From: "Lionel Brits" Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: graphics question Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 12:55:48 -0600 Organization: CADVision/PSINet Lines: 34 Message-ID: <9gliss$q69$1@news3.cadvision.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: h-207-148-141-121.dial.cadvision.com X-Trace: news3.cadvision.com 992890589 26825 207.148.141.121 (18 Jun 2001 18:56:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news AT cadvision DOT com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 18:56:29 +0000 (UTC) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Hi, You have const byte BIT[200] = {0, 0, 2, 3, 4, 6, 0, 0, ... } If I understand you correctly, these numbers 0, 0, 2, 3, 4... are colours, and don't represent 8 pixels as black or white bits. Now, images that are stored as "bit maps" are just basic arrays of colours. They should actually be called "byte maps", as most implimentations use one or more bytes per pixel. The technical term is "raster image". A program such as Microsoft Paint stores a 256-color image with resolution X by Y as an array with X*Y elements. You can therefore read a .bmp file from disk into an array and then display this array. The important part is determining the characteristics of the image, which is stored in the file's header. You can find information on the .bmp format on www.wotsit.org. Another format which is more commonly used is the targa .TGA format. It is used because of its simplicity. Finally, I don't think there is any sense in reinventing the wheel, though I do recommend you try writing a program that displays a bmp file as an execise. In the long run, it would be more effective to use a free library such as OpenIL (www.openil.org / www.imagelib.org) since it is much more powerful and will allow you time to work on other things. HTH, - Lionel Brits