, you should consider using ImageIO in your application as a high-performance substitute for Image Importers or other image handling libraries. This article gets you started working with ImageIO, shows how to read and write data to and from Quartz, and points to some of the capabilities in working with Core Image that you can explore further on your own.”
I’m still on Panther, but nonetheless I found the article very interesting. When I move to Leopard next year, I am planning to write an app that will use images quite extensively – this article seems like a good resource when the time comes. Graphics is an area of programming that I have stayed pretty clear of in the 20 years or so that I have been at the keyboard. Except on the web that is.
This is the kind of article that I like to see on OSNews. The site should not just be about patches and latest versions of OS’s being released. Especially as those threads invariably turn into rather unedifying bun-fights between the various OS zealots.
Reminds me that I should dip into the Apple DevCon site more often myself.
BeOS Translation Kit anyone? Didn’t support as many image formats as that out-of-the-box, but it did much the same and could have format support added to it.
ImageIO is one of the little “secrets” in Java development. It was introduced into the JDK around JSE 1.4 (i think 1.4.2), but was around before then as an add-on. It is a great tool for image manipulation, conversion and display. The only problem I had with it years ago, was that documentation, at the time, was very lacking (sorta like the JMF documentation at the moment..)
This isn’t javax.imageio. It’s a Mac OS X framework that shares the same name with the Java library.
Well hell! Next time i better pay more attention! From what i understood, it was an implementation of javax.imageio that used the underpinnings of Apple’s OS. Thanks for the clarification.
See http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms737408.aspx for details. Replaces GDI+.