Pandmic AmigaOS 4 software request - DCRAW based datatype

Hello Amigans,

Over the last few years, I've been thinking about creating a datatype to be able to load camera RAW images based on the DCRAW CLI tool on OS4depot. Sadly I lack the skill, and I've not found a sufficiently basic datatype creation tutorial to allow someone with my meger C skills to get it done.

Since billions of people are trapped at home perhaps one of them is an AmigaOS 4 developer who would want to take this on?

Thanks!
Bill "tekmage" Borsari

Re: the image formats

How would datatypes.library recognize a file to be fed to the datatype?

I'm reminded of something out of a popular science fiction film:
"Then I will try to make the best guess I can."

@tekmage

Quote:
This is something for which I'd pay good money. I'm a huge fan of the WarpDT datatype package from @futura and would love to see a WarpRAW package as well.

Great idea, tekmage!

-- eliyahu

@Thematic

the dcraw tool has a built in detection routine:

dcraw -i DSC_2919.NEF
DSC_2919.NEF is a Nikon D500 image.

Worst case it would be by extention, best case the file can be examined.

@tekmage Fair enough. OS4Depot even has another "raw" datatype.

Hey, there is source code in there (file name extension c): cr2_dt
Though I'm not sure what "License: Other" stands for, there.

@Thematic

Yes, the best way to write a datatype is to start with some existing source and modify it. Most of mine have used a template which was originally one of salass00's datatypes :D

Once you rip out all the bits which are specific to the format the code was intended for, actually writing a datatype is easy providing the format is simple or a library is available.

My old WebP datatype might be a reasonable starting point as all the format specific stuff is in a separate library so should be easy to see which bits are datatype-related and which bits are format-related.

@Chris

Thank you for that WebP datatype. Amazing how the Amiga browsing can hang in there with little additions like that.

Right now DCRAW is GPL as a stand alone executable. Not sure what it would take to build it in to a library. My wish list would be to have an "auto" mode which all the various RAW knobs are set to default and an "adjust" mode which would popup a GUI to let people control the knobs. Take a look at UFRAW for AmiCygnix to see how extensive that could be.

Even just a DT that loaded the raw with full defaults would be a huge win.

Cheers,
Bill "tekmage" Borsari

@tekmage

Quote:

You'd probably need to remove the main() function and then you should be able to just add the files to the list to build, and then you need to rewrite main() (or whichever function calls the conversion routine) to make it datatype-friendly.

The problem with standalone commands is they tend to be written specifically to do the one task - ie. take the input from a file and write it to another file - whereas datatypes need to take the input from memory and write it back out to memory as an uncompressed bitmap. It may be easy to adapt the code, or it might need a fair amount of rewriting.

If you're bored enough during lockdown to work on it it might be an interesting project.

Quote:

I think it's possible to add a GUI to image datatypes although I'm not sure I've ever seen it done. It is easier to have a separate Prefs program which sets all the values in ENV(ARC): which the datatype code then reads. If you want to micro-adjust values for conversion then a datatype probably isn't the right choice, you need a image processing program that has the ability to have input plugins with real-time adjustments visible.