[magick-users] G'MIC, command line image processing software, using Magick++

[David Tschumperle]

Hello everyone,
I'd like to talk about G'MIC (http://gmic.sourceforge.net), a image 
processing (free) software that is using the Magick++ framework intensely.
With this e-mail, I would like first to thank the ImageMagick developers 
and contributors, as I guess the G'MIC project wouldn't exist without 
their nice C++ API. As a free-software developer myself, I know how hard 
it is to be congratulated by the users, so let me thank you again !

Second, I would like to talk about the project itself, since it deals 
with image processing, so I think you may be interested in this tool.
Basically, G'MIC is a console-based image processing tool whose goal is 
to convert, manipulate and visualize generic 1D/2D/3D multi-spectral 
image datasets. This includes classical color images, but also more 
complex data as image sequences or 3D volumetric images. There are of 
course many differences with the ImageMagick's convert executable, but 
the most important ones are :

- G'MIC internally works with a list of images that may have different 
dimensions, and it defines a set of commands (i.e. basic image 
processing operations) that can act on sub-images of this list. The 
command syntax is very flexible and allows a lot of operations. For 
instance, adding all the frames of a video sequence is as simple as : 
gmic input.mpg -+ -n 0,255 -o average.jpg

- G'MIC internally works with typed image pixels, so you can read/write 
for instance float-valued images, or bool-valued images (all basic C++ 
types are recognized in fact). The good thing with float-valued pixels 
is that you can apply nice and complex filters on images, without losing 
arithmetic precision.

- G'MIC has some 2D and 3D visualization modules that can help to 
explore the image contents, including isophotes and isosurfaces 
extraction, as well as elevation maps for instance. This is like the 
'display' tool of ImageMagick, with some extra features.

- Finally, and I guess this is the most interesting thing, G'MIC has a 
simple macro substitution mechanism which allows the user to define 
their own G'MIC commands, in a macro file. This means you can basically 
design your own filters by combining basic G'MIC operations. This is 
interesting because even if the number of image processing operations 
are limited in G'MIC, you have virtually no limits to define your own 
operations. The macro file available in the G'MIC package already define 
about 40 different macros, corresponding to different image filters.
I tried to put some nice and effective examples on the site to show the 
potential uses of this tool.

Well, that's all, thanks again to provide this Magick++ API (most of the 
input/output in G'MIC is done with it), and I hope you will find G'MIC 
interesting. Do not hesitate to give it a try.

Regards,

David.

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David Tschumperlé
CNRS Researcher
GREYC (UMR-CNRS 6072)         E-mail: David.Tschumperle at greyc.ensicaen.fr
6, Bd du Marechal Juin        Tel: +33 (0)2-31-45-29-22
F-14050 CAEN Cedex            Fax: +33 (0)2-31-45-26-98
France                        http://www.greyc.ensicaen.fr/~dtschump
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