Implementing textures functions of d3dx using an extern library.

[Jérôme Gardou]

It appears this mail did not get in, so I resend it...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jérôme Gardou 
Date: 2008/8/26
Subject: Implementing textures functions of d3dx using an extern library.
To: [e-mail]

D3DX supports a wide range of file types for textures. Instead of rewriting
everything from scratch, the best would certainly be to use some image
processing library to handle them. As a bonus, this would allow lighter
code.

Some of those library are :
SDL_Image : easy to use, but loading an image using a SDL_Surface is quite
heavy. Moreover, the files supported are not enough for d3dx.
MagickWand/MagickCore, the libraries on which imagemagick is based : Hard to
use, and very heavy. Supports every format thet d3dx supports.
FreeImage : Quite easy to use, the only files not supported are DIB and
PFM... Not so widely represented. I had to recompile it, as packages for it
are not available for 32 bits. (I use a 64 bits ubuntu system).

Here is an implementation of D3DXGetImageInfoFromFileInMemory using
FreeImage.

Suggestions and comments are welcomed.

PS : Please CC me your potential answers, as I'm not a subscriber of this
list.

[Steven Edwards]

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 5:20 PM, Jérôme Gardou  wrote:
> FreeImage : Quite easy to use, the only files not supported are DIB and
> PFM... Not so widely represented. I had to recompile it, as packages for it
> are not available for 32 bits. (I use a 64 bits ubuntu system).

I think this is going to be a show stopper. If we are going to add
more external dependencies, we need them to be pretty common.
> Here is an implementation of D3DXGetImageInfoFromFileInMemory using
> FreeImage.
>
> Suggestions and comments are welcomed.

Also you need to add a configure check for the header and the like.

Thanks