ANNOUNCE: FreeImage Py

[Floris van den Berg]

Hi there,

Via this newsgroup message the FreeImage Development Team wants to announce
a new version of FreeImage. Among other things, FreeImage 1.4.4. adds
improvement toward TrollTech Qt support and brand new python bindings.
FreeImage can be downloaded from the usual address:
http://home.wxs.nl/~flvdberg

If you are unfamiliar with FreeImage, please read the product description
below.

The FreeImage Development Team
freeimage@wxs.nl

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01) WHAT IS FREEIMAGE
--------------------
FreeImage is an Open Source project, initiated by Floris van den Berg,
for developers who would like to support popular graphics image formats
like BMP, JPEG, TIFF and PCX and others as needed by today's multimedia
applications.

Key points in the design of FreeImage are:
- Ease of use; FreeImage's functions are easy to learn.
- Fast; the FreeImage functions are as optimized as possible.
- Multithreading safe; FreeImage works both in single- and multithreaded
  programs and works together with all kinds of additional libraries.
- Compatible with all 32-bit versions of Windows, including Windows 2000.

FreeImage is divided into four sections:
* Load functions (FI_LoadXXX); Loads a certain bitmap type into memory.
* Info functions; Retrieves information from a loaded bitmap. Possible
  information includes image size, bit depth and palette information.
* Conversion functions; converts a bitmap to another bitdepth
* Effect functions; Applies a certain effect to one or several bitmaps.

02) WHO IS FREEIMAGE FOR?
-------------------------
FreeImage is designed for C++ developers, working on the Windows platform.
FreeImage doesn't work on any other platform than Windows at this moment.
The support for other platforms is considered.

FreeImage only compiles under Microsoft Visual C++ 6. If you want to use
FreeImage in any other compiler, you will have to download the sourcecode
and modify it so that it works with the new compiler. FreeImage ships with
project-files for MSVC6 only.

03) LICENSING FREEIMAGE
-----------------------
FreeImage is free to the public and ships with full source code. The source
is protected by law though, which means you have to agree to the license
agreement before using FreeImage. You can find a copy of this agreement on
http://home.wxs.nl/~flvdberg

04) BECOMING A DEVELOPMENT TEAM MEMBER
--------------------------------------
I am currently looking for experienced graphics programmers who can help to
further design and develop FreeImage. The idea is to create a dedicated team
of
developers who want to spend some free time writing bitmap loaders for new
graphic formats and enhance already working routines. Communication will go
using e-mail (freeimage@wxs.nl) and the web.

The following things need to be done design wise:
- design a resource script loader, so that bitmaps can be easily appended
  to a Windows EXE file

The following things need to be done development wise:
- add more graphic formats
- add more image effects
- enhance existing image effects

If you can do one or more of the above things, you are a valuable member of
the FreeImage Development Team!

05) CONTACT
-----------
My e-mail address is: freeimage@wxs.nl
You can also reach me at fb@magentammt.com