Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

GIMP Core Mostly Ported to GEGL

Posted by Unknown on from the high-bit-depth-goats dept.

A longstanding task for the GIMP has been porting the core graphics code from the ancient implementation (dating back to version 1.2) to GEGL. Progress has been hampered by the amount of code relying on details of the implementation of image data: tiles are directly accessed instead of linear buffers, and changing that detail would break the entire core and all plugins. A few weeks ago, two GIMP hackers got together to do some general hacking, and inadvertedly ported the core graphics code to GEGL. They work around the mismatch between GEGL buffers and GIMP tiles by implementing a storage backend for GEGL using the legacy GIMP tiles; to their surprise things Just Worked (tm), and their code branch will become the 2.9 development series once 2.8 is released. With this, 2.10 will finally feature higher bit depth images, additional color spaces (CMYK for one), and hardware accelerated image operations. There's still work to be done: to take advantage of the new features, plugins need to be ported to access GEGL buffers instead of GIMP tiles, but the conversion work is straightforward and current plugins will continue working as well as they do now in the meantime.

5 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Version math by robmv · · Score: 4, Informative

    Versions are not decimal numbers!!!!! what number is 2.8.4?

  2. Re:hackery by Korin43 · · Score: 4, Informative

    GIMP 2.10’s core will be 100% ported to GEGL, and all of the legacy pixel fiddling API for plug-ins is going to be deprecated.

    I'd say read the article before assuming the authors of a major piece of software are idiots, but this is Slashdot..

  3. To fix horizons, use Rotate with Corrective + Grid by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yup, I don't get it, for example, why rotating a photo to get the horizon straight is not just a matter of drawing a straight line over horizon, and have GIMP figure out how to rotate the photo to get it straight.

    Here's how to correct a horizon in GIMP 2.6.11:

    1. Select the rotate tool.
    2. In tool options, choose Preview: Grid. This makes GIMP draw straight lines that you'll line up with the horizon.
    3. In tool options, choose Direction: Corrective. This gets GIMP to figure out how to rotate the photo to straighten things parallel to the grid.
    4. On the image, turn the grid until parallel with the horizon.
    5. Once the grid is aligned, press Enter.
  4. Re:Great! by Dishevel · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here it is.
    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GIMP_2.7.3_splash.png

    --
    Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
  5. Re:Inadvertently... by Tapewolf · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just loaded GIMP 2.6 - and I'll tell ya' it's not fixed. it's still a hairy mess to figure out. Though has been reported they are working on a new interface (one more Photoshop like); but I don't know the status or what version it was to come out in.

    2.8 does the single-window interface thing. It looks like this:

    http://tapewolf.wildernessguardians.com/gimp28-screenshot.jpg

    ...whether that's now a single window hairy mess is not something I can really comment on. Personally, I find Photoshop to be an unintuitive horror and gimp works just how I'd expect, but that's probably because I started out with Autodesk Animator and weird things like that. If I had started on Photoshop my opinion would probably be very different.