[Magick-announce] ImageMagick Studio LLC announces the release of ImageMagick 6.4.5-9

Wed Nov 19 11:31:54 PST 2008

ImageMagick Studio LLC announces the release of ImageMagick 6.4.5-9.
This release focuses on additional speed improvements including exploiting
multiple cores with the assistance of OpenMP technologies.  Some algorithms
perform at a near linear speed-up (given 4 cores we expect the algorithm to
execute nearly four times as fast).

ImageMagick® is a software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images.
It can read, convert and write images in a variety of formats (over 100)
including DPX, EXR, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PDF, PhotoCD, PNG, Postscript, SVG,
and TIFF. Use ImageMagick to translate, flip, mirror, rotate, scale, shear
and transform images, adjust image colors, apply various special effects,
or draw text, lines, polygons, ellipses and Bézier curves.

The functionality of ImageMagick is typically utilized from the command line
or you can use the features from programs written in your favorite programming
language. Choose from these interfaces: G2F (Ada), MagickCore (C), MagickWand
(C), ChMagick (Ch), ImageMagickObject (COM+), Magick++ (C++), JMagick (Java),
L-Magick (Lisp), NMagick (Neko/haXe), MagickNet (.NET), PascalMagick (Pascal),
PerlMagick (Perl), MagickWand for PHP (PHP), IMagick (PHP), PythonMagick
(Python), RMagick (Ruby), or TclMagick (Tcl/TK). With a language interface,
use ImageMagick to modify or create images dynamically and automagically.

ImageMagick is free software delivered as a ready-to-run binary distribution
or as source code that you may freely use, copy, modify, and distribute. Its
license is compatible with the GPL. It runs on all major operating systems.
Features and Capabilities

Here are just a few examples of what ImageMagick can do:

    * Format conversion: convert an image from one format to another (e.g. PNG
      to JPEG)
    * Transform: resize, rotate, crop, flip or trim an image
    * Transparency: render portions of an image invisible
    * Draw: add shapes or text to an image
    * Decorate: add a border or frame to an image
    * Special effects: blur, sharpen, threshold, or tint an image
    * Animation: create a GIF animation sequence from a group of images
    * Text & comments: insert descriptive or artistic text in an image
    * Image identification: describe the format and properties of an image
    * Composite: overlap one image over another
    * Montage: juxtapose image thumbnails on an image canvas
    * Motion picture support: read and write the common image formats used in
      digital film work
    * Image calculator: apply a mathematical expression to an image or image
      channels
    * High dynamic-range images: accurately represent the wide range of
      intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from the brightest direct
      sunlight to the deepest darkest shadows
    * Virtual pixel support: convenient access to pixels outside the image
      region
    * Large image support: read, process, or write mega- and giga-pixel image
      sizes
    * Encipher or decipher an image: convert ordinary images into
      unintelligible gibberish and back again
    * Threads of execution support: ImageMagick is thread safe and most
      internal algorithms are OpenMP-enabled to take advantage of speed-ups
      offered by the dual and quad-core processor technologies

Examples of ImageMagick Usage, http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/, shows how to use ImageMagick from the command-line to accomplish any of these tasks and much more. Also, see Fred's ImageMagick Scripts, http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/, a plethora of command-line scripts that perform geometric transforms, blurs, sharpens, edging, noise removal, and color manipulations.

Recent Changes

  Significant changes since the last official ImageMagick release, include:

2008-11-18 6.4.5-9 Koshiji Masayuki <kosiji.masayuki at da.mi...>
  * Fixed bug for RGBO image @ line, plane and partition interlace.

2008-11-18 6.4.5-9 Chris Madison <madisonblu at gmail...>
  * Deprecate pixel methods: AcquireImagePixels(), GetImagePixels(), etc.
  * New pixel methods: GetVirtualPixels(), GetAuthenticPixels(), etc.

2008-11-15 6.4.5-7 Alexander E. Patrakov <patrakov at gmail...>
  * GPS and multivalued EXIF properties support

2008-11-14 6.4.5-6 Manish Aggarwal <manish at circu...>
  * Add TransparentPaintImageChroma() to MagickCore and transparentChroma() to
  * Magick++.

2008-11-10 6.4.5-6 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * Correct DPX frame position property label (reference
  * http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12440).
  * Textures are no longer painted as the background color.
  * Update both fields of an EXIF resolution.
  * Support query-font-metrics MSL tag.

2008-11-01 6.4.5-4 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * Do not set image colorspace for the MSL modulate tag.

2008-11-01 6.4.5-3 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * Off by one error when computing affine in DrawAffineImage() (reference
  * http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12391.

2008-10-30 6.4.5-2 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * Fixed local adaptive thresholding when using an offset (reference
  * http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12371.
  * Set SetImagePixels() rather than SyncImagePixelCache() to update the pixel
  * cache morphology.

2008-10-26 6.4.5-1 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * Set explicit image format for BlobToImage() (reference
  * http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12340).
  * p_thread_t is an aggregate under MinGW.

2008-10-20 6.4.5-0 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * pthread_t can be aggregate so stop treating it like its atomic.
  * default the WPG image size to 1 top avoid "no pixels defined in cache"
  * exceptions.

2008-10-17 6.4.4-8 Anthony <A.Thyssen at griffith...>
  * slight modification of the added "radial-gradient:" image generator so the
  * radius goes to an edge rather than the corner, allowing more user control
  * based on image size.
  * fix -raise N to mean -raise NxN

2008-10-15 6.4.4-8 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * Add support for inline images.

2008-10-10 6.4.4-7 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * MinGW supports both Posix threads and Windows critical sections.

2008-10-06 6.4.4-5 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * pthread_self() can be an aggregate value.
  * Scale pixel quantum to match PNG tRNS range (i.e. 0-255).

2008-10-06 6.4.4-3 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * Set sentinel byte for MVG coder.
  * fx:standard_deviation returns standard deviation now instead of mean.

2008-10-01 6.4.4-1 Florent Monnier <monnier.florent at gmail...>
  * Support radial gradients in DrawGradientImage().

2008-09-26 6.4.4-1 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * Fix memory leak when XMP profile is corrupt.
  * Support filename references (e.g. convert image-%d.jpg[1-5] ...).

2008-09-25 6.4.4-0 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * Use -remap rather than -affinity.
  * Don't unregister a module for an image coder signature exception.
  * Don't assume a monochrome image is colormapped.

2008-09-25 6.4.4-0 Anthony <A.Thyssen at griffith...>
  * Attempt to fix three image "composite -displace" while also allowing use of
  * seperate X, Y grayscale displacement maps, or a merged X=red Y=green (later
  * transparency mask will also be added) as discussed in IM Examples,
  * 'distortion maps', but for -displace.

2008-09-24 6.4.3-10 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * Fix pixel cache race condition.

2008-09-23 6.4.3-10 Cristy <quetzlzacatenango at image...>
  * Fixed an OTB coder bug (reference
  * http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12119).

2008-09-23 6.4.3-8 Peter Fales <psfales at alcat...>
  * Add NULL terminator to options list to in MontageImageCommand().

2008-09-23 6.4.3-8 Anthony <A.Thyssen at griffith...>
  * Added -layers TrimBounds which will adjust the offsets and canvas bounds to
  * fit the current sequence of layered/animated images. The images themselves
  * are not modified only the 'page' meta-data. As a side-effect all offsets
  * will become positive, with a minimal canvas width/height.