Proposals:ImageIO API for GUI Support

ImageIO API for GUI Support

The Need

When building GUI applications based on ITK, it is common to use the ImageFileReader and ImageFileWriter classes, that through the ImageIO Factories are capable of supporting a large number of image file formats.

There are in fact, so many file formats supported, that it is challenging to list them all in the File Dialog of a GUI at the application level.

Current Support

Currently the ImageIO classes support the GUI interfaces by providing the following API

 ArrayOfExtensionsType GetSupportedWriteExtensions() const
 ArrayOfExtensionsType GetSupportedReadExtensions() const
 void AddSupportedWriteExtension( const char * extension  )
 void AddSupportedReadExtension( const char * extension )

Proposed API

Enumeration of Extensions

• Suggested API for the ImageIO classes
  • unsigned int GetNumberOfExtensions() const;
  • std::string GetNthExtension(unsigned int) const

Translation Table for Writing

ImageIO	Description	Family	Extension
AnalyzeImageIO	Uncompressed header in binary	Analyze	.hdr
	Uncompressed pixel data in binary	Analyze	.img
	Compressed pixel data in binary	Analyze	.img.gz
BMPImageIO	Uncompressed pixel data in binary with text header	BMP	.bmp
	Uncompressed pixel data in binary with text header	BMP	.BMP
BioRadImageIO	Binary header followed by pixel data in binary	BioRad	.pic
Brains2MaskImageIO	Binary Mask Octree-encoded	Brains2	.mask
DICOMImageIO2	Deprecated	DICOM	none
GDCMImageIO	DICOM 2D, 3D and 4D	DICOM	.dcm
	DICOM 2D, 3D and 4D	DICOM	none
GE4ImageIO	??	GE4	.??
GE5ImageIO	??	GE5	.??
GEAwImageIO	??	GEAw	.??
GiplImageIO	??	GIPL	.??
IPLImageIO	??	IPL	.??
JPEGImageIO	Compressed pixel data in binary	JPEG	.jpg
LSMImageIO	??	LSM	.??
MetaImageIO	ASCII Text Header	MetaImage	.mhd
NiftiImageIO	Uncompressed pixel data in binary	Nifti	.img
NrrdImageIO	Uncompressed pixel data in binary	NRRD	.nrrd
PNGImageIO	Uncompressed pixel data in binary	NRRD	.png
RawImageIO	Uncompressed pixel data in binary	NRRD	.raw
SiemensVisionImageIO	Uncompressed pixel data in binary	NRRD	.??
StimulateImageIO	Uncompressed pixel data in binary	NRRD	.??
TIFFImageIO	Compressed pixel data in binary	NRRD	.tiff
VTKImageIO	Text header followed by uncompressed pixel data in binary	NRRD	.vtk