D-Type External Format Plugin
A portable plugin library that makes reading and writing common graphics formats as easy as counting to three.
D-Type External Format Plugin is a fast and flexible C/C++ library that enables its clients to read and write common image and data compression formats, including PNG, JPEG, GZIP/ZLIB and SVG Native.
The plugin can be employed in several scenarios:
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As a dependency of D-Type PowerDoc Engine: Certain OpenType fonts represent color glyphs using bitmap images, which are embedded within font files in PNG and/or JPEG format. For D-Type PowerDoc Engine to render these glyphs, the PNG and JPEG images must be decoded on the fly. This task is efficiently handled by D-Type External Format Plugin.
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As a dependency of D-Type 3D Rasterizer: While primarily an auxiliary function, D-Type 3D Rasterizer can export its output to PNG or JPEG format upon request. This functionality is also facilitated by D-Type External Format Plugin.
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As a dependency of your own application: If you intend to read or write PNG, JPEG, GIF, or GZIP compressed files within your own application, you will need to access the External Format Plugin C/C++ API directly. The API is designed to simplify the process of reading and writing these formats while ensuring consistent results across all platforms.
It is important to note that in the first two scenarios — when D-Type External Format Plugin is utilized as a dependency of D-Type PowerDoc Engine or D-Type 3D Rasterizer — developers do not interact with the plugin’s C/C++ API directly. Instead, they only supply the library to D-Type PowerDoc Engine and/or D-Type 3D Rasterizer by means of static or dynamic linking (depending on the preferred linking method and the type of library utilized).
FIG 1 D-Type External Format Plugin allows D-Type PowerDoc Engine to decode PNG and JPEG images stored in OpenType fonts.