[FLOW3-core] Graphics library (v4 and v5)

[Jigal van Hemert]

Hi,

In Berlin (TYPO3 v4.6 kick-off) it was announced that only recent 
versions of ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick will be supported in that 
version. The graphics functions need some cleaning up and I assigned 
that task to myself.

Robert (here comes the FLOW3 part ;-) ) said that he was looking at Zeta 
Components [1] [2] for image handling (thumbnails to be precisely). We 
briefly discussed the possibilities of using it in v4 too.

I have taken a good look at it and especially at the parts we need to 
change and add for v4. I especially like the way it uses handlers to 
transparently let ImageMagick or GD handle various functions.
On the downside it silently ignores operations which the handler doesn't 
support and we need to modify the way it handles ImageMagick plus we 
need to add a complete handler for GraphicsMagick.

Later I encountered a newer library called Imagine [3]. This takes a bit 
different approach and uses the PHP modules Imagick and Gmagick to 
communicate with ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick. Because this library 
passes an image resource object around to combine operations on the same 
image, it is rather complicated to add support for the command line 
version of ImageMagick / GraphicsMagick.

To make a long story short, I started work on a unified graphics library 
for TYPO3 v4. I will try to support GD library, IM/GM command line and 
Imagick/Gmagick PHP modules for all operations (inspired by both Zeta 
Components and Imagine).  It will support priorities to select the 
'best' handler for each operation.

Maybe this is interesting for FLOW3, so I would like to know if there 
are things to take into consideration which are important for FLOW3?

[1] 
http://incubator.apache.org/zetacomponents/documentation/trunk/ImageAnalysis/tutorial.html
[2] 
http://incubator.apache.org/zetacomponents/documentation/trunk/ImageConversion/tutorial.html
[3] https://github.com/avalanche123/Imagine

-- 
Kind regards / met vriendelijke groet,

Jigal van Hemert.