USING THE IJG JPEG LIBRARY Copyright (C) 1994, Thomas G. Lane. This file is part of the Independent JPEG Group's software. For conditions of distribution and use, see the accompanying README file. This file describes how to use the IJG JPEG library within an application program. Read it if you want to write a program that uses the library. The file example.c provides heavily commented skeleton code for calling the JPEG library. Also see jpeglib.h (the include file to be used by application programs) for full details about data structures and function parameter lists. The library source code, of course, is the ultimate reference. Note that there have been *major* changes from the application interface presented by IJG version 4 and earlier versions. The old design had several inherent limitations, and it had accumulated a lot of cruft as we added features while trying to minimize application-interface changes. We have sacrificed backward compatibility in the version 5 rewrite, but we think the improvements justify this. TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- Overview: Functions provided by the library Outline of typical usage Basic library usage: Data formats Compression details Decompression details Mechanics of usage: include files, linking, etc Advanced features: Compression parameter selection Decompression parameter selection Special color spaces Error handling Compressed data handling (source and destination managers) I/O suspension Abbreviated datastreams and multiple images Special markers Downsampled image data Progress monitoring Memory management Library compile-time options Portability considerations Notes for MS-DOS implementors You should read at least the overview and basic usage sections before trying to program with the library. The sections on advanced features can be read if and when you need them. OVERVIEW ======== Functions provided by the library --------------------------------- The IJG JPEG library provides C code to read and write JPEG-compressed image files. The surrounding application program receives or supplies image data a scanline at a time, using a straightforward uncompressed image format. All details of color conversion and other preprocessing/postprocessing can be handled by the library. The library includes a substantial amount of code that is not covered by the JPEG standard but is necessary for typical applications of JPEG. These functions preprocess the image before JPEG compression or postprocess it after decompression. They include colorspace conversion, downsampling/upsampling, and color quantization. The application indirectly selects use of this code by specifying the format in which it wishes to supply or receive image data. For example, if colormapped output is requested, then the decompression library automatically invokes color quantization. A wide range of quality vs. speed tradeoffs are possible in JPEG processing, and even more so in decompression postprocessing. The decompression library provides multiple implementations that cover most of the useful tradeoffs, ranging from very-high-quality down to fast-preview operation. On the compression side we have generally not provided low-quality choices, since compression is normally less time-critical. It should be understood that the low-quality modes may not meet the JPEG standard's accuracy requirements; nonetheless, they are useful for viewers. A word about functions *not* provided by the library. We handle a subset of the ISO JPEG standard; most baseline and extended-sequential JPEG processes are supported. (Our subset includes all features now in common use.) Unsupported ISO options include: * Progressive storage (may be supported in future versions) * Hierarchical storage * Lossless JPEG * Arithmetic entropy coding (unsupported for legal reasons) * DNL marker * Nonintegral subsampling ratios We support both 8- and 12-bit data precision, but this is a compile-time choice rather than a run-time choice; hence it is difficult to use both precisions in a single application. By itself, the library handles only interchange JPEG datastreams --- in particular the widely used JFIF file format. The library can be used by surrounding code to process interchange or abbreviated JPEG datastreams that are embedded in more complex file formats. (For example, we anticipate that Sam Leffler's LIBTIFF library will use this code to support the revised TIFF JPEG format.) Outline of typical usage ------------------------ The rough outline of a JPEG compression operation is: Allocate and initialize a JPEG compression object Specify the destination for the compressed data (eg, a file) Set parameters for compression, including image size & colorspace jpeg_start_compress(...); while (scan lines remain to be written) jpeg_write_scanlines(...); jpeg_finish_compress(...); Release the JPEG compression object A JPEG compression object holds parameters and working state for the JPEG library. We make creation/destruction of the object separate from starting or finishing compression of an image; the same object can be re-used for a series of image compression operations. This makes it easy to re-use the same parameter settings for a sequence of images. Re-use of a JPEG object also has important implications for processing abbreviated JPEG datastreams, as discussed later. The image data to be compressed is supplied to jpeg_write_scanlines() from in-memory buffers. If the application is doing file-to-file compression, reading image data from the source file is the application's responsibility. The library emits compressed data by calling a "data destination manager", which typically will write the data into a file; but the application can provide its own destination manager to do something else. Similarly, the rough outline of a JPEG decompression operation is: Allocate and initialize a JPEG decompression object Specify the source of the compressed data (eg, a file) Call jpeg_read_header() to obtain image info Set parameters for decompression jpeg_start_decompress(...); while (scan lines remain to be read) jpeg_read_scanlines(...); jpeg_finish_decompress(...); Release the JPEG decompression object This is comparable to the compression outline except that reading the datastream header is a separate step. By doing this, information about the image's size, colorspace, etc is available when the application selects decompression parameters. For example, the application can choose an output scaling ratio that will fit the image into the available screen size. The decompression library obtains compressed data by calling a data source manager, which typically will read the data from a file; but other behaviors can be obtained with a custom source manager. Decompressed data is delivered into in-memory buffers passed to jpeg_read_scanlines(). It is possible to abort an incomplete compression or decompression operation by calling jpeg_abort(); or, if you do not need to retain the JPEG object, simply release it by calling jpeg_destroy(). JPEG compression and decompression objects are two separate struct types. However, they share some common fields, and certain routines such as jpeg_destroy() can work on either type of object. The JPEG library has no static variables: all state is in the compression or decompression object. Therefore it is possible to process multiple compression and decompression operations concurrently, using multiple JPEG objects. Both compression and decompression can be done in an incremental memory-to- memory fashion, if suitable source/destination managers are used. However, there are some restrictions on the processing that can be done in this mode. See the section on "I/O suspension" for more details. BASIC LIBRARY USAGE =================== Data formats ------------ Before diving into procedural details, it is helpful to understand the image data format that the JPEG library expects or returns. The standard input image format is a rectangular array of pixels, with each pixel having the same number of "component" values (color channels). You must specify how many components there are and the colorspace interpretation of the components. Most applications will use RGB data (three components per pixel) or grayscale data (one component per pixel). Note that there is no provision for colormapped input. You can feed in a colormapped image by expanding it to full-color format. However JPEG often doesn't work very well with colormapped source data, because of dithering noise. This is discussed in more detail in the JPEG FAQ and the other references mentioned in the README file. Pixels are stored by scanlines, with each scanline running from left to right. If you are working with color data, then the component values for each pixel are adjacent in the row; for example, R,G,B,R,G,B,R,G,B,... for 24-bit RGB color. Each scanline is an array of data type JSAMPLE --- which is generally "unsigned char", unless you've changed jmorecfg.h. A 2-D array of pixels is formed by making a list of pointers to the starts of scanlines; the scanlines need not be adjacent in memory. Even if you process just one scanline at a time, you must make a one-element pointer array to serve this purpose. Pointers to JSAMPLE rows are of type JSAMPROW, and the pointer to the pointer array is of type JSAMPARRAY. The library accepts or supplies one or more complete scanlines per call; it is not possible to process part of a row at a time. Scanlines are always processed top-to-bottom. You can process an entire image in one call if you have it all in memory, but usually it's more convenient to process one scanline at a time. For best results, source data values should have the precision specified by BITS_IN_JSAMPLE (normally 8 bits). For instance, if you choose to compress data that's only 6 bits/channel, you should left-justify each value in a byte before passing it to the compressor. If you need to compress data that has more than 8 bits/channel, compile with BITS_IN_JSAMPLE = 12. (See "Library compile-time options", later.) The data format returned by the decompressor is the same in all details, except that colormapped data is supported. If you request colormapped output then the returned data array contains a single JSAMPLE per pixel; its value is an index into a color map. The color map is represented as a 2-D JSAMPARRAY in which each row holds the values of one color component, that is, colormap[i][j] is the value of the i'th color component for pixel value (map index) j. Note that since the colormap indexes are stored in JSAMPLEs, the maximum number of colors is limited by the size of JSAMPLE (ie, at most 256 colors for an 8-bit JPEG library). Compression details ------------------- Here we revisit the JPEG compression outline given in the overview. 