Binary file operations are about two things: reading bytes from the file and putting them into memory

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Overview

Lots of applications need to process images in some way. Load them, store them, write them back to files, scale them, rotate them, adjust the color in part (or all) of the image, etc. This assignment aims to show you how you can perform some of these operations on a particular type of file.

You will be writing a program that does the following:

• Read in a number .TGA files in a binary format

• Process the image data store within those files in a variety of ways

• Write out new .TGA files in the same binary format

Reading binary data

Binary file operations are about two things: reading bytes from the file and putting them into memory or writing bytes from memory directly to the file. There is no conversion, no interpretation, and no converting strings to numbers or vice-versa. It’s just bytes from the file to memory, or bytes from memory to the file. Whether the data is simple or complex, it’s all just a series of these byte-copying operations.

Refer back to the presentation BinaryFileIO on Canvas for a more detailed explanation on how to read and write binary data.

Viewing TGA files

Some operating systems won’t let you open TGA files natively (looking at you, Windows), so you will need to install some sort of viewer for them. If you already have a tool installed that lets you open and view these, great.

Note: Not having a way of viewing these files will NOT stop you from writing code to open/read/write TGA files, it just means you can’t open the file in an application to view its contents, which will make it a bit more difficult to understand the process you are working with. Here are some tools you can install to view TGA files:

Visual Studio – Say what?! Yes, Visual Studio includes an image editor, which will let you open and manipulate image files on a basic level. Simply drag a TGA file into Visual Studio and it will open up.

Photoshop (CC or Elements, both have free trials) https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements.html

 

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) – a free, open-source alternative to the likes of Photoshop https://www.gimp.org/

 

TGAViewer – A simple program whose only purpose is to open and view TGA files. http://tgaviewer.com/download.aspx

 File format description

Since binary files are all about bytes, they are typically an unreadable mess to any program (or person) that doesn’t know exactly how the data is structured. In order to read them properly, you must have some sort of blueprint, schematic, or breakdown of how the information is stored. Without this description of the file format, you would just be reading random combinations of bytes attempting to get some useful information out of it—not the most productive process.

The TGA file format is a relatively simple format, though it has some options which can get a bit complex in some cases. The purpose of this assignment is not make you a master of this particular image format, so a few shortcuts will be taken (more on those later). First, a quick look at the file format:

 

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