xref: /external/ImageMagick/Magick++

This is Magick++, the object-oriented C++ API to the ImageMagick
image-processing library, the most comprehensive open-source image
processing solution available. Read the release notes for Magick++.

Magick++ supports an object model which is inspired by PerlMagick.
Magick++ executes faster than PerlMagick since it is accessed from a
compiled language rather than from a scripting language. This makes it more
suitable for Web CGI programs which must start-up and execute quickly.
Images support implicit reference counting so that copy constructors and
assignment incur almost no cost. The cost of actually copying an image (if
necessary) is done just before modification and this copy is managed
automatically by Magick++. De-referenced copies are automatically deleted.
The image objects support value (rather than pointer)  semantics so it is
trivial to support multiple generations of an image in memory at one time.

Magick++ provides integrated support for the Standard Template Library (STL)
so that the powerful containers available (e.g. deque, vector, list, and
map)  can be used to write programs similar to those possible with PERL &
PerlMagick. STL-compatable template versions of ImageMagick's list-style
operations are provided so that operations may be performed on multiple
images stored in STL containers.

Documentation

Detailed documentation are provided for all Magick++ classes, class methods,
and template functions which comprise the API.

Obtaining Magick++

Magick++ is included as part of ImageMagick source releases and may be
retrieved via ftp or Subversion.

Installation

Once you have the sources available, follow these detailed installation
instructions for UNIX and Windows.

Usage

A helper script named Magick++-config is installed under Unix which assists
with recalling compilation options required to compile and link programs
which use Magick++.  For example, the following command will compile and
link the source file example.cpp to produce the executable example (notice
that quotes are backward quotes):

     c++ `Magick++-config --cxxflags --cppflags --ldflags --libs` \
       -o example example.cpp

Windows users may get started by manually editing a project file for one of
the Magick++ demo programs.

Reporting Bugs

Please report any bugs via the Magick++ Bug Tracking System at
http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/.

Related Packages

Users who are interested in displaying their images at video game rates on a
wide number of platforms and graphic environments (e.g. Windows, X11, BeOS,
and Linux/CGI) may want to try PtcMagick, which provides a simple interface
between Magick++ and OpenPTC.