1. Allocate and initialize a JPEG compression object. A JPEG compression object is a "struct jpeg_compress_struct" (plus a bunch of subsidiary structures which are allocated via malloc(), but the application doesn't control those directly). This struct can be just a local variable in the calling routine, if a single routine is going to execute the whole JPEG compression sequence. Otherwise it can be static or allocated from malloc(). You will also need a structure representing a JPEG error handler. The part of this that the library cares about is a "struct jpeg_error_mgr". If you are providing your own error handler, you'll typically want to embed the jpeg_error_mgr struct in a larger structure; this is discussed later under "Error handling". For now we'll assume you are just using the default error handler. The default error handler will print JPEG error/warning messages on stderr, and it will call exit() if a fatal error occurs. You must initialize the error handler structure, store a pointer to it into the JPEG object's "err" field, and then call jpeg_create_compress() to initialize the rest of the JPEG object. Typical code for this step, if you are using the default error handler, is struct jpeg_compress_struct cinfo; struct jpeg_error_mgr jerr; ... cinfo.err = jpeg_std_error(&jerr); jpeg_create_compress(&cinfo); jpeg_create_compress allocates a small amount of memory, so it could fail if you are out of memory. In that case it will exit via the error handler. 2. Specify the destination for the compressed data (eg, a file). As previously mentioned, the JPEG library delivers compressed data to a "data destination" module. The library includes one data destination module which knows how to write to a stdio stream. You can use your own destination module if you want to do something else, as discussed later. If you use the standard destination module, you must open the target stdio stream beforehand. Typical code for this step looks like: FILE * outfile; ... if ((outfile = fopen(filename, "wb")) == NULL) { fprintf(stderr, "can't open %s\n", filename); exit(1); } jpeg_stdio_dest(&cinfo, outfile); where the last line invokes the standard destination module. WARNING: it is critical that the binary compressed data be delivered to the output file unchanged. On non-Unix systems the stdio library may perform newline translation or otherwise corrupt binary data. To suppress this behavior, you may need to use a "b" option to fopen (as shown above), or use setmode() or another routine to put the stdio stream in binary mode. See cjpeg.c and djpeg.c for code that has been found to work on many systems. You can select the data destination after setting other parameters (step 3), if that's more convenient. You may not change the destination between calling jpeg_start_compress() and jpeg_finish_compress(). 3. Set parameters for compression, including image size & colorspace. You must supply information about the source image by setting the following fields in the JPEG object (cinfo structure): image_width Width of image, in pixels image_height Height of image, in pixels input_components Number of color channels (samples per pixel) in_color_space Color space of source image The image dimensions are, hopefully, obvious. JPEG supports image dimensions of 1 to 64K pixels in either direction. The input color space is typically RGB or grayscale, and input_components is 3 or 1 accordingly. (See "Special color spaces", later, for more info.) The in_color_space field should be assigned one of the enum constants JCS_RGB or JCS_GRAYSCALE. JPEG has a large number of compression parameters that determine how the image is encoded. Most applications don't need or want to know about all these parameters. You can set all the parameters to reasonable defaults by calling jpeg_set_defaults(); then, if there are particular values you want to change, you can do so after that. The "Compression parameter selection" section tells about all the parameters. You must set in_color_space correctly before calling jpeg_set_defaults(), because the defaults depend on the source image colorspace. However the other three source image parameters need not be valid until you call jpeg_start_compress(). There's no harm in calling jpeg_set_defaults() more than once, if that happens to be convenient. Typical code for a 24-bit RGB source image is cinfo.image_width = Width; /* image width and height, in pixels */ cinfo.image_height = Height; cinfo.input_components = 3; /* # of color components per pixel */ cinfo.in_color_space = JCS_RGB; /* colorspace of input image */ jpeg_set_defaults(&cinfo); /* Make optional parameter settings here */ 4. jpeg_start_compress(...); After you have established the data destination and set all the necessary source image info and other parameters, call jpeg_start_compress() to begin a compression cycle. This will initialize internal state, allocate working storage, and emit the first few bytes of the JPEG datastream header. Typical code: jpeg_start_compress(&cinfo, TRUE); The "TRUE" parameter ensures that a complete JPEG interchange datastream will be written. This is appropriate in most cases. If you think you might want to use an abbreviated datastream, read the section on abbreviated datastreams, later. Once you have called jpeg_start_compress(), you may not alter any JPEG parameters or other fields of the JPEG object until you have completed the compression cycle. 5. while (scan lines remain to be written) jpeg_write_scanlines(...); Now write all the required image data by calling jpeg_write_scanlines() one or more times. You can pass one or more scanlines in each call, up to the total image height. In most applications it is convenient to pass just one or a few scanlines at a time. The expected format for the passed data is discussed under "Data formats", above. Image data should be written in top-to-bottom scanline order. The JPEG spec contains some weasel wording about how top and bottom are application-defined terms (a curious interpretation of the English language...) but if you want your files to be compatible with everyone else's, you WILL use top-to-bottom order. If the source data must be read in bottom-to-top order, you can use the JPEG library's virtual array mechanism to invert the data efficiently. Examples of this can be found in the sample application cjpeg. The library maintains a count of the number of scanlines written so far in the next_scanline field of the JPEG object. Usually you can just use this variable as the loop counter, so that the loop test looks like "while (cinfo.next_scanline < cinfo.image_height)". Code for this step depends heavily on the way that you store the source data. example.c shows the following code for the case of a full-size 2-D source array containing 3-byte RGB pixels: JSAMPROW row_pointer[1]; /* pointer to a single row */ int row_stride; /* physical row width in buffer */ row_stride = image_width * 3; /* JSAMPLEs per row in image_buffer */ while (cinfo.next_scanline < cinfo.image_height) { row_pointer[0] = & image_buffer[cinfo.next_scanline * row_stride]; jpeg_write_scanlines(&cinfo, row_pointer, 1); } jpeg_write_scanlines() returns the number of scanlines actually written. This will normally be equal to the number passed in, so you can usually ignore the return value. It is different in just two cases: * If you try to write more scanlines than the declared image height, the additional scanlines are ignored. * If you use a suspending data destination manager, output buffer overrun will cause the compressor to return before accepting all the passed lines. This feature is discussed under "I/O suspension", below. The normal stdio destination manager will NOT cause this to happen. In any case, the return value is the same as the change in the value of next_scanline. 6. jpeg_finish_compress(...); After all the image data has been written, call jpeg_finish_compress() to complete the compression cycle. This step is ESSENTIAL to ensure that the last bufferload of data is written to the data destination. jpeg_finish_compress() also releases working memory associated with the JPEG object. Typical code: jpeg_finish_compress(&cinfo); If using the stdio destination manager, don't forget to close the output stdio stream if necessary. If you have requested a multi-pass operating mode, such as Huffman code optimization, jpeg_finish_compress() will perform the additional passes using data buffered by the first pass. In this case jpeg_finish_compress() may take quite a while to complete. With the default compression parameters, this will not happen. It is an error to call jpeg_finish_compress() before writing the necessary total number of scanlines. If you wish to abort compression, call jpeg_abort() as discussed below. After completing a compression cycle, you may dispose of the JPEG object as discussed next, or you may use it to compress another image. In that case return to step 2, 3, or 4 as appropriate. If you do not change the destination manager, the new datastream will be written to the same target. If you do not change any JPEG parameters, the new datastream will be written with the same parameters as before. Note that you can change the input image dimensions freely between cycles, but if you change the input colorspace, you should call jpeg_set_defaults() to adjust for the new colorspace; and then you'll need to repeat all of step 3. 7. Release the JPEG compression object. When you are done with a JPEG compression object, destroy it by calling jpeg_destroy_compress(). This will free all subsidiary memory. Or you can call jpeg_destroy() which works for either compression or decompression objects --- this may be more convenient if you are sharing code between compression and decompression cases. (Actually, these routines are equivalent except for the declared type of the passed pointer. To avoid gripes from ANSI C compilers, pass a j_common_ptr to jpeg_destroy().) If you allocated the jpeg_compress_struct structure from malloc(), freeing it is your responsibility --- jpeg_destroy() won't. Ditto for the error handler structure. Typical code: jpeg_destroy_compress(&cinfo); 8. Aborting. If you decide to abort a compression cycle before finishing, you can clean up in either of two ways: * If you don't need the JPEG object any more, just call jpeg_destroy_compress() or jpeg_destroy() to release memory. This is legitimate at any point after calling jpeg_create_compress() --- in fact, it's safe even if jpeg_create_compress() fails. * If you want to re-use the JPEG object, call jpeg_abort_compress(), or jpeg_abort() which works on both compression and decompression objects. This will return the object to an idle state, releasing any working memory. jpeg_abort() is allowed at any time after successful object creation. Note that cleaning up the data destination, if required, is your responsibility. Decompression details --------------------- Here we revisit the JPEG decompression outline given in the overview. 1. Allocate and initialize a JPEG decompression object. This is just like initialization for compression, as discussed above, except that the object is a "struct jpeg_decompress_struct" and you call jpeg_create_decompress(). Error handling is exactly the same. Typical code: struct jpeg_decompress_struct cinfo; struct jpeg_error_mgr jerr; ... cinfo.err = jpeg_std_error(&jerr); jpeg_create_decompress(&cinfo); (Both here and in the IJG code, we usually use variable name "cinfo" for both compression and decompression objects.) 