ExcitingAds! MSFT

New blog home!

RWlodarczyk — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 03:32:12 GMT

Since Windows 7 shipped, I am no longer working on the team delivering the Windows Imaging Component. I'm working on some different areas within Windows. Also, I have started my own blog, SimplicityGuy, where I plan to cover projects that I work in outside of work.

This will be the last post to the blog here. All future posts will be at SimplicityGuy.

A few updates and links

RWlodarczyk — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Some folks have been inquiring about the sampel code that I had on my blog. Since my web host was changed and the content was lost, I've moved the code to CodePlex. I've pruned the samples, and made them availabled here. What's included:

Converting WPF BitmapSource <-> GDI+ Bitmap
Metadata Walker
Using WPF InPlaceBitmapMetadataWriter

Also, the code for WICExplorer and WICCop are available from MSDN. They are available here. What's included:

WICExplorer: Base bones metadata and image viewer built using WIC
WICCop: Tool used to verify that the WIC CODEC Guidelines have been properly implemented. Also includes C# COM Interop interface definitions for WIC.

Moving to other blogs...

RWlodarczyk — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:09:00 GMT

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.

Metadata Working Group 1.01 Spec Published

RWlodarczyk — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:15:00 GMT

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

WIC in Windows 7 Pre-Beta

RWlodarczyk — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:44:44 GMT

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:

Many bug fixes!

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.

Metadata Working Group

RWlodarczyk — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:57:47 GMT

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.

WIC Tools now available!

RWlodarczyk — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:20:00 GMT

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! Also here.

WIC Forum

RWlodarczyk — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 06:44:00 GMT

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!

Using WPF's InPlaceBitmapMetadataWriter

RWlodarczyk — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 04:39:00 GMT

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.

Microsoft Pro Photo Summit 2007

RWlodarczyk — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 07:04:00 GMT

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)

Metadata Conference

RWlodarczyk — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:36:00 GMT

At the recent Photo Metadata Conference, Josh Weisberg from Microsoft represented WIC there. Here's some coverage... and some more...

Wikipedia now knows about WIC

RWlodarczyk — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 07:44:00 GMT

It's great to see that now Wikipedia knows something about WIC. :)

HD Photo Beta Plugin for Adobe Photoshop

RWlodarczyk — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:25:00 GMT

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.

HDView from MSR

RWlodarczyk — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:06:00 GMT

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!

CMYK Color Profile Posted

RWlodarczyk — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 18:45:00 GMT

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.

DJ Tiësto & Windows Vista

RWlodarczyk — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 03:17:00 GMT

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.

PhotoInfo FAQ

RWlodarczyk — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 02:38:00 GMT

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.

Microsoft PhotoInfo Released

RWlodarczyk — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:00:00 GMT

If you're looking to add IPTC and other pieces of metadata from Windows Explorer, Microsoft PhotoInfo is the tool for you! Check it out.

WPF BitmapSource and GDI+ Bitmap Interop

RWlodarczyk — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:34:00 GMT

Many folks in the forums (most recent post) have been asking how to interop BitmapSources (from WPF) with the Bitmap object that was known in .NET 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0. Being that this has come up in the forums many times, I figured I'd put together a small sample. The sample a WinForm app utilizing the ElementHost from the WinFormsIntegration to host the WPF Image element.

I've put the code here. Enjoy!

WIC 1.0 is released!

RWlodarczyk — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 01:40:00 GMT

The WIC package installer is now available on MSDN:

x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8E011506-6307-445B-B950-215DEF45DDD8&displaylang=en

x64: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F64654AC-6E26-41D9-A90A-0E7783B864EE&displaylang=en

Want to give PhotoSynth a try?

RWlodarczyk — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 00:30:00 GMT

There's a tech preview of PhotoSynth available! Go check it out!

WICGrinder Updated

RWlodarczyk — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 01:49:00 GMT

After the initial release of WICGrinder almost 2 weeks ago, we have added metadata tests in. Also, we addressed some bugs within the pre-existing tests.

Please pick up an update copy of WICGrinder here: WICGrinder (x86); WICGrinder (x64)

.NET Fx 3.0 RTM is out!

RWlodarczyk — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 21:35:00 GMT

.NET Framework 3.0 RTM'd! Go download it! If you want the SDK, here it is.

App Verifier & WICGrinder

RWlodarczyk — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:41:00 GMT

In the previous post about WICGrinder, this tool for verifying WIC CODEC behavior was introduced. As an added bonus, this tool can be utilized with other tools, such as App Verifier to catch some pretty nasty bugs. If you have a WIC CODEC, under a debugger (choose your favorite) run a debug copy of your code under WICGrinder with App Verifier enabled on the WICGrinder exe.

Download AppVerifier now.

Have fun!

So you wrote a WIC enabled CODEC... Does it work?

RWlodarczyk — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 00:36:00 GMT

After reading this blog, Peggi's whitepaper, and the MSDN Documentation, you decided to write a CODEC for an image file type. The CODEC was even tested in WICExplorer. Great! Now you hope that the CODEC is fully functional... meaning that you can use it from the Windows Vista shell, Windows Vista Photo Gallery, and any WPF application that's written. Wouldn't it be simpler to have a tool to check the registry settings and run a set of important tests to assist in the verification?

My team has given some serious thought to this. In order to help facilitate in this task, we've come up with a tool called WICGrinder. To use the tool, you:

create a new script
enter in your CODEC's GUIDs for the container format, decoder, and encoder (if supported)
provide sample images for your CODEC

After this you run the script and a verbose output of your CODEC's capabilities is outputted. Tests that are included are those that specifically check for items pointed out in Peggi's whitepaper. If WICGrinder crashes, you may run it under a debugger with a debug build of your CODEC to determine what caused it to crash. A complete readme is included in the zip download.

In order to run this, you should have the latest Windows Vista build installed (RC1 or greater). If you have any questions about the tool, please email wictools@microsoft.com. Also, if you have any questions about WIC in general, please email wiccodec@microsoft.com.

Download it today: WICGrinder [Update 2006.11.10... please use the updated version: WICGrinder (x86); WICGrinder (x64)]

(Disclaimer: Though WICGrinder covers a variety of tests, running WICGrinder alone is not a replacement for other testing that you should do for your CODEC (comprehensive test coverage, stability, reliability, security, fuzzing, etc). WICGrinder is meant as a supplement to your own testing. Running WICGrinder does not make any guarantees what-so-ever.)