ANN: FreeImagePy 1.2.2

[Michele Petrazzo]

FreeImagePy 1.2.2 is available at freeimagepy.sf.net

What is?
It' a python wrapper for FreeImage, Open Source library for developers
who would like to support popular graphics image formats.

How work?
It use a binary freeimage library present on the system and ctypes.

Major changes from 1.2.0:
New convertToPil function:
i = FreeImagePy.Image("myImage.ext")
pil = i.convetToPil()
Some bugs solved

Michele Petrazzo

 

[Claudio Grondi]

FreeImagePy 1.2.2 is available at freeimagepy.sf.net

What is?
It' a python wrapper for FreeImage, Open Source library for developers
who would like to support popular graphics image formats.

How work?
It use a binary freeimage library present on the system and ctypes.

Major changes from 1.2.0:
New convertToPil function:
i = FreeImagePy.Image("myImage.ext")
pil = i.convetToPil()
Some bugs solved

Michele Petrazzo

Knowing some details about PIL and as good as no details about
FreeImage, I would like in this context to become enlightened by the
answer to the question, when does it make sense to use FreeImage instead
of PIL?
From what I know up to now I can't see any use for FreeImage :-( .

Claudio

 

[Szabolcs Nagy]

eg.: .dds (compressed texture file format) widely used in 3d games but
not accessible in pil

 

[Andrew Gwozdziewycz]

Knowing some details about PIL and as good as no details about

FreeImage, I would like in this context to become enlightened by the
answer to the question, when does it make sense to use FreeImage instead
of PIL?
From what I know up to now I can't see any use for FreeImage :-( .

both freeimagepy and freeimage are released under the GPL, PIL is not.

 

[Michele Petrazzo]

Knowing some details about PIL and as good as no details about
FreeImage, I would like in this context to become enlightened by the
answer to the question, when does it make sense to use FreeImage
instead of PIL?

Into some little environments, like tiff with G3/G4 compressions and
multi-page files.

From what I know up to now I can't see any use for FreeImage :-( .

Like I say to freeimagepy site, I start to wrote it *only* because I
needed a simple python library for manipulate fax images (G3/G4) that
PIL can't. I need it into my python fax client [hylapex] that it's
connect to hylafax server.

Of course, It wouldn't be a PIl replacement !

Claudio

Michele

 

[Uwe Grauer]

both freeimagepy and freeimage are released under the GPL, PIL is not.

Did you read the PIL licence?
Seems to be a more free licence than GPL.

"""
A. Software License

The Python Imaging Library is:

Copyright © 1997-2003 by Secret Labs AB
Copyright © 1995-2003 by Fredrik Lundh

By obtaining, using, and/or copying this software and/or its associated
documentation, you agree that you have read, understood, and will comply
with the following terms and conditions:

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
associated documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby
granted, provided that the above copyright notice appears in all copies,
and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
supporting documentation, and that the name of Secret Labs AB or the
author not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to
distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission.

SECRET LABS AB AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO
THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL SECRET LABS AB OR THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER
RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF
CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
"""

Uwe

 

[Fredrik Lundh]

Did you read the PIL licence?
Seems to be a more free licence than GPL.

footnote: PIL's using the old Python license, which is also known as
the "Historical Permission Notice and Disclaimer":

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/historical.php

</F>

 

[Terry Hancock]

both freeimagepy and freeimage are released under the GPL,
PIL is not.

This is misleading! The PIL license is GPL-compatible (i.e.
it could be incorporated into a GPL work), as it is a
non-copyleft free license. You may be confused by Lundh's
proprietary-then-free release strategy: he always releases a
newer version under a proprietary license, at which point
the old version is free-licensed. But the old version is
completely without strings -- you could, if you wanted, try
to give Mr. Lundh "a run for his money" by extending PIL
faster than he can.

Not exactly "cricket", but legal. ;-)

However, while PIL is very strong at image-manipulation, it
is weak on file-format compatibility: As long as you stick
to PNG format, you can do just about anything you want (and
there is decent JPG and GIF support). But if you have
compelling reasons to output data in other formats, you'll
find PIL disappointing -- there are many formats it can't
deal with at all, and most of the rest it can only import
(in the wild, there are *dozens* of obscure image formats to
be found).

IMHO, this isn't too serious an issue -- it's just
specialization: PIL is for *image manipulation* not *image
conversion*, and it provides enough of the latter for the
most common applications.

Other choices include ImageMagick, but API stability,
particularly of the Python bindings, is a real problem (in
fact, I think there's more than one python binding for
ImageMagick, but I'm not sure -- which goes some way to
showing why it's a frustrating package to use). Things
may have improved lately, I haven't checked in awhile.

So, IMHO, there's still PLENTY of room for innovation in
the application area of image-handling tools for
Python. PIL is not a "category-killer". At least not yet.

Cheers,
Terry

--
Terry Hancock ([email protected])
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com