2. Specify the source of the compressed data (eg, a file). As previously mentioned, the JPEG library reads compressed data from a "data source" module. The library includes one data source module which knows how to read from a stdio stream. You can use your own source module if you want to do something else, as discussed later. If you use the standard source module, you must open the source stdio stream beforehand. Typical code for this step looks like: FILE * infile; ... if ((infile = fopen(filename, "rb")) == NULL) { fprintf(stderr, "can't open %s\n", filename); exit(1); } jpeg_stdio_src(&cinfo, infile); where the last line invokes the standard source module. WARNING: it is critical that the binary compressed data be read unchanged. On non-Unix systems the stdio library may perform newline translation or otherwise corrupt binary data. To suppress this behavior, you may need to use a "b" option to fopen (as shown above), or use setmode() or another routine to put the stdio stream in binary mode. See cjpeg.c and djpeg.c for code that has been found to work on many systems. You may not change the data source between calling jpeg_read_header() and jpeg_finish_decompress(). If you wish to read a series of JPEG images from a single source file, you should repeat the jpeg_read_header() to jpeg_finish_decompress() sequence without reinitializing either the JPEG object or the data source module; this prevents buffered input data from being discarded. 3. Call jpeg_read_header() to obtain image info. Typical code for this step is just jpeg_read_header(&cinfo, TRUE); This will read the source datastream header markers, up to the beginning of the compressed data proper. On return, the image dimensions and other info have been stored in the JPEG object. The application may wish to consult this information before selecting decompression parameters. More complex code is necessary if * A suspending data source is used --- in that case jpeg_read_header() may return before it has read all the header data. See "I/O suspension", below. The normal stdio source manager will NOT cause this to happen. * Abbreviated JPEG files are to be processed. See the section on abbreviated datastreams. Standard applications that deal only in interchange JPEG files need not be concerned with this case either. It is permissible to stop at this point if you just wanted to find out the image dimensions and other header info for a JPEG file. In that case, call jpeg_destroy() when you are done with the JPEG object, or call jpeg_abort() to return it to an idle state before selecting a new data source and reading another header. 4. Set parameters for decompression. jpeg_read_header() sets appropriate default decompression parameters based on the properties of the image (in particular, its colorspace). However, you may well want to alter these defaults before beginning the decompression. For example, the default is to produce full color output from a color file. If you want colormapped output you must ask for it. Other options allow the returned image to be scaled and allow various speed/quality tradeoffs to be selected. "Decompression parameter selection", below, gives details. If the defaults are appropriate, nothing need be done at this step. Note that all default values are set by each call to jpeg_read_header(). If you reuse a decompression object, you cannot expect your parameter settings to be preserved across cycles, as you can for compression. You must adjust parameter values each time. 5. jpeg_start_decompress(...); Once the parameter values are satisfactory, call jpeg_start_decompress() to begin decompression. This will initialize internal state, allocate working memory, and prepare for returning data. Typical code is just jpeg_start_decompress(&cinfo); If you have requested a multi-pass operating mode, such as 2-pass color quantization, jpeg_start_decompress() will do everything needed before data output can begin. In this case jpeg_start_decompress() may take quite a while to complete. With a single-scan (fully interleaved) JPEG file and default decompression parameters, this will not happen; jpeg_start_decompress() will return quickly. After this call, the final output image dimensions, including any requested scaling, are available in the JPEG object; so is the selected colormap, if colormapped output has been requested. Useful fields include output_width image width and height, as scaled output_height out_color_components # of color components in out_color_space output_components # of color components returned per pixel colormap the selected colormap, if any actual_number_of_colors number of entries in colormap output_components is 1 (a colormap index) when quantizing colors; otherwise it equals out_color_components. It is the number of JSAMPLE values that will be emitted per pixel in the output arrays. Typically you will need to allocate data buffers to hold the incoming image. You will need output_width * output_components JSAMPLEs per scanline in your output buffer, and a total of output_height scanlines will be returned. Note: if you are using the JPEG library's internal memory manager to allocate data buffers (as djpeg does), then the manager's protocol requires that you request large buffers *before* calling jpeg_start_decompress(). This is a little tricky since the output_XXX fields are not normally valid then. You can make them valid by calling jpeg_calc_output_dimensions() after setting the relevant parameters (scaling, output color space, and quantization flag). 6. while (scan lines remain to be read) jpeg_read_scanlines(...); Now you can read the decompressed image data by calling jpeg_read_scanlines() one or more times. At each call, you pass in the maximum number of scanlines to be read (ie, the height of your working buffer); jpeg_read_scanlines() will return up to that many lines. The return value is the number of lines actually read. The format of the returned data is discussed under "Data formats", above. Image data is returned in top-to-bottom scanline order. If you must write out the image in bottom-to-top order, you can use the JPEG library's virtual array mechanism to invert the data efficiently. Examples of this can be found in the sample application djpeg. The library maintains a count of the number of scanlines returned so far in the output_scanline field of the JPEG object. Usually you can just use this variable as the loop counter, so that the loop test looks like "while (cinfo.output_scanline < cinfo.output_height)". (Note that the test should NOT be against image_height, unless you never use scaling. The image_height field is the height of the original unscaled image.) If you don't use a suspending data source, it is safe to assume that jpeg_read_scanlines() reads at least one scanline per call, until the bottom of the image has been reached. If you use a buffer larger than one scanline, it is NOT safe to assume that jpeg_read_scanlines() fills it. In any case, the return value is the same as the change in the value of output_scanline. 7. jpeg_finish_decompress(...); After all the image data has been read, call jpeg_finish_decompress() to complete the decompression cycle. This causes working memory associated with the JPEG object to be released. Typical code: jpeg_finish_decompress(&cinfo); If using the stdio source manager, don't forget to close the source stdio stream if necessary. It is an error to call jpeg_finish_decompress() before reading the correct total number of scanlines. If you wish to abort compression, call jpeg_abort() as discussed below. After completing a decompression cycle, you may dispose of the JPEG object as discussed next, or you may use it to decompress another image. In that case return to step 2 or 3 as appropriate. If you do not change the source manager, the next image will be read from the same source. 8. Release the JPEG decompression object. When you are done with a JPEG decompression object, destroy it by calling jpeg_destroy_decompress() or jpeg_destroy(). The previous discussion of destroying compression objects applies here too. Typical code: jpeg_destroy_decompress(&cinfo); 9. Aborting. You can abort a decompression cycle by calling jpeg_destroy_decompress() or jpeg_destroy() if you don't need the JPEG object any more, or jpeg_abort_decompress() or jpeg_abort() if you want to reuse the object. The previous discussion of aborting compression cycles applies here too. Mechanics of usage: include files, linking, etc ----------------------------------------------- Applications using the JPEG library should include the header file jpeglib.h to obtain declarations of data types and routines. Before including jpeglib.h, include system headers that define at least the typedefs FILE and size_t. On ANSI-conforming systems, including is sufficient; on older Unix systems, you may need to define size_t. If the application needs to refer to individual JPEG library error codes, also include jerror.h to define those symbols. jpeglib.h indirectly includes the files jconfig.h and jmorecfg.h. If you are installing the JPEG header files in a system directory, you will want to install all four files: jpeglib.h, jerror.h, jconfig.h, jmorecfg.h. (It may be worth pointing out that the core JPEG library does not actually require the stdio library: only the default source/destination managers and error handler need it. You can use the library in a stdio-less environment if you replace those modules. More info about the minimum system library requirements may be found in jinclude.h.) The most convenient way to include the JPEG code into your executable program is to prepare a library file ("libjpeg.a", or a corresponding name on non-Unix machines) and reference it at your link step. If you use only half of the library (only compression or only decompression), only that much code will be included from the library, unless your linker is hopelessly brain-damaged. Most of the supplied makefiles build libjpeg.a automatically (see install.doc). On some systems your application may need to set up a signal handler to ensure that temporary files are deleted if the program is interrupted. This is most critical if you are on MS-DOS and use the jmemdos.c memory manager back end; it will try to grab extended memory for temp files, and that space will NOT be freed automatically. See cjpeg.c or djpeg.c for an example signal handler. ADVANCED FEATURES ================= Compression parameter selection ------------------------------- This section describes all the optional parameters you can set for JPEG compression, as well as the "helper" routines provided to assist in this task. Proper setting of some parameters requires detailed understanding of the JPEG standard; if you don't know what a parameter is for, it's best not to mess with it! See REFERENCES in the README file for pointers to more info about JPEG. It's a good idea to call jpeg_set_defaults() first, even if you plan to set all the parameters; that way your code is more likely to work with future JPEG libraries that have additional parameters. For the same reason, we recommend you use a helper routine where one is provided, in preference to twiddling cinfo fields directly. The helper routines are: jpeg_set_defaults (j_compress_ptr cinfo) This routine sets all JPEG parameters to reasonable defaults, using only the input image's color space (field in_color_space, which must already be set in cinfo). Many applications will only need