Athens replacement for ImageReadWriter?

Hi,

So, ImageReadWriter currently reads image files and retrieve Form objects, who can be displayed in world...
anybody knows (cough, cough, Igor) what would be the Athens replacement for that?

thanks,
Esteban

On 23 January 2013 12:58, Esteban Lorenzano <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hi Fernando,
>
> I don't want a Form... quitte the opposite! :)
> What I want is to have something equivalent to athens to what now is covered
> in morphic with ImageReadWriter.
>
> Or, better explained, I want an AthensImageReadWriter who answers me a
> surface (or something that I can draw with an athens canvas) with the image
> from a file :)
>

You know that you can convert between forms and athens surface?
Forms is actually not that bad, they simply contain bits.
The bit format information is a bit obscure (comparing to OpenGL, for instance),
but its enough.
So, i suggest you to use form and ImageReadWriter.

> Esteban
>
> On Jan 23, 2013, at 12:06 PM, Fernando Olivero <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
> What you can with Athens and the  Cairo backend  is:
>
> 1) create a surface in memory
> 2) draw to the surface
> 3) export that surface to a png
> 4) import that png into a form
>
>
> The main point is step 3, cairo can export any surface to a png. Then within
> Pharo, any form can be created from a png.
>

But that is private to cairo library.

> Also, if you interested in drawing from Athens into a form directly, look at
> the AthensDemoExamples, and Igor's magic trick of matching the bits of the
> surface (step 1), directly to the bits of an "external" form. to avoid steps
> 3 and 4.  He used the surface plugin for that.
>

> Hope i answered all your questions, though not sure because i've never used
> ImageReadWriter.
>
> Fernando
>
>
>
>

--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko.

On 23 January 2013 14:56, Denis Kudriashov <[hidden email]> wrote:
> 2013/1/23 Igor Stasenko <[hidden email]>
>>
>> On 23 January 2013 12:58, Esteban Lorenzano <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> > Hi Fernando,
>> >
>> > I don't want a Form... quitte the opposite! :)
>> > What I want is to have something equivalent to athens to what now is
>> > covered
>> > in morphic with ImageReadWriter.
>> >
>> > Or, better explained, I want an AthensImageReadWriter who answers me a
>> > surface (or something that I can draw with an athens canvas) with the
>> > image
>> > from a file :)
>> >
>> You know that you can convert between forms and athens surface?
>> Forms is actually not that bad, they simply contain bits.
>> The bit format information is a bit obscure (comparing to OpenGL, for
>> instance),
>> but its enough.
>> So, i suggest you to use form and ImageReadWriter.
>>
>
> But reading image from file without smalltalk operations can be much more
> efficient. If your application works extensively with external images It is
> important.
> That's why I write question at user group about how to get Form efficiently
> from external memory which filled by FFI call. Unfortunately no answers.
> Now I think about optimisation of PNGImageReadWriter by NativeBoost.
>

Well, Cairo uses libpng as dependency, and provides easy interface functions
to create surfaces from png file(s).
But then, what if tomorrow we will use something else than cairo?
In the long run, i think, using libpng directly will be more reasonable.

But i feel doubly, whether we should rely on it by default.
From other side, our VMs already includes jpeg library..

--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko.