4D Doc Center : Pictures

4D v13.4

Native Formats Supported

4D integrates native management of picture formats. This means that pictures will be displayed and stored in their original format, without any interpretation in 4D. The specific features of the different formats (shading, transparent areas, etc.) will be retained when they are copied and pasted, and will be displayed without alteration. This native support is valid for all pictures stored in 4D: library pictures, pictures pasted into forms in Design mode, pictures pasted into fields or variables in Application mode, etc.

Beginning with version 12, 4D uses native APIs to encode and decode pictures (fields and variables) under both Windows and Mac OS. These implementations provide access to numerous native forms, including the RAW format, currently used by digital cameras.

Under Windows, 4D uses WIC (Windows Imaging Component). WIC natively supports the following formats: BMP, PNG, ICO (decoding only), JPEG, GIF, TIFF and WDP (Microsoft Windows Digital Photo).
It is possible to use additional formats such as JPEG-2000 by installing third-party WIC codecs.

Under Mac OS, 4D uses ImageIO. All the available ImageIO codecs are therefore natively supported for decoding (reading) as well as encoding (writing):

Decoding	Encoding
public.jpeg	public.jpeg
com.compuserve.gif	com.compuserve.gif
public.png	public.png
public.jpeg-2000	public.jpeg-2000
com.nikon.raw-image	public.tiff
com.pentax.raw-image	com.adobe.photoshop.image
com.sony.arw-raw-image	com.adobe.pdf
com.adobe.raw-image	com.microsoft.bmp
public.tiff com.canon.crw-raw-image	com.truevision.tga-image
com.canon.cr2-raw-image	com.sgi.sgi-image
com.canon.tif-raw-image	com.apple.pict
com.sony.raw.image	com.ilm.openexr-image
com.olympus.raw-image
com.konicaminolta.raw-image
com.panasonic.raw-image
com.fuji.raw-image
com.adobe.photoshop-image
com.adobe.illustrator.ai-image
com.adobe.pdf
com.microsoft.ico
com.microsoft.bmp
com.truevision.tga-image
com.sgi.sgi-image
com.apple.quicktime-image
com.apple.icns
com.apple.pict
com.apple.macpaint-image
com.kodak.flashpix-image
public.xbitmap-image
com.ilm.openexr-image
public.radiance

Under Windows as under Mac OS, the formats supported vary according to the operating system and the custom codecs that are installed on the machines. To find out which codecs are available, you must use the PICTURE CODEC LIST command.

Note: WIC and ImageIO permit the use of metadata in pictures. Two commands, SET PICTURE METADATA and GET PICTURE METADATA, let you benefit from metadata in your developments.

Note: If 4D cannot interpret the picture format, the program calls on Quicktime routines (see below).

Picture Codec IDs

Picture formats recognized by 4D are returned by the PICTURE CODEC LIST command as picture Codec IDs. They can be returned in three different forms:

As an extension (for example “.gif”)
As a Mime type (for example “image/jpeg”)
As a 4-character QuickTime code (for example “PNTG”)
The form returned for each format will depend on the way the Codec is recorded at the operating system level.
Most of the 4D picture management commands can receive a Codec ID as a parameter. It is therefore imperative to use the system ID returned by the PICTURE CODEC LIST command.

Coordinates for Clicks on a Picture

4D lets you retrieve the local coordinates of a click on a picture field or variable, even if a scroll or zoom has been applied to the picture.
The click coordinates are returned in the MouseX and MouseY system variables. The coordinates are expressed in pixels with respect to the top left corner of the picture (0,0). You must get the value of these variables as part of the On Clicked or On Double Clicked form event. In order for this mechanism to work properly, the display format must be set to "Truncated non-centered" (see the OBJECT SET FORMAT command).
This mechanism, similar to that of a picture map, can be used, for example, to handle scrollable button bars or the interface of cartography software.

Picture Operators

4D allows you to carry out operations on 4D pictures, such as concatenation, superimposing, etc. This point is covered in the Picture Operators section.

Using Apple QuickTime with 4D

4D can use Apple QuickTime routines to manage picture storage and display in databases.
Under Mac OS, QuickTime is integrated into the operating system, no extension is required.
Under Windows, 4D requires QuickTime version 4 (or higher) to be installed in order for you to be able to use picture compression/decompression on this platform.

Compatibility Note: The QT LOAD COMPRESS PICTURE FROM FILE, QT COMPRESS PICTURE FILE and QT COMPRESS PICTURE commands call upon obsolete mechanisms. They can be favorably replaced by the WRITE PICTURE FILE, PICTURE TO BLOB or CONVERT PICTURE commands. Moreover, commands that call on disk files (QT LOAD COMPRESS PICTURE FROM FILE and QT COMPRESS PICTURE FILE) will not work under Windows, no matter what version of QuickTime is installed.

Picture Conversion and Compression Errors

When you try to use a picture conversion or compression command and QuickTime is not installed in your system, 4D returns the error code -9955. Other errors generated by QuickTime can also be returned. You can catch these errors using an error-handling method installed with ON ERR CALL.