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thedmd / pixeltoaster

PixelToaster is a framebuffer library for C++
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Introduction

PixelToaster is a library for C++ programmers who want to write their own software rendering routines, instead of using hardware accelerated rendering with OpenGL or Direct3D.

To use PixelToaster, all you need to do is "open" a display at the desired resolution, then each frame, render into an array of pixels and "update" your pixels to the display.

Installation

How to Use PixelToaster

The API of PixelToaster is so easy to use, just look at the example programs and you'll get the idea quickly.

However, what isnt obvious at first, is exactly what to do with the pixels!

Obviously, I cant teach software rendering in a few pages, but here is a quick tutorial to get you started...

Pixels in Memory

Pixels are laid out in memory sequentially from top to bottom, left to right.

You can visualize this by rearranging each line of the image into a single chain, each line bolted on at the end of the one above it, in one long line.

Lets say we have an image of dimensions 320x240, that is:

width = 320
height = 240

Pixel pixels[320*240];

Coordinate (0,0) is the top-left of the screen, and (319,239) is the bottom right.

Your x coordinate needs to be in range [0,319] and your y coordinate needs to be in range [0,239]

We can find the index of a pixel given its (x,y) coordinates as follows:

int index = x + y * width;

So we can set get this pixel as follows:

pixel[index] = Pixel( 0, 0, 1 );        // set to blue

If you think about this closely, you are starting from the top-left of the screen, advancing past all the whole lines above the line you want (y*width). This gets you to the start of the line you want, so all if you have to do now is add "x" and you have the index of the pixel at (x,y).

Pixel Format

You have the choice of working in truecolor or floating point color.

Truecolor has 32bit integer pixels with byte size rgb color components, while floating point color has 128bits per pixel, with floating point values for red, green, blue and alpha!

All things being equal, floating point is obviously slower than truecolor, if for no reason other than requiring 4X the memory bandwidth! However, the increased dynamic range and high precision of floating point make it a very interesting format to work in.

Working in Floating Point Color

Floating point pixels made up of four floating point values:

struct FloatingPointPixel
{
    float r,g,b,a;
};

You set the color of a pixel by setting its components.

The alpha value is for padding to 128bits. You can ignore it, or use it for any purpose you like. It makes a nice z-buffer for a software renderer, or alpha channel for compositing.

Each component is in range [0.0, 1.0f]

0.0f is minimum intensity (dark), while 1.0f is maximum intensity.

At the moment, values outside this range are automatically clamped.

In the future, these values will be used to indicate "high dynamic range" to high contrast displays!

Here are some examples:

black = (0,0,0)
white = (1,1,1)
red = (1,0,0)
green = (0,1,0)
blue = (0,0,1)

really bright white = (1000000,1000000,1000000) ... !!!

Working in TrueColor

In truecolor, pixels are packed into 32bit integer values, like this:

[x][r][g][b]

r,g,b are the red, green and blue color components making up the color.

the x component is padding so the pixel takes up 32 bits.

Each component is in the range [0,255] with 0 being lowest intensity, and 255 being maximum intensity.

therefore:

black is (0,0,0) -> 0x00000000
bright red is (255,0,0) -> 0x00FF0000
bright green is (0,255,0) -> 0x0000FF00
bright blue = (0,0,255) -> 0x000000FF

You can unpack and manually using masking and shift operations:

integer8 r = ( pixel & 0x00FF0000 ) >> 16;
integer8 g = ( pixel & 0x0000FF00 ) >> 8;
integer8 b = ( pixel & 0x000000FF );

And repack them again with shifts:

integer32 repacked = ( r << 16 ) | ( g << 8 ) | b;

Alternatively, you can treat your array of pixels as an array of TrueColorPixel structs and use its union to access pixels:

TrueColorPixel pixel;

pixel.r = 128;
pixel.g = 10;
pixel.b = 192;

This is much easier! Just remember that each r,g,b value can only in the range [0,255] when working with it - if you go outside this range the color will wrap around from light to dark and vice versa.

Example Programs

Licence

PixelToaster Framebuffer Library.

Copyright © 2004-2007 Glenn Fiedler

This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
arising from the use of this software.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it
freely, subject to the following restrictions:

1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
   claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
   in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
   appreciated but is not required.

2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
   misrepresented as being the original software.

3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.

Glenn Fiedler
gaffer@gaffer.org