Re: [boost] GIL Review

From: François Duranleau (duranlef_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-11-01 15:28:38

Now it's my take about color vs pixel :)

I don't understand why pixel is a bad name. For someone in the graphics 
community, pixel really is the right name. The term pixel stands for 
picture element, and it seems to me that GIL's pixel is exactly that: an 
element in a raster image. The notion of pixel format is also well known 
(have a look at graphics APIs like OpenGL, for example). I do think that 
GIL has its concepts right, except that it's not true to say that a pixel 
is always the color at a given location in an image. It could be a depth 
value, for instance, or a 3D position (in so called geometry images).

As for color space and all, according to my readings in FvDFH*, it really 
has nothing to do with how you pack channels in memory. According to a 
professor expert in the field in my department, it's actually more 
abstract than what is found in the book. But I do think that the way they 
handle the notion of color space in GIL is satisfactory.

* J.D. Foley, A. van Dam, S.K. Feiner, J.F. Hughes. Computer Graphics -
   Principles and Practice. Second Edition.

-- 
François Duranleau
LIGUM, Université de Montréal