to use this routine and perhaps jpeg_set_quality(). jpeg_set_colorspace (j_compress_ptr cinfo, J_COLOR_SPACE colorspace) Sets the JPEG file's colorspace (field jpeg_color_space) as specified, and sets other color-space-dependent parameters appropriately. See "Special color spaces", below, before using this. A large number of parameters, including all per-component parameters, are set by this routine; if you want to twiddle individual parameters you should call jpeg_set_colorspace() before rather than after. jpeg_set_quality (j_compress_ptr cinfo, int quality, boolean force_baseline) Constructs JPEG quantization tables appropriate for the indicated quality setting. The quality value is expressed on the 0..100 scale recommended by IJG (cjpeg's "-quality" switch uses this routine). Note that the exact mapping from quality values to tables may change in future IJG releases as more is learned about DCT quantization. If the force_baseline parameter is TRUE, then the quantization table entries are constrained to the range 1..255 for full JPEG baseline compatibility. In the current implementation, this only makes a difference for quality settings below 25, and it effectively prevents very small/low quality files from being generated. The IJG decoder is capable of reading the non-baseline files generated at low quality settings when force_baseline is FALSE, but other decoders may not be. jpeg_set_linear_quality (j_compress_ptr cinfo, int scale_factor, boolean force_baseline) Same as jpeg_set_quality() except that the generated tables are the sample tables given in the JPEC spec section K.1, multiplied by the specified scale factor (which is expressed as a percentage; thus scale_factor = 100 reproduces the spec's tables). Note that larger scale factors give lower quality. This entry point is useful for conforming to the Adobe PostScript DCT conventions, but we do not recommend linear scaling as a user-visible quality scale otherwise. force_baseline again constrains the computed table entries to 1..255. int jpeg_quality_scaling (int quality) Converts a value on the IJG-recommended quality scale to a linear scaling percentage. Note that this routine may change or go away in future releases --- IJG may choose to adopt a nonlinear scaling, in which case the premise of this routine collapses. jpeg_add_quant_table (j_compress_ptr cinfo, int which_tbl, const unsigned int *basic_table, int scale_factor, boolean force_baseline)); Allows an arbitrary quantization table to be created. which_tbl indicates which table slot to fill. basic_table points to an array of 64 unsigned ints given in JPEG zigzag order. These values are multiplied by scale_factor/100 and then clamped to the range 1..65535 (or to 1..255 if force_baseline is TRUE). Compression parameters (cinfo fields) include: boolean optimize_coding TRUE causes the compressor to compute optimal Huffman coding tables for the image. This requires an extra pass over the data and therefore costs a good deal of space and time. The default is FALSE, which tells the compressor to use the supplied or default Huffman tables. In most cases optimal tables save only a few percent of file size compared to the default tables. Note that when this is TRUE, you need not supply Huffman tables at all, and any you do supply will be overwritten. int smoothing_factor If non-zero, the input image is smoothed; the value should be 1 for minimal smoothing to 100 for maximum smoothing. Consult jcsample.c for details of the smoothing algorithm. [Ignored in version 5alpha2, but should be implemented before v5 release.] unsigned int restart_interval int restart_in_rows To emit restart markers in the JPEG file, set one of these nonzero. Set restart_interval to specify the exact interval in MCU blocks. Set restart_in_rows to specify the interval in MCU rows. (If restart_in_rows is not 0, then restart_interval is set after the image width in MCUs is computed.) J_COLOR_SPACE jpeg_color_space int num_components The JPEG color space and corresponding number of components; see "Special color spaces", below, for more info. We recommend using jpeg_set_color_space() if you want to change these. boolean write_JFIF_header If TRUE, a JFIF APP0 marker is emitted. jpeg_set_defaults() and jpeg_set_colorspace() set this TRUE if a JFIF-legal JPEG color space (ie, YCbCr or grayscale) is selected, otherwise FALSE. UINT8 density_unit UINT16 X_density UINT16 Y_density The resolution information to be written into the JFIF marker; not used otherwise. density_unit may be 0 for unknown, 1 for dots/inch, or 2 for dots/cm. The default values are 0,1,1 indicating square pixels of unknown size. boolean write_Adobe_marker If TRUE, an Adobe APP14 marker is emitted. jpeg_set_defaults() and jpeg_set_colorspace() set this TRUE if JPEG color space RGB, CMYK, or YCCK is selected, otherwise FALSE. It is generally a bad idea to set both write_JFIF_header and write_Adobe_marker. In fact, you probably shouldn't change the default settings at all --- the default behavior ensures that the JPEG file's color space can be recognized by the decoder. JQUANT_TBL * quant_tbl_ptrs[NUM_QUANT_TBLS] Pointers to coefficient quantization tables, one per table slot, or NULL if no table is defined for a slot. Usually these should be set via one of the above helper routines; jpeg_add_quant_table() is general enough to define any quantization table. The other routines will set up table slot 0 for luminance quality and table slot 1 for chrominance. If you insist on creating tables directly, use jpeg_alloc_quant_table(); the struct JQUANT_TBL is *not* large enough, because there are additional hidden fields. JHUFF_TBL * dc_huff_tbl_ptrs[NUM_HUFF_TBLS] JHUFF_TBL * ac_huff_tbl_ptrs[NUM_HUFF_TBLS] Pointers to Huffman coding tables, one per table slot, or NULL if no table is defined for a slot. Slots 0 and 1 are filled with the JPEG sample tables by jpeg_set_defaults(). If you want to experiment with your own Huffman tables, allocate a table with jpeg_alloc_huff_table() unless the table slot pointer is already non-NULL. (The struct JHUFF_TBL is *not* large enough.) Then fill the bits[] and huffval[] arrays in the structure. Note that optimal Huffman tables can be computed for an image by setting optimize_coding, as discussed above; there's seldom any need to mess with providing your own Huffman tables. There are some additional cinfo fields which are not documented here because you currently can't change them; for example, you can't set arith_code TRUE because arithmetic coding is unsupported. Per-component parameters are stored in the struct cinfo.comp_info[i] for component number i. Note that components here refer to components of the JPEG color space, *not* the source image color space. A suitably large comp_info[] array is allocated by jpeg_set_defaults(); if you choose not to use that routine, it's up to you to allocate the array. int component_id The one-byte identifier code to be recorded in the JPEG file for this component. For the standard color spaces, we recommend you leave the default values alone. int h_samp_factor int v_samp_factor Horizontal and vertical sampling factors for the component; must be 1..4 according to the JPEG standard. Note that larger sampling factors indicate a higher-resolution component; many people find this behavior quite unintuitive. The default values are 2,2 for luminance components and 1,1 for chrominance components, except for grayscale where 1,1 is used. int quant_tbl_no Quantization table number for component. The default value is 0 for luminance components and 1 for chrominance components. int dc_tbl_no int ac_tbl_no DC and AC entropy coding table numbers. The default values are 0 for luminance components and 1 for chrominance components. int component_index Must equal the component's index in comp_info[]. Don't mess with this. Decompression parameter selection --------------------------------- Decompression parameter selection is somewhat simpler than compression parameter selection, since all of the JPEG internal parameters are recorded in the source file and need not be supplied by the application. (Unless you are working with abbreviated files, in which case see "Abbreviated datastreams", below.) Decompression parameters control the postprocessing done on the image to deliver it in a format suitable for the application's use. Many of the parameters control speed/quality tradeoffs, in which faster decompression may be obtained at the price of a poorer-quality image. The defaults select the highest quality (slowest) processing. The following fields in the JPEG object are set by jpeg_read_header() and may be useful to the application in choosing decompression parameters: JDIMENSION image_width Width and height of image JDIMENSION image_height int num_components Number of color components J_COLOR_SPACE jpeg_color_space Colorspace of image boolean saw_JFIF_marker TRUE if a JFIF APP0 marker was seen UINT8 density_unit Resolution data from JFIF marker UINT16 X_density UINT16 Y_density boolean saw_Adobe_marker TRUE if an Adobe APP14 marker was seen UINT8 Adobe_transform Color transform code from Adobe marker The JPEG color space, unfortunately, is something of a guess since the JPEG standard proper does not provide a way to record it. In practice most files adhere to the JFIF or Adobe conventions, and the decoder will recognize these correctly. See "Special color spaces", below, for more info. The decompression parameters that the application may set are: J_COLOR_SPACE out_color_space Output color space. jpeg_read_header() sets an appropriate default based on jpeg_color_space; typically it will be RGB or grayscale. The application can force this to grayscale to get grayscale output from a color file. Grayscale output is faster than full color since the color components need not be processed. (Note that not all possible color space transforms are currently implemented; you may need to extend jdcolor.c if you want an unusual conversion.) unsigned int scale_num, scale_denom Scale the image by the fraction scale_num/scale_denom. Default is 1/1, or no scaling. Currently, the only supported scaling ratios are 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8. (The library design allows for arbitrary scaling ratios but this is not likely to be implemented any time soon.) Smaller scaling ratios permit significantly faster decoding since fewer pixels need be processed and a simpler IDCT method can be used. boolean do_block_smoothing If TRUE, apply cross-block smoothing. Default is FALSE. Smoothing sometimes improves the appearance of very-low-quality-setting files. (Not currently implemented in v5, and may not be any time soon.) boolean do_fancy_upsampling If TRUE, do careful upsampling of chroma components. If FALSE, a faster but sloppier method is used. Default is TRUE. The visual impact of the sloppier method is often very small. boolean quantize_colors If set TRUE, colormapped output will be delivered. Default is FALSE, meaning that full-color output will be delivered. The next three parameters are relevant only if quantize_colors is TRUE. int desired_number_of_colors Maximum number of colors to use in generating a library-supplied color map (the actual number of colors is returned in a different