Question

I would like to read a bitmap file into a struct and manipulate it like eg. making a mirror effect, but I cannot understand which kind of struct should I be creating in order to read into it.

Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

»This is how you manually load a .BMP file

The bitmap file format:

• Bitmap file header
• Bitmap info header
• Palette data
• Bitmap data

So on with the code part. This is our struct we need to create to hold the bitmap file header.

#pragma pack(push, 1)

typedef struct tagBITMAPFILEHEADER
{
    WORD bfType;  //specifies the file type
    DWORD bfSize;  //specifies the size in bytes of the bitmap file
    WORD bfReserved1;  //reserved; must be 0
    WORD bfReserved2;  //reserved; must be 0
    DWORD bfOffBits;  //specifies the offset in bytes from the bitmapfileheader to the bitmap bits
}BITMAPFILEHEADER;

#pragma pack(pop)

The bftype field checks to see if you are in fact loading a .BMP file, and if you are, the field should be 0x4D42.

Now we need to create our bitmapinfoheader struct. This holds info about our bitmap.

#pragma pack(push, 1)

typedef struct tagBITMAPINFOHEADER
{
    DWORD biSize;  //specifies the number of bytes required by the struct
    LONG biWidth;  //specifies width in pixels
    LONG biHeight;  //specifies height in pixels
    WORD biPlanes;  //specifies the number of color planes, must be 1
    WORD biBitCount;  //specifies the number of bits per pixel
    DWORD biCompression;  //specifies the type of compression
    DWORD biSizeImage;  //size of image in bytes
    LONG biXPelsPerMeter;  //number of pixels per meter in x axis
    LONG biYPelsPerMeter;  //number of pixels per meter in y axis
    DWORD biClrUsed;  //number of colors used by the bitmap
    DWORD biClrImportant;  //number of colors that are important
}BITMAPINFOHEADER;

#pragma pack(pop)

Now on to loading our bitmap.

unsigned char *LoadBitmapFile(char *filename, BITMAPINFOHEADER *bitmapInfoHeader)
{
    FILE *filePtr;  //our file pointer
    BITMAPFILEHEADER bitmapFileHeader;  //our bitmap file header
    unsigned char *bitmapImage;  //store image data
    int imageIdx=0;  //image index counter
    unsigned char tempRGB;  //our swap variable

    //open file in read binary mode
    filePtr = fopen(filename,"rb");
    if (filePtr == NULL)
        return NULL;

    //read the bitmap file header
    fread(&bitmapFileHeader, sizeof(BITMAPFILEHEADER),1,filePtr);

    //verify that this is a .BMP file by checking bitmap id
    if (bitmapFileHeader.bfType !=0x4D42)
    {
        fclose(filePtr);
        return NULL;
    }

    //read the bitmap info header
    fread(bitmapInfoHeader, sizeof(BITMAPINFOHEADER),1,filePtr); 

    //move file pointer to the beginning of bitmap data
    fseek(filePtr, bitmapFileHeader.bfOffBits, SEEK_SET);

    //allocate enough memory for the bitmap image data
    bitmapImage = (unsigned char*)malloc(bitmapInfoHeader->biSizeImage);

    //verify memory allocation
    if (!bitmapImage)
    {
        free(bitmapImage);
        fclose(filePtr);
        return NULL;
    }

    //read in the bitmap image data
    fread(bitmapImage,bitmapInfoHeader->biSizeImage,1,filePtr);

    //make sure bitmap image data was read
    if (bitmapImage == NULL)
    {
        fclose(filePtr);
        return NULL;
    }

    //swap the R and B values to get RGB (bitmap is BGR)
    for (imageIdx = 0;imageIdx < bitmapInfoHeader->biSizeImage;imageIdx+=3)
    {
        tempRGB = bitmapImage[imageIdx];
        bitmapImage[imageIdx] = bitmapImage[imageIdx + 2];
        bitmapImage[imageIdx + 2] = tempRGB;
    }

    //close file and return bitmap image data
    fclose(filePtr);
    return bitmapImage;
}

Now to make use of all of this:

BITMAPINFOHEADER bitmapInfoHeader;
unsigned char *bitmapData;
// ...
bitmapData = LoadBitmapFile("mypic.bmp",&bitmapInfoHeader);
//now do what you want with it, later on I will show you how to display it in a normal window

Later on I’ll put up Writing to a .BMP, and how to load a targa file, and how to display them.«

Quoted from: http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?261522-C-C-Loading-Bitmap-Files-%28Manually%29 (User: BeholderOf). (Some minor corrections done)