Inserting Image Objects

[charlesd]

Two related questions:

I am searching for a way to insert quickly insert images into document. If an image is already loaded into memory can I create a picture based on an image handle, a stream, or some other in-memory device? Woul the format of this image be restricted to BMP and JPEG?

From the Developer Manual: "Developers can now define their own object types that are completely managed outside of the PDF Creator." I don't understand how this works. How do I define my own object type? How is this object type written to the resulting PDF file? Could I define an image object type that handles images that are CCITT compressed?

Thanks,

Charles

[charlesd]

If a document has a picture object is there any way I can access the image data? Can I get a handle to the data or save it out separately to another file, etc...?

[Jose]

Hello,


I am not sure if this is what you are refering to but below is a visual basic 6.0 code snippet which illustrates the loading of a picture object in the PDF Creator from an image stream.


' Create picture object in the PDF Creator
Doc1.CreateObject acObjectTypePicture, "Picture1"

Set obj = Doc1.GetObjectByName("Picture1")

With obj

' set picture size

obj.Attribute("Left") = 100

obj.Attribute("Top") = 100

obj.Attribute("Right") = 900

obj.Attribute("Bottom") = 900



' set picture parameters

obj.Attribute("BitmapWidth") = img.Width

obj.Attribute("BitmapHeight") = img.Height

obj.Attribute("BitsPerComponent") = 24 ' assuming data is stored in RGB format



' get image pixels and store them in Creator Picture object

ReDim pixels(img.ARGBData.Count * 3)



For n = 0 To img.ARGBData.Count - 1

pixels(n * 3) = &H80 ' GetBlue(pixel)

pixels(n * 3 + 1) = &H80 ' GetGreen(pixel)

pixels(n * 3 + 2) = &H80 ' GetRed(pixel)

Next n



' Set bitmap data

obj.Attribute("BitmapData") = pixels



' Force image to grayscale as this will produce best results for scanned images

' obj.Attribute("GrayScale") = 1

End With


Hope this helps?

[charlesd]

Thanks for the reply. What other undocumented image attributes are available? or is this anywhere they are documented?

Charles

[charlesd]

I've tested the above code and found that it works well, except for 1 bit images. At the end of my post is some sample Delphi code I've been using. It works fine for 24 bit images, but breaks on 1-bit images. I've found that by doubling the size of my pixels array the following code will "work" - it will display the image in an inverted form. However, if I try to save the resulting PDF I get an error.

Hope you can help?

Charles

Sample Delphi Code:

PDF.InitBlank;

ANumBytes:=(ldImg.BitmapBits * ldImg.BitmapWidth * ldImg.BitmapHeight) div 8; // Calculate size (in bytes) of image data
if ((ldImg.BitmapBits * ldImg.BitmapWidth * ldImg.BitmapHeight) mod 8) > 0 then
inc(ANumBytes); // round up for 1 or 4-bit images

SetLength(Pixels, ANumBytes); //Works (until you try to save) if SetLength(Pixels, ANumBytes * 2); is used when working with 1 bit images

ldImg.GetBitmapRow(Pixels, 0, ANumBytes); // Fills Pixels with image data

PDF.CreateObject(acObjectTypePicture , 'Pic10');
with PDF.GetObjectByName('Pic10') do
begin
Attribute['Left'] := 0;
Attribute['Top'] := 0;
Attribute['Right'] := PDF.PageWidth;
Attribute['Bottom'] := PDF.PageLength;
Attribute['BitmapWidth'] := ldImg.BitmapWidth;
Attribute['BitmapHeight'] := ldImg.BitmapHeight;
Attribute['BitsPerComponent'] := ldImg.BitmapBits; //24 for color, 1 for B&W, 8 for grayscale
Attribute['BitmapData'] := Pixels;
end;

PDF.Refresh;