field). Default 256. Ignored when the application supplies its own color map. boolean two_pass_quantize If TRUE, an extra pass over the image is made to select a custom color map for the image. This usually looks a lot better than the one-size- fits-all colormap that is used otherwise. Default is TRUE. Ignored when the application supplies its own color map. boolean use_dithering If TRUE, Floyd-Steinberg dithering is applied. F-S dithering is fairly slow but usually improves the perceived quality significantly. Default is TRUE. When quantize_colors is TRUE, the target color map is described by the next two fields. colormap is set to NULL by jpeg_read_header(). The application can supply a color map by setting colormap non-NULL and setting actual_number_of_colors to the map size. Otherwise, jpeg_start_decompress() selects a color map and sets these fields. JSAMPARRAY colormap The color map represented as a 2-D pixel array of out_color_components rows and actual_number_of_colors columns. Ignored if not quantizing. int actual_number_of_colors The number of colors in the color map. The output image dimensions are given by the following fields. These are computed from the source image dimensions and the decompression parameters by jpeg_start_decompress(). You can also call jpeg_calc_output_dimensions() to obtain the values that will result from the current parameter settings. This can be useful if you are trying to pick a scaling ratio that will get close to a desired target size. It's also important if you are using the JPEG library's memory manager to allocate output buffer space, because you are supposed to request such buffers *before* jpeg_start_decompress(). JDIMENSION output_width Actual dimensions of output image. JDIMENSION output_height int out_color_components Number of color components in out_color_space. int output_components Number of color components returned. int rec_outbuf_height Recommended height of scanline buffer. When quantizing colors, output_components is 1, indicating a single color map index per pixel. Otherwise it equals out_color_components. The output arrays are required to be output_width * output_components JSAMPLEs wide. rec_outbuf_height is the recommended minimum height (in scanlines) of the buffer passed to jpeg_read_scanlines(). If the buffer is smaller, the library will still work, but space and time will be wasted due to unnecessary data copying. As of version 5alpha1, rec_outbuf_height is always 1, but future high-speed processing modes may set it to larger values (2 to 4 would be typical). If you are going to ask for a high-speed processing mode, you may as well go to the extra work of avoiding data copying... Special color spaces -------------------- The JPEG standard itself is "color blind" and doesn't specify any particular color space. It is customary to convert color data to a luminance/chrominance color space before compressing, since this permits greater compression. The existing de-facto JPEG file format standards specify YCbCr or grayscale data (JFIF), or grayscale, RGB, YCbCr, CMYK, or YCCK (Adobe). For special applications such as multispectral images, other color spaces can be used, but it must be understood that such files will be unportable. The JPEG library can handle the most common colorspace conversions (namely RGB <=> YCbCr and CMYK <=> YCCK). It can also deal with data of an unknown color space, passing it through without conversion. If you deal extensively with an unusual color space, you can easily extend the library to understand additional color spaces and perform appropriate conversions. For compression, the source data's color space is specified by field in_color_space. This is transformed to the JPEG file's color space given by jpeg_color_space. jpeg_set_defaults() chooses a reasonable JPEG color space depending on in_color_space, but you can override this by calling jpeg_set_colorspace(). Of course you must select a supported transformation. jccolor.c currently supports the following transformations: RGB => YCbCr RGB => GRAYSCALE YCbCr => GRAYSCALE CMYK => YCCK plus the null transforms: GRAYSCALE => GRAYSCALE, RGB => RGB, YCbCr => YCbCr, CMYK => CMYK, YCCK => YCCK, and UNKNOWN => UNKNOWN. The de-facto file format standards (JFIF and Adobe) specify APPn markers that indicate the color space of the JPEG file. It is important to ensure that these are written correctly, or omitted if the JPEG file's color space is not one of the ones supported by the de-facto standards. jpeg_set_colorspace() will set the compression parameters to include or omit the APPn markers properly, so long as it is told the truth about the JPEG color space. For example, if you are writing some random 3-component color space without conversion, don't try to fake out the library by setting in_color_space and jpeg_color_space to JCS_YCbCr; use JCS_UNKNOWN. You may want to write an APPn marker of your own devising to identify the colorspace --- see "Special markers", below. When told that the color space is UNKNOWN, the library will default to using luminance-quality compression parameters for all color components. You may well want to change these parameters. See the source code for jpeg_set_colorspace(), in jcparam.c, for details. For decompression, the JPEG file's color space is given in jpeg_color_space, and this is transformed to the output color space out_color_space. jpeg_read_header's setting of jpeg_color_space can be relied on if the file conforms to JFIF or Adobe conventions, but otherwise it is no better than a guess. If you know the JPEG file's color space for certain, you can override jpeg_read_header's guess by setting jpeg_color_space. jpeg_read_header also selects a default output color space based on (its guess of) jpeg_color_space; set out_color_space to override this. Again you must select a supported transformation. jdcolor.c currently supports YCbCr => GRAYSCALE YCbCr => RGB YCCK => CMYK as well as the null transforms. Error handling -------------- When the default error handler is used, any error detected inside the JPEG routines will cause a message to be printed on stderr, followed by exit(). You can supply your own error handling routines to override this behavior and to control the treatment of nonfatal warnings and trace/debug messages. The file example.c illustrates the most common case, which is to have the application regain control after an error rather than exiting. The JPEG library never writes any message directly; it always goes through the error handling routines. Three classes of messages are recognized: * Fatal errors: the library cannot continue. * Warnings: the library can continue, but the data is corrupt, and a damaged output image is likely to result. * Trace/informational messages. These come with a trace level indicating the importance of the message; you can control the verbosity of the program by adjusting the maximum trace level that will be displayed. You may, if you wish, simply replace the entire JPEG error handling module (jerror.c) with your own code. However, you can avoid code duplication by only replacing some of the routines depending on the behavior you need. This is accomplished by calling jpeg_std_error() as usual, but then overriding some of the method pointers in the jpeg_error_mgr struct, as illustrated by example.c. All of the error handling routines will receive a pointer to the JPEG object (a j_common_ptr which points to either a jpeg_compress_struct or a jpeg_decompress_struct; if you need to tell which, test the is_decompressor field). This struct includes a pointer to the error manager struct in its "err" field. Frequently, custom error handler routines will need to access additional data which is not known to the JPEG library or the standard error handler. The most convenient way to do this is to embed either the JPEG object or the jpeg_error_mgr struct in a larger structure that contains additional fields; then casting the passed pointer provides access to the additional fields. Again, see example.c for one way to do it. The individual methods that you might wish to override are: error_exit (j_common_ptr cinfo) Receives control for a fatal error. Information sufficient to generate the error message has been stored in cinfo->err; call output_message to display it. Control must NOT return to the caller; generally this routine will exit() or longjmp() somewhere. Typically you would override this routine to get rid of the exit() default behavior. Note that if you continue processing, you should clean up the JPEG object with jpeg_abort() or jpeg_destroy(). output_message (j_common_ptr cinfo) Actual output of any JPEG message. Override this to send messages somewhere other than stderr. Note that this method does not know how to generate a message, only where to send it. format_message (j_common_ptr cinfo, char * buffer) Constructs a readable error message string based on the error info stored in cinfo->err. This method is called by output_message. Few applications should need to override this method. One possible reason for doing so is to implement dynamic switching of error message language. emit_message (j_common_ptr cinfo, int msg_level) Decide whether or not to emit a warning or trace message; if so, calls output_message. The main reason for overriding this method would be to abort on warnings. msg_level is -1 for warnings, 0 and up for trace messages. Only error_exit() and emit_message() are called from the rest of the JPEG library; the other two are internal to the error handler. The actual message texts are stored in an array of strings which is pointed to by the field err->jpeg_message_table. The messages are numbered from 0 to err->last_jpeg_message, and it is these code numbers that are used in the JPEG library code. You could replace the message texts (for instance, with messages in French or German) by changing the message table pointer. See jerror.h for the default texts. CAUTION: this table will almost certainly change or grow from one library version to the next. It may be useful for an application to add its own message texts that are handled by the same mechanism. The error handler supports a second "add-on" message table for this purpose. To define an addon table, set the pointer err->addon_message_table and the message numbers err->first_addon_message and err->last_addon_message. If you number the addon messages beginning at 1000 or so, you won't have to worry about conflicts with the library's built-in messages. See the sample applications cjpeg/djpeg for an example of using addon messages (the addon messages are defined in cderror.h). Actual invocation of the error handler is done via macros defined in jerror.h: ERREXITn(...) for fatal errors WARNMSn(...) for corrupt-data warnings TRACEMSn(...) for trace and informational messages. These macros store the message code and any additional parameters into the error handler struct, then invoke the error_exit() or emit_message() method. The variants of each macro are for varying numbers of additional parameters. The additional parameters are inserted into the generated message using standard printf() format codes. See jerror.h and jerror.c for further details. Compressed data handling (source and destination