Package gdk-pixbuf

The gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf-new function can be used as a convenience to create a pixbuf with an empty buffer. This function will compute an optimal rowstride so that rendering can be performed with an efficient algorithm. The gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf-new-from-bytes function creates a new gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf object out of in-memory readonly image data from a g:bytes instance. Currently only RGB images with 8 bits per sample are supported.

You can also copy an existing pixbuf with the gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf-copy function. The copy function will actually duplicate the pixel data in memory and create a new gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf instance for it.

The GDKPixbuf library provides a simple mechanism for loading an image from a file in synchronous fashion. This means that the library takes control of the application while the file is being loaded. From the user's point of view, the application will block until the image is done loading.

This interface can be used by applications in which blocking is acceptable while an image is being loaded. It can also be used to load small images in general. Applications that need progressive loading can use the gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf-loader API functionality instead.

These functions allow to save a gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf object in a number of file formats. The formatted data can be written to a file or to a memory buffer. The gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf library can also call a user-defined callback on the data, which allows to write the image to a socket or store it in a database.

The gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf library contains functions to scale pixbufs, to scale pixbufs and composite against an existing image, and to scale pixbufs and composite against a solid color or checkerboard. Compositing a checkerboard is a common way to show an image with an alpha channel in image-viewing and editing software.

Since the full-featured gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf-scale, gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf-composite, and gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf-composite-color functions are rather complex to use and have many arguments, two simple convenience functions are provided, the gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf-scale-simple and gdk-pixbuf:pixbuf-composite-color-simple functions which create a new pixbuf of a given size, scale an original image to fit, and then return the new pixbuf.

If the destination pixbuf was created from a readonly source, these operations will force a copy into a mutable buffer.