COMES Image Format

This is an image format designed to be as bad and inefficient as possible. It is uncompressed, storing raw pixels just like BMP, and uses Polish words instead of binary data. Even for storing numbers.

Why?

No reason at all. This project exists solely for having fun, and learning parser optimization techniques. For you, there's no reason at all to use CIF, unless you want to rival my implementation :)

Installing

CIF needs Nim 1.4.2.

nimble install cif

This will install two executables, the encoder encif, and decoder decif. Usage:

encif [options] <input file> <output file>
decif [options] <input file> [output file]

Pass --help or -h to any one of those executables for more info.

You can try nim-logo.cif from this repository as an example.

Using CIF as a library

I mean, come on. There are better image formats out there. Go use stb_image, nimPNG, anything else, really.

…

Alright, fine, I'll show you how to use cif.nim in your program.

import std/streams

import cif

# To encode:
var output = openFileStream("out.cif", fmWrite)
output.encodeCif(width = 1920, height = 1080, channels = 4, flags = {cifPolish},
                 metadata = {"source": "my program"}, input = pixels)
# `channels` is the number of channels, and can be either 3 for RGB or
# 4 for RGBA.
# `metadata` is any sort of key-value metadata you want to embed in the file.
# Note that at the moment any flags other than cifPolish are unsupported.

# To decode:
var
  pixels: seq[uint8]
  width, height: Natural
  channels: 3..4
  flags: set[CifFlag]
  metadata: seq[(string, string)]

  input = openFileStream("in.cif", fmRead)

decodeCif(pixels, width, height, channels, flags, metadata, input)