managers) ---------------------------------------------------------- The JPEG compression library sends its compressed data to a "destination manager" module. The default destination manager just writes the data to a stdio stream, but you can provide your own manager to do something else. Similarly, the decompression library calls a "source manager" to obtain the compressed data; you can provide your own source manager if you want the data to come from somewhere other than a stdio stream. In both cases, compressed data is processed a bufferload at a time: the destination or source manager provides a work buffer, and the library invokes the manager only when the buffer is filled or emptied. (You could define a one-character buffer to force the manager to be invoked for each byte, but that would be rather inefficient.) The buffer's size and location are controlled by the manager, not by the library. For example, if you desired to decompress a JPEG datastream that was all in memory, you could just make the buffer pointer and length point to the original data in memory. Then the buffer-reload procedure would be invoked only if the decompressor ran off the end of the datastream, which would indicate an erroneous datastream. The work buffer is defined as an array of datatype JOCTET, which is generally "char" or "unsigned char". On a machine where char is not exactly 8 bits wide, you must define JOCTET as a wider data type and then modify the data source and destination modules to transcribe the work arrays into 8-bit units on external storage. A data destination manager struct contains a pointer and count defining the next byte to write in the work buffer and the remaining free space: JOCTET * next_output_byte; /* => next byte to write in buffer */ size_t free_in_buffer; /* # of byte spaces remaining in buffer */ The library increments the pointer and decrements the count until the buffer is filled. The manager's empty_output_buffer method must reset the pointer and count. The manager is expected to remember the buffer's starting address and total size in private fields not visible to the library. A data destination manager provides three methods: init_destination (j_compress_ptr cinfo) Initialize destination. This is called by jpeg_start_compress() before any data is actually written. It must initialize next_output_byte and free_in_buffer. free_in_buffer must be initialized to a positive value. empty_output_buffer (j_compress_ptr cinfo) This is called whenever the buffer has filled (free_in_buffer reaches zero). In typical applications, it should write out the *entire* buffer (use the saved start address and buffer length; ignore the current state of next_output_byte and free_in_buffer). Then reset the pointer & count to the start of the buffer, and return TRUE indicating that the buffer has been dumped. free_in_buffer must be set to a positive value when TRUE is returned. A FALSE return should only be used when I/O suspension is desired (this operating mode is discussed in the next section). term_destination (j_compress_ptr cinfo) Terminate destination --- called by jpeg_finish_compress() after all data has been written. In most applications, this must flush any data remaining in the buffer. Use either next_output_byte or free_in_buffer to determine how much data is in the buffer. term_destination() is NOT called by jpeg_abort() or jpeg_destroy(). If you want the destination manager to be cleaned up during an abort, you must do it yourself. You will also need code to create a jpeg_destination_mgr struct, fill in its method pointers, and insert a pointer to the struct into the "dest" field of the JPEG compression object. This can be done in-line in your setup code if you like, but it's probably cleaner to provide a separate routine similar to the jpeg_stdio_dest() routine of the supplied destination manager. Decompression source managers follow a parallel design, but with some additional frammishes. The source manager struct contains a pointer and count defining the next byte to read from the work buffer and the number of bytes remaining: const JOCTET * next_input_byte; /* => next byte to read from buffer */ size_t bytes_in_buffer; /* # of bytes remaining in buffer */ The library increments the pointer and decrements the count until the buffer is emptied. The manager's fill_input_buffer method must reset the pointer and count. In most applications, the manager must remember the buffer's starting address and total size in private fields not visible to the library. A data source manager provides five methods: init_source (j_decompress_ptr cinfo) Initialize source. This is called by jpeg_read_header() before any data is actually read. Unlike init_destination(), it may leave bytes_in_buffer set to 0 (in which case a fill_input_buffer() call will occur immediately). fill_input_buffer (j_decompress_ptr cinfo) This is called whenever bytes_in_buffer has reached zero and more data is wanted. In typical applications, it should read fresh data into the buffer (ignoring the current state of next_input_byte and bytes_in_buffer), reset the pointer & count to the start of the buffer, and return TRUE indicating that the buffer has been reloaded. It is not necessary to fill the buffer entirely, only to obtain at least one more byte. bytes_in_buffer MUST be set to a positive value if TRUE is returned. A FALSE return should only be used when I/O suspension is desired (this mode is discussed in the next section). skip_input_data (j_decompress_ptr cinfo, long num_bytes) Skip num_bytes worth of data. The buffer pointer and count should be advanced over num_bytes input bytes, refilling the buffer as needed. This is used to skip over a potentially large amount of uninteresting data (such as an APPn marker). In some applications it may be possible to optimize away the reading of the skipped data, but it's not clear that being smart is worth much trouble; large skips are uncommon. bytes_in_buffer may be zero on return. A zero or negative skip count should be treated as a no-op. resync_to_restart (j_decompress_ptr cinfo) This routine is called only when the decompressor has failed to find a restart (RSTn) marker where one is expected. Its mission is to find a suitable point for resuming decompression. For most applications, we recommend that you just use the default resync procedure, jpeg_resync_to_restart(). However, if you are able to back up in the input data stream, or if you have a-priori knowledge about the likely location of restart markers, you may be able to do better. Read the read_restart_marker() and jpeg_resync_to_restart() routines in jdmarker.c if you think you'd like to implement your own resync procedure. term_source (j_decompress_ptr cinfo) Terminate source --- called by jpeg_finish_decompress() after all data has been read. Often a no-op. For both fill_input_buffer() and skip_input_data(), there is no such thing as an EOF return. If the end of the file has been reached, the routine has a choice of exiting via ERREXIT() or inserting fake data into the buffer. In most cases, generating a warning message and inserting a fake EOI marker is the best course of action --- this will allow the decompressor to output however much of the image is there. In pathological cases, the decompressor may swallow the EOI and again demand data ... just keep feeding it fake EOIs. jdatasrc.c illustrates the recommended error recovery behavior. term_source() is NOT called by jpeg_abort() or jpeg_destroy(). If you want the source manager to be cleaned up during an abort, you must do it yourself. You will also need code to create a jpeg_source_mgr struct, fill in its method pointers, and insert a pointer to the struct into the "src" field of the JPEG decompression object. This can be done in-line in your setup code if you like, but it's probably cleaner to provide a separate routine similar to the jpeg_stdio_src() routine of the supplied source manager. For more information, consult the stdio source and destination managers in jdatasrc.c and jdatadst.c. I/O suspension -------------- Some applications need to use the JPEG library as an incremental memory-to- memory filter: when the compressed data buffer is filled or emptied, they want control to return to the outer loop, rather than expecting that the buffer can be flushed or reloaded within the data source/destination manager subroutine. The library supports this need by providing an "I/O suspension" mode, which we describe in this section. The I/O suspension mode is a limited solution: it works only in the simplest operating modes (namely single-pass processing of single-scan JPEG files), and it has several other restrictions which are documented below. Furthermore, nothing is guaranteed about the maximum amount of time spent in any one call to the library, so a single-threaded application may still have response-time problems. If you need multi-pass processing or guaranteed response time, we suggest you "bite the bullet" and implement a real multi-tasking capability. To use I/O suspension, cooperation is needed between the calling application and the data source or destination manager; you will always need a custom source/destination manager. (Please read the above section if you haven't already.) The basic idea is that the empty_output_buffer() or fill_input_buffer() routine is a no-op, merely returning FALSE to indicate that it has done nothing. Upon seeing this, the JPEG library suspends operation and returns to its caller. The surrounding application is responsible for emptying or refilling the work buffer before calling the JPEG library again. Compression suspension: For compression suspension, use an empty_output_buffer() routine that returns FALSE; typically it will not do anything else. This will cause the compressor to return to the caller of jpeg_write_scanlines(), with the return value indicating that not all the supplied scanlines have been accepted. The application must make more room in the output buffer, adjust the pointer/count appropriately, and then call jpeg_write_scanlines() again, pointing to the first unconsumed scanline. When forced to suspend, the compressor will backtrack to a convenient stopping point (usually the start of the current MCU); it will regenerate some output data when restarted. Therefore, although empty_output_buffer() is only called when the buffer is filled, you should NOT dump out the entire buffer, only the data up to the current position of next_output_byte/free_in_buffer. The data beyond that point will be regenerated after resumption. Because of the backtracking behavior, a good-size output buffer is essential for efficiency; you don't want the compressor to suspend often. (In fact, an overly small buffer could lead to infinite looping, if a single MCU required more data than would fit in the buffer.) We recommend a buffer of at least several Kbytes. You may want to insert explicit code to ensure that you don't call jpeg_write_scanlines() unless there is a reasonable amount of space in the output buffer; in other words, flush the buffer before trying to compress more data. The JPEG compressor does not support suspension while it is trying to write JPEG markers at the beginning and end of the file. This means that * At