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Just last week, the DirectX blog has gone live!
From now on, any posts about WIC will be placed on the DirectX blog. Questions about WIC will continue to be answered in the WIC Forums on MSDN.
Also, in a short while I'll be setting up my own blog which won't be focused on WIC. Rather it will be focused on a variety of random things, from photography to coding to other random coolness. Once I have that blog setup, I'll post a link here.
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Just today the Metadata Working Group posted the version 1.01 of their guidance. There are a few changes:
- clarification around location
- removal of Exif UserComment from the "Description" guidance
- clarification around "Date/Time"
- addition of "Implementation Notes" section
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With this morning's keynote on Windows 7, I can finally share details about what's changed in WIC in Windows 7! We've spent much time fixing many issues that both our customers and we found since we shipped Windows Vista. We also added a number of important features that were asked for by customers. Here's a list of new features and improvements you'll find:
- Enhanced metadata support
- GIF:
- Metadata handlers exposed, enabling developers to gain access to the animation information. These include Logical Screen Descriptor (LSD), Image Descriptor (IMD), Graphic Control Extensions (GCE), Application Extensions (APE), Comment.
- PNG:
- New metadata handlers added, including iTXT, gAMA, bKGD, cHRM, iCCP, sRGB, tIME.
- JPEG:
- New metadata handlers added, including Comments, Chrominance, Luminance.
- Ability to read spanned APP13 blocks.
- Existing metadata handlers:
- Enhanced TIFF support
- Support for tiled, planar, and JPEG compressed TIFFs
- Cross-apartment and MTA support.
- IWICPixelFormatInfo2
- Adds information about transparency and numeric representation of the pixel format.
- IWICProgressiveLevelControl
- This allows developers to gain access to an image's progressive levels.
- Supports on GIF, PNG, and JPEG.
- Additional Pixel Formats, including ones for high color
If you have any questions about WIC on Windows 7, please feel free to either email us or visit the forums.
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At Photokina this year, the Metadata Working Group standard was announced. This is an industry wide effort to improve how metadata is written and read for a number of key fields used in consumer workflows. The formation of this group included members from Adobe, Apple, Canon, Microsoft, Nokia, and Sony. Most recently, both the IPTC and PLUS organizations endorsed the efforts from the Metadata Working Group.
The specification produced by the Metadata Working Group is available from the website. It outlines the goals as well as details how each of the fields should be used in order to ensure maximum compatibility among applications that adhere to this specification.
For more details on the Metadata Working Group, check out the website.
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The following WIC Tools are now available from the Microsoft Download Center... with source code!
- WICGrinder (updated!)
- WICExplorer
- Sample CODEC, metadata handler, pixel formats
Click here to download the code!
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Well, it's finally happened... we've created a WIC Forum on the MSDN Forums page. So, if you have any questions about WIC, please post them there. Enjoy!
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Many folks have tried to use the WPF Imaging InPlaceBitmapMetadataWriter class without much success. Unfortunately the SDK sample provided only shows how to use this with PNG files... and this is less than ideal since folks are mainly interested in metadata on their JPEGs and TIFFs. The InPlaceBitmapMetadataWriter is a way to invoke WIC's IWICFastMetadataEncoder, or as we call it "the FME". Basically this is a way to add metadata to a file very quickly without re-encoding the file. However, this only works if the file has metadata padding in it. Padding is extra space that the metadata handler sets aside in the file for writing out metadata in the future. Say I want to change an author form "Robert Wlodarczyk" to "Robert A. Wlodarczyk". Since the length of the new string is longer, without padding the metadata handler can't squish this data in to the file without moving what's after the metadata. As shipped in Windows Vista and WPF 3.0, padding is only supported in IFD, EXIF, and XMP metadata formats. Generally cameras do not produce files with padding in it, so this must be added initially. So, you need to re-encode the file initially. Luckily the WIC JPEG CODEC is able to do this in a manner which does not cause the image to lose any quality. Since IFD, EXIF, and XMP live only in TIFFs, JPEGs, and HD Photo (or at least as was shipped), should only use the InPlaceBitmapMetadataWriter with TIFFs, JPEGs, HD Photo. tExT is also supported by the InPlaceBitmapMetadataWriter... and this is for PNGs. Within the Windows Vista, the property dialog and Photo Gallery both use the FME to write out metadata quickly. Upon the first metadata edit, padding is added so that each subsequent metadata update is faster than the first. Note, the sample only covers JPEG, but it can easily be adapted to TIFF or HD Photo.
If you've struggled with the InPlaceBitmapMetadataWriter and want to get the sample... grab it from here.
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Last week was the Microsoft Pro Photo Summit. Below are links to some coverage from the event:
PopPhoto (1), (2)
Blurberati
Photo Business Forum
Dispatches (1), (2), (3), (4)
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At the recent Photo Metadata Conference, Josh Weisberg from Microsoft represented WIC there. Here's some coverage... and some more...
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It's great to see that now Wikipedia knows something about WIC. :)
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Have you been eye-ing the new HD Photo format? Are you an avid user of Adobe's Photoshop? Well, now you can give HD Photo a whirl in Photoshop CS2 (or the CS3 beta). Download the HD Photo Plugin for Adobe Photoshop.
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Just announced at MSR Techfest yesterday... Ever wonder how you view gigapixel images? Or how do you even go about creating gigapixel images using somewhat commodity equipment? MSR just released a tool that's built on the WIC APIs and uses HD Photo as its backing store. Check out their website.
Enjoy!
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For those of you using CMYK images in your workflow using WIC, you'll want to download the CMYK profile that was posted a few days ago. Enjoy.
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Some of you who know me better know that I'm a huge DJ Tiësto fan... even before he was vote #1 DJ in the world. Having been a bad fan lately and not checking out the fan website recently, I figured I'd check it today. To my surprise there's now a Windows Vista Sidebar gadget as well as a very cool application (which looks like it was developed in WPF!). The sidebar gadget tells you about upcoming events, some news, and lets you stream music from the website. The application lets you play some more music (streamed from the website), video some videos, and read more about Tiësto. If you're into Trance or just want to check out these apps, here's the direct link.
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Today the FAQ about PhotoInfo was posted. Check it out here. Of interest it talks about how to read the Maker Note data once a file was edited using WIC.
