Question

I am extremely new to manipulating bitmap data in C++, and I have a problem. I’m trying to follow this example from wikipedia. Here is the code I’m using:

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <Windows.h>

using namespace std;

int main()
{

    //fileheader
    BITMAPFILEHEADER* bf = new BITMAPFILEHEADER;
    bf->bfType = 66;
    bf->bfSize = 70;
    bf->bfOffBits = 54;

    //infoheader
    BITMAPINFOHEADER* bi = new BITMAPINFOHEADER;
    bi->biSize = 40;
    bi->biWidth = 2;
    bi->biHeight = 2;
    bi->biPlanes = 1;
    bi->biBitCount = 24;
    bi->biCompression = 0;
    bi->biSizeImage = 16;
    bi->biXPelsPerMeter = 2835;
    bi->biYPelsPerMeter = 2835;
    bi->biClrUsed = 0;
    bi->biClrImportant = 0;

    //image data
    unsigned char* thedata = new unsigned char;
    thedata[0] = 0;
    thedata[1] = 0;
    thedata[2] = 255;

    thedata[3] = 255;
    thedata[4] = 255;
    thedata[5] = 255;

    thedata[6] = 0;
    thedata[7] = 0;

    thedata[8] = 255;
    thedata[9] = 0;
    thedata[10] = 0;

    thedata[11] = 0;
    thedata[12] = 255;
    thedata[13] = 0;

    thedata[14] = 0;
    thedata[15] = 0;

    //dc
    HDC dc = GetDC(NULL);

    //bitmap info
    BITMAPINFO* bmi = (BITMAPINFO*)bi;

    //handle to bitmap
    HBITMAP hbmp = CreateDIBitmap(dc, bi, CBM_INIT, thedata, bmi, DIB_RGB_COLORS);

    //output to bmp....?
    ofstream outFile;
    outFile.open("outtestbmp.bmp");
    outFile << hbmp;
    outFile.close();

}

I’ve been searching Google for the past couple days trying to figure out how to get this done but I still can’t seem to make it work.

This complies without errors, but the outtestbmp.bmp file in the end is unopenable. Are there any huge mistakes I’m making (probably dozens) that are preventing this from working? (I have high suspicions that using ofstream to output my bmp data is wrong).

EDIT: I’ve been told that setting bftype to 66 is wrong. What is the correct value?

Also, I’ve created a .bmp file of what the output should be. Here is the hex data for that bmp:

42 4D 46 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 36 00 00 00 28 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 01 00 18        
00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 FF FF  
FF FF 00 00 FF 00 00 00 FF 00 00 00

and here is the data for my .bmp I’m outputting:

42 00 46 00 00 00 CD CD CD CD 36 00 00 00 28 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 01 00 18 
00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 13 0B 00 00 13 0B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 FF FF 
FF FF 00 00 FF 00 00 00 FF 00 00 00

Answer 1

bf->bfType == 66;

This is wrong on two counts. Firstly it’s the wrong value (the magic value are the bytes ‘BM’ or 0x4d42 on a little-endian machine), and secondly it’s not an assignment.

Then:

unsigned char* thedata = new unsigned char;

Only allocating 1 char?

And this:

outFile << hbmp;

Doesn’t do what you think it does. You’re just writing out a handle. You didn’t need to create a bitmap, you just need to write out the data structures you’ve initialised (once you’ve made them correct).

And why are you new’ing everything? There’s no need for this stuff to be dynamically allocated (and you’re not delete’ing it either).

I would generally do it something like this (some code removed for brevity):

BITMAPFILEHEADER bf;
bf.bfType = 0x4d42;
bf.bfSize = 70;
bf.bfOffBits = 54;

//infoheader
BITMAPINFOHEADER bi;
bi.biSize = 40;
bi.biWidth = 2;
etc...

//image data
unsigned char* thedata = new unsigned char[16]; // Should really calculate this properly
thedata[0] = 0;
....

//output to bmp....?
ofstream outFile;
outFile.open("outtestbmp.bmp");
outFile.write((char *)&bf,sizeof(bf));
outFile.write((char *)&bi,sizeof(bi));
outFile.write((char *)thedata, 16);
outFile.close();