the beginning of a compression operation, there must be enough free space in the output buffer to hold the header markers (typically 600 or so bytes). The recommended buffer size is bigger than this anyway, so this is not a problem as long as you start with an empty buffer. However, this restriction might catch you if you insert large special markers, such as a JFIF thumbnail image. * When you call jpeg_finish_compress(), there must be enough space in the output buffer to emit any buffered data and the final EOI marker. In the current implementation, half a dozen bytes should suffice for this, but for safety's sake we recommend ensuring that at least 100 bytes are free before calling jpeg_finish_compress(). Furthermore, since jpeg_finish_compress() cannot suspend, you cannot request multi-pass operating modes such as Huffman code optimization or multiple-scan output. That would imply that a large amount of data would be written inside jpeg_finish_compress(), which would certainly trigger a buffer overrun. Decompression suspension: For decompression suspension, use a fill_input_buffer() routine that returns FALSE (except perhaps during error recovery, as discussed below). This will cause the decompressor to return to its caller with an indication that suspension has occurred. This can happen at three places: * jpeg_read_header(): will return JPEG_SUSPENDED. * jpeg_read_scanlines(): will return the number of scanlines already completed (possibly 0). * jpeg_finish_decompress(): will return FALSE, rather than its usual TRUE. The surrounding application must recognize these cases, load more data into the input buffer, and repeat the call. In the case of jpeg_read_scanlines(), adjust the passed pointers to reflect any scanlines successfully read. Just as with compression, the decompressor will typically backtrack to a convenient restart point before suspending. The data beyond the current position of next_input_byte/bytes_in_buffer must NOT be discarded; it will be re-read upon resumption. In most implementations, you'll need to shift this data down to the start of your work buffer and then load more data after it. Again, this behavior means that a several-Kbyte work buffer is essential for decent performance; furthermore, you should load a reasonable amount of new data before resuming decompression. (If you loaded, say, only one new byte each time around, you could waste a LOT of cycles.) The skip_input_data() source manager routine requires special care in a suspension scenario. This routine is NOT granted the ability to suspend the decompressor; it can decrement bytes_in_buffer to zero, but no more. If the requested skip distance exceeds the amount of data currently in the input buffer, then skip_input_data() must set bytes_in_buffer to zero and record the additional skip distance somewhere else. The decompressor will immediately call fill_input_buffer(), which will return FALSE, which will cause a suspension return. The surrounding application must then arrange to discard the right number of bytes before it resumes loading the input buffer. (Yes, this design is rather baroque, but it avoids complexity in the far more common case where a non-suspending source manager is used.) If the input data has been exhausted, we recommend that you emit a warning and insert dummy EOI markers just as a non-suspending data source manager would do. This can be handled either in the surrounding application logic or within fill_input_buffer(); the latter is probably more efficient. If fill_input_buffer() knows that no more data is available, it can set the pointer/count to point to a dummy EOI marker and then return TRUE just as if it had read more data in a non-suspending situation. The decompressor does not support suspension within jpeg_start_decompress(). This means that you cannot use suspension with any multi-pass processing mode (eg, two-pass color quantization or multiple-scan JPEG files). In single-pass modes, jpeg_start_decompress() reads no data and thus need never suspend. The decompressor does not attempt to suspend within any JPEG marker; it will backtrack to the start of the marker. Hence the input buffer must be large enough to hold the longest marker in the file. We recommend at least a 2K buffer. The buffer would need to be 64K to allow for arbitrary COM or APPn markers, but the decompressor does not actually try to read these; it just skips them by calling skip_input_data(). If you provide a special marker handling routine that does look at these markers, coping with buffer overflow is your problem. Ordinary JPEG markers should normally not exceed a few hundred bytes each (DHT tables are typically the longest). For robustness against damaged marker length counts, you may wish to insert a test in your application for the case that the input buffer is completely full and yet the decoder has suspended without consuming any data --- otherwise, if this situation did occur, it would lead to an endless loop. Abbreviated datastreams and multiple images ------------------------------------------- A JPEG compression or decompression object can be reused to process multiple images. This saves a small amount of time per image by eliminating the "create" and "destroy" operations, but that isn't the real purpose of the feature. Rather, reuse of an object provides support for abbreviated JPEG datastreams. Object reuse can also simplify processing a series of images in a single input or output file. This section explains these features. A JPEG file normally contains several hundred bytes worth of quantization and Huffman tables. In a situation where many images will be stored or transmitted with identical tables, this may represent an annoying overhead. The JPEG standard therefore permits tables to be omitted. The standard defines three classes of JPEG datastreams: * "Interchange" datastreams contain an image and all tables needed to decode the image. These are the usual kind of JPEG file. * "Abbreviated image" datastreams contain an image, but are missing some or all of the tables needed to decode that image. * "Abbreviated table specification" (henceforth "tables-only") datastreams contain only table specifications. To decode an abbreviated image, it is necessary to load the missing table(s) into the decoder beforehand. This can be accomplished by reading a separate tables-only file. A variant scheme uses a series of images in which the first image is an interchange (complete) datastream, while subsequent ones are abbreviated and rely on the tables loaded by the first image. It is assumed that once the decoder has read a table, it will remember that table until a new definition for the same table number is encountered. It is the application designer's responsibility to figure out how to associate the correct tables with an abbreviated image. While abbreviated datastreams can be useful in a closed environment, their use is strongly discouraged in any situation where data exchange with other applications might be needed. Caveat designer. The JPEG library provides support for reading and writing any combination of tables-only datastreams and abbreviated images. In both compression and decompression objects, a quantization or Huffman table will be retained for the lifetime of the object, unless it is overwritten by a new table definition. To create abbreviated image datastreams, it is only necessary to tell the compressor not to emit some or all of the tables it is using. Each quantization and Huffman table struct contains a boolean field "sent_table", which normally is initialized to FALSE. For each table used by the image, the header-writing process emits the table and sets sent_table = TRUE unless it is already TRUE. (In normal usage, this prevents outputting the same table definition multiple times, as would otherwise occur because the chroma components typically share tables.) Thus, setting this field to TRUE before calling jpeg_start_compress() will prevent the table from being written at all. If you want to create a "pure" abbreviated image file containing no tables, just call "jpeg_suppress_tables(&cinfo, TRUE)" after constructing all the tables. If you want to emit some but not all tables, you'll need to set the individual sent_table fields directly. To create an abbreviated image, you must also call jpeg_start_compress() with a second parameter of FALSE, not TRUE. Otherwise jpeg_start_compress() will force all the sent_table fields to FALSE. (This is a safety feature to prevent abbreviated images from being created accidentally.) To create a tables-only file, perform the same parameter setup that you normally would, but instead of calling jpeg_start_compress() and so on, call jpeg_write_tables(&cinfo). This will write an abbreviated datastream containing only SOI, DQT and/or DHT markers, and EOI. All the quantization and Huffman tables that are currently defined in the compression object will be emitted unless their sent_tables flag is already TRUE, and all the sent_tables flags will be set TRUE. A sure-fire way to create matching tables-only and abbreviated image files is to proceed as follows: create JPEG compression object set JPEG parameters set destination to tables-only file jpeg_write_tables(&cinfo); set destination to image file jpeg_start_compress(&cinfo, FALSE); write data... jpeg_finish_compress(&cinfo); Since the JPEG parameters are not altered between writing the table file and the abbreviated image file, the same tables are sure to be used. Of course, you can repeat the jpeg_start_compress() ... jpeg_finish_compress() sequence many times to produce many abbreviated image files matching the table file. You cannot suppress output of the computed Huffman tables if Huffman optimization is selected. (If you could, there'd be no way to decode the image...) Generally, you don't want to set optimize_coding = TRUE when you are trying to produce abbreviated files. In some cases you might want to compress an image using tables which are not stored in the application, but are defined in an interchange or tables-only file readable by the application. This can be done by setting up a JPEG decompression object to read the specification file, then copying the tables into your compression object. To read abbreviated image files, you simply need to load the proper tables into the decompression object before trying to read the abbreviated image. If the proper tables are stored in the application program, you can just allocate the table structs and fill in their contents directly. More commonly you'd want to read the tables from a tables-only file. The jpeg_read_header() call is sufficient to read a tables-only file. You must pass a second parameter of FALSE to indicate that you do not require an image to be present. Thus, the typical scenario is create JPEG decompression object set source to tables-only file jpeg_read_header(&cinfo, FALSE); set source to abbreviated image file jpeg_read_header(&cinfo, TRUE); set decompression parameters jpeg_start_decompress(&cinfo); read data... jpeg_finish_decompress(&cinfo); In some cases, you may want to read a file without knowing whether it contains an image or just tables. In that case, pass FALSE and check the return value from jpeg_read_header(): it