Shoutbox

Any progress update. Any prealpha we can test?

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Originally posted by bostonfanx
Any progress update. Any prealpha we can test?

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*sigh* If you read the above threads you should understand perfectly well that it's impossible for any alpha to be tested.. =/
I have no way as to send the picture yet, so please.

I wish I would have found this thread earlier... (partly because reading the last 5 pages just to see if you had allready tried what I'm about to say was a pain)

some time ago I read about some guy who had developed a way of representing data as truecolor pixels, how about making the top row of pixels in the display picture tell the plugin the IP and port where it can obtain the animated image (P2P style)?

when I read what I just wrote I realize it doesn't solve the problem of adding it to the list of pictures (you'd have to ask the user to manually add the modified picture containing the data I guess), but maybe it'll do some good..

Oh, and never ever let computer-stuff take over your life. I your family or what ever needs time, take that time and get stuff sorted, take more than enough time. I know a guy who allways made computers top-priority in his life, and he's not exactly doing good at the moment..
(i.e. if you feel you don't have time to work on this project, don't push things)

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Originally posted by ironlink
Oh, and never ever let computer-stuff take over your life.

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Exactly why this project isn't really coming off of the ground. Sorry people.

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Originally posted by ironlink
how about making the top row of pixels in the display picture tell the plugin the IP and port where it can obtain the animated image (P2P style)?

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That's actually a very good idea, but it would mean I'll need to divert from the protocol, and build my own connection. I would prefer to keep all data in one protocol, as to prevent things from getting overly confusing later on.
Yet, if it turns out that setting a display picture manually without getting MSN Messenger from bypassing its IMG => RAW => PNG step, it might be open for conscidderation. Thank you for your input =)

*edits first post*

Indeed nice suggestion. And that made me think "How to include data in pixels (actual imagedata) without altering the actual pixel?". Well in PNG this IS possible . But you need to know the PNG format very well for that. The trick is to use an alpha-palette.

As you know PNG's supports transparency. Normaly the pixeldata of a PNG with full transparency is stored like this: R G B A R G B A R G B A R G B A... Where RGB is the obvious red/green/blue value, and A is the transparency level. Now altering the transparency level here will result in different pixelshades, so that's no good.

But PNG also supports alpha-palette's. This means that the colors and transparency aren't stored in the pixeldata but in the palette. So, a palette is created and the pixeldata doesn't contain the R G B values but an index to the palette instead. This also means that you can have palette entries which you don't actually use in the image! And here we have our "space" to add the data Create an alpha-palette-PNG and add some extra palette entries where you will store your data.

Backdraw, I dunno if Messenger supports these PNG's, and if it does, how they are handled. But since the palette is a important part of an image, I actually have good hopes for it...

more info:
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/

Note: but implementing this will need a great effort. You need to "read in" the PNG's (DP's) and convert them to an alpha-palette-png (<= not easy), add some palette entries and write the "new format" (including compression! etc. <= totaly not easy)...



EDIT:
[OFFTOPIC]
lol, this brings back memories of a big Belgian contest held back in the mid 90's. Some computer magazine (can't remember which) made a thick article spread over several issues about hidden data in normal computer files and how it can be used. They held a contest to find the hidden data in some common files, like Word docs, images, databases, etc. It opened up whole new ideas and very nice systems of hiding data. It was the hot topic to talk about in Belgian computer world lol, I remember finding some funny hidden picture of the author of the article in a ZIP file.....
[/OFFTOPIC]

hope, once again

Atlast we have a plan - keep us updated

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
This also means that you can have palette entries which you don't actually use in the image!

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If I understand this correctly, you want to add hidden data to the image colour palette. Entries which aren't refered to by the actual image data.
I don't think that'll work since when MSN Messenger converts the image to a RAW image, these entries which aren't used will be completely lost (as they have no representation in the visible content of the image). I don't think when Messenger converts images to RAW, that it also keeps track of all the palette entries, if any.

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Originally posted by lhunath
If I understand this correctly, you want to add hidden data to the image colour palette. Entries which aren't refered to by the actual image data.

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correct

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Originally posted by lhunath
I don't think that'll work since when MSN Messenger converts the image to a RAW image, these entries which aren't used will be completely lost (as they have no representation in the visible content of the image). I don't think when Messenger converts images to RAW, that it also keeps track of all the palette entries, if any.

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I dunno... depends on how Messenger defines "raw". Palettes are part of raw image data in a sense. I dunno what the actual "raw image"-format looks like and if Messenger converts palette entries (pixelindex) to pixeldata (RGBA) or not. We know it strips most parts of the PNG, but do you know if it also strips the palettes? If so, then indeed that method will not work.


IIRC, but I can be wrong, then PNG's with alpha-palettes can have 65536 (!) possible values of the transparency instead of the 256 possebilities of the normal RGBA-method. So in a sense, if Messenger converts the alpha-palette to RGBA, it will loose information in the actual image, and I dunno if it does that or not... maybe trying to add a true alpha-palette enabled image to the DP's and checking it's format afterwards will tell this...

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
know if it also strips the palettes? If so, then indeed that method will not work.

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I recon since it destroys any kind of transparancy that it converts it all to RGB; or some kind of BMP-rawness.