will be JPEG_HEADER_OK if an image was found, JPEG_HEADER_TABLES_ONLY if only tables were found. (A third return value, JPEG_SUSPENDED, is possible when using a suspending data source manager.) Note that jpeg_read_header() will not complain if you read an abbreviated image for which you haven't loaded the missing tables; the missing-table check occurs in jpeg_start_decompress(). It is possible to read a series of images from a single source file by repeating the jpeg_read_header() ... jpeg_finish_decompress() sequence, without releasing/recreating the JPEG object or the data source module. (If you did reinitialize, any partial bufferload left in the data source buffer at the end of one image would be discarded, causing you to lose the start of the next image.) When you use this method, stored tables are automatically carried forward, so some of the images can be abbreviated images that depend on tables from earlier images. If you intend to write a series of images into a single destination file, you might want to make a specialized data destination module that doesn't flush the output buffer at term_destination() time. This would speed things up by some trifling amount. Of course, you'd need to remember to flush the buffer after the last image. You can make the later images be abbreviated ones by passing FALSE to jpeg_start_compress(). Special markers --------------- [to be written ... API needs thought] Downsampled image data ---------------------- [to be written --- not yet implemented anyway] Progress monitoring ------------------- [to be written --- not yet implemented in v5 anyway] Memory management ----------------- This section covers some key facts about the JPEG library's built-in memory manager. For more info, please read structure.doc's section about the memory manager, and consult the source code if necessary. All memory and temporary file allocation within the library is done via the memory manager. If necessary, you can replace the "back end" of the memory manager to control allocation yourself (for example, if you don't want the library to use malloc() and free() for some reason). Some data is allocated "permanently" and will not be freed until the JPEG object is destroyed. Most data is allocated "per image" and is freed by jpeg_finish_compress, jpeg_finish_decompress, or jpeg_abort. You can call the memory manager yourself to allocate structures that will automatically be freed at these times. Typical code for this is ptr = (*cinfo->mem->alloc_small) ((j_common_ptr) cinfo, JPOOL_IMAGE, size); Use JPOOL_PERMANENT to get storage that lasts as long as the JPEG object. Use alloc_large instead of alloc_small for anything bigger than a few Kbytes. There are also alloc_sarray and alloc_barray routines that automatically build 2-D sample or block arrays. The library's minimum space requirements to process an image depend on the image's width, but not on its height, because the library ordinarily works with "strip" buffers that are as wide as the image but just a few rows high. Some operating modes (eg, two-pass color quantization) require full-image buffers. Such buffers are treated as "virtual arrays": only the current strip need be in memory, and the rest can be swapped out to a temporary file. If you use the simplest memory manager back end (jmemnobs.c), then no temporary files are used; virtual arrays are simply malloc()'d. Images bigger than memory can be processed only if your system supports virtual memory. The other memory manager back ends support temporary files of various flavors and thus work in machines without virtual memory. They may also be useful on Unix machines if you need to process images that exceed available swap space. When using temporary files, the library will make the in-memory buffers for its virtual arrays just big enough to stay within a "maximum memory" setting. Your application can set this limit by setting cinfo->mem->max_memory_to_use after creating the JPEG object. (Of course, there is still a minimum size for the buffers, so the max-memory setting is effective only if it is bigger than the minimum space needed.) If you allocate any large structures yourself, you must allocate them before jpeg_start_compress() or jpeg_start_decompress() in order to have them counted against the max memory limit. Also keep in mind that space allocated with alloc_small() is ignored, on the assumption that it's too small to be worth worrying about. If you use the jmemname.c or jmemdos.c memory manager back end, it is important to clean up the JPEG object properly to ensure that the temporary files get deleted. (This is especially crucial with jmemdos.c, where the "temporary files" may be extended-memory segments; if they are not freed, DOS will require a reboot to recover the memory.) Thus, with these memory managers, it's a good idea to provide a signal handler that will trap any early exit from your program. The handler should call either jpeg_abort() or jpeg_destroy() for any active JPEG objects. A handler is not needed with jmemnobs.c, and shouldn't be necessary with jmemansi.c either, since the C library is supposed to take care of deleting files made with tmpfile(). Library compile-time options ---------------------------- A number of compile-time options are available by modifying jmorecfg.h. The JPEG standard provides for both the baseline 8-bit DCT process and a 12-bit DCT process. 12-bit lossy JPEG is supported if you define BITS_IN_JSAMPLE as 12 rather than 8. Note that this causes JSAMPLE to be larger than a char, so it affects the surrounding application's image data. At present, a 12-bit library can handle *only* 12-bit images, not both precisions. The maximum number of components (color channels) in the image is determined by MAX_COMPONENTS. The JPEG standard allows up to 255 components, but we expect that few applications will need more than four or so. On machines with unusual data type sizes, you may be able to improve performance or reduce memory space by tweaking the various typedefs in jmorecfg.h. In particular, on some RISC CPUs, access to arrays of "short"s is quite slow; consider trading memory for speed by making JCOEF, INT16, and UINT16 be "int" or "unsigned int". UINT8 is also a candidate to become int. You probably don't want to make JSAMPLE be int unless you have lots of memory to burn. You can reduce the size of the library by compiling out various optional functions. To do this, undefine xxx_SUPPORTED symbols as necessary. Portability considerations -------------------------- The JPEG library has been written to be extremely portable; the sample applications cjpeg and djpeg are slightly less so. This section summarizes the design goals in this area. (If you encounter any bugs that cause the library to be less portable than is claimed here, we'd appreciate hearing about them.) The code works fine on both ANSI and pre-ANSI C compilers, using any of the popular system include file setups, and some not-so-popular ones too. See install.doc for configuration procedures. The code is not dependent on the exact sizes of the C data types. As distributed, we make the assumptions that char is at least 8 bits wide short is at least 16 bits wide int is at least 16 bits wide long is at least 32 bits wide (These are the minimum requirements of the ANSI C standard.) Wider types will work fine, although memory may be used inefficiently if char is much larger than 8 bits or short is much bigger than 16 bits. The code should work equally well with 16- or 32-bit ints. In a system where these assumptions are not met, you may be able to make the code work by modifying the typedefs in jmorecfg.h. However, you will probably have difficulty if int is less than 16 bits wide, since references to plain int abound in the code. char can be either signed or unsigned, although the code runs faster if an unsigned char type is available. If char is wider than 8 bits, you will need to redefine JOCTET and/or provide custom data source/destination managers so that JOCTET represents exactly 8 bits of data on external storage. The JPEG library proper does not assume ASCII representation of characters. But some of the image file I/O modules in cjpeg/djpeg do have ASCII dependencies in file-header manipulation; so does cjpeg's select_file_type() routine. The JPEG library does not rely heavily on the C library. In particular, C stdio is used only by the data source/destination modules and the error handler, all of which are application-replaceable. (cjpeg/djpeg are more heavily dependent on stdio.) malloc and free are called only from the memory manager "back end" module, so you can use a different memory allocator by replacing that one file. The code generally assumes that C names must be unique in the first 15 characters. However, global function names can be made unique in the first 6 characters by defining NEED_SHORT_EXTERNAL_NAMES. More info about porting the code may be gleaned by reading jconfig.doc, jmorecfg.h, and jinclude.h. Notes for MS-DOS implementors ----------------------------- The JPEG code is designed to be compiled with 80x86 "small" or "medium" memory models (i.e., data pointers are 16 bits unless explicitly declared "far"; code pointers can be either size). You should be able to use small model to compile cjpeg or djpeg by itself, but you will probably have to go to medium model if you include the JPEG code in a larger application. This shouldn't hurt performance much. You *will* take a noticeable performance hit if you compile in a large-data memory model, and you should avoid "huge" model if at all possible. Be sure that NEED_FAR_POINTERS is defined in jconfig.h if you use a small-data model; be sure it is NOT defined if you use a large-data or flat memory model. [The following space estimates are out of date and need to be recalculated.] An 8K stack is much more than sufficient for the JPEG code. When executed, it will typically malloc about 10K-20K worth of near heap space (and lots of far heap, but that doesn't count in this calculation). This figure will vary depending on image size and other factors, but figuring 30K should be more than sufficient. Thus you have about 25K available for static data and other modules' near heap requirements before you need to go to a larger memory model. The C library's static data will account for several K of this, but that still leaves a good deal for your needs. (If you are tight on space, you could reduce the sizes of the I/O buffers allocated by jdatasrc.c and jdatadst.c, say from 4K to 1K.) Far data space may also be a tight resource when you are dealing with large images. The most memory-intensive case is decompression with two-pass color quantization, or single-pass quantization to an externally supplied color map. This requires a 128Kb color lookup table plus strip buffers amounting to about 150 bytes per column for typical sampling ratios (eg, about 96000 bytes for a 640-pixel-wide image). You may not be able to process wide images if you have large data structures of your own. Of course, all of these concerns vanish if you use a flat-memory-model 386 compiler such as DJGPP or Watcom C. We highly recommend flat model if you can use it; the JPEG library is significantly faster in flat model.