com.gif4j
Class GifDecoder

java.lang.Object
  com.gif4j.GifDecoder

public class GifDecoder

extends java.lang.Object

This java class allows loading and decoding of GIF images into GifImage(-s) from input streams, files and URLs. It can be useful if you are going to manipulate GIF image frames separately and/or extract GIF image format specific information including image size, number of frames, frames' sizes, frames' positions, color model, transparency, embedded comments etc.

The following example demostrates the common way to read GIF image from the file and extract some GIF image meta information:

Load GIF image from a file and extract GIF image meta information using Java and GifDecoder

 import com.gif4j.GifDecoder;
 import com.gif4j.GifFrame;
 import com.gif4j.GifImage;

 import java.awt.*;
 import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
 import java.awt.image.IndexColorModel;
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.util.Iterator;

 // ...

      public GifImage loadGifImageAndExtractMetaInfo(File file) throws IOException {
        // load and decode gif image from the input stream
        GifImage gifImage = GifDecoder.decode(file);
        // pring general GIF image info
        System.out.println("gif image format version: " + gifImage.getVersion());
        System.out.println("gif image logic screen width: " + gifImage.getScreenWidth());
        System.out.println("gif image logic screen height: " + gifImage.getScreenHeight());
        // check if one or more comments present
        if (gifImage.getNumberOfComments() > 0) {
            // get iterator over gif image textual comments
            Iterator commentsIterator = gifImage.comments();
            while (commentsIterator.hasNext())
                System.out.println(commentsIterator.next()); // print comments
        }
        System.out.println("number of frames: " + gifImage.getNumberOfFrames());
        // below we iterate frames in loop
        // but it also can by done using Iterator instance: gifImage.frames()
        for (int i = 0; i < gifImage.getNumberOfFrames(); i++) {
            System.out.println("------frame(" + (i + 1) + ")---------");
            GifFrame frame = gifImage.getFrame(i);
            System.out.println("width: " + frame.getWidth());
            System.out.println("height: " + frame.getHeight());
            System.out.println("position: " + frame.getX() + "," + frame.getY());
            System.out.println("disposal method: " + frame.getDisposalMethod());
            System.out.println("delay time: " + frame.getDelay());
            System.out.println("is interlaced: " + frame.isInterlaced());
            // get frame's color model
            IndexColorModel frameColorModel = frame.getColorModel();
            System.out.println("number of colors: " + frameColorModel.getMapSize());
            System.out.println("is transparent: " + frameColorModel.hasAlpha());
            System.out.println("transparent index: " + frameColorModel.getTransparentPixel());
            frameColorModel.getTransparency();
            //get frame's representation as an Image
            Image image = frame.getAsImage();
            //get frame's representation as an BufferedImage
            BufferedImage bufferedImage = frame.getAsBufferedImage();
        }
        return gifImage;
    }
 

Afterwards you can easily encode decoded GifImage instance using GifEncoder. The following example demostrates how you can add some comments to GIF images:

Add a comment to a GIF image using Java

 import com.gif4j.GifDecoder;
 import com.gif4j.GifEncoder;
 import com.gif4j.GifImage;

 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.IOException;

     // ...

     public void addCommentToGifImage(File file, String comment) throws IOException {
         //load and decode gif image from the file
         GifImage gifImage = GifDecoder.decode(file);
         // add comment
         gifImage.addComment(comment);
         // save commented gif image to the same file
         GifEncoder.encode(gifImage, file);
     }

 

Note: If you load GIF images for displaying purposes (for example to display as image icons within a swing application) then you should use the standard Java API: Toolkit.getImage(java.lang.String), Toolkit.createImage(byte[]) or javax.swing.ImageIcon.

The following specification "GRAPHICS INTERCHANGE FORMAT(sm) Version 89a" was referenced for the development of this java gif image decoder.
Some of the naming conventions and clarification of some aspects of GIF file format and LZW compression were obtained from the following:
LZW.C (Copyright 1989 Mark R. Nelson)
LZW data compression/expansion demonstration program (May 12, 1997)

Since:

2.0

Version:

1.0

Author:

Gif4J Software - Java GIF image processing solutions

See Also:

GifImage, GifFrame

Method Summary

static GifImage	decode(java.io.File input) Returns a loaded and decoded GifImage which gets its gif image data from the specified File.
static GifImage	decode(java.io.InputStream inputStream) Returns a loaded and decoded GifImage which gets its gif image data from the specified input stream.
static GifImage	decode(java.net.URL input) Returns a loaded and decoded GifImage which gets its gif image data from the specified URL.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

equals, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Method Detail

decode

public static final GifImage decode(java.io.File input)
                             throws java.io.IOException

Returns a loaded and decoded GifImage which gets its gif image data from the specified File.

Parameters:

input - a File to read from

Returns:

a GifImage which gets its gif image data from the specified File

Throws:

java.io.IOException - If an error occurs during reading or the specified File contains invalid gif image data

java.lang.NullPointerException - If a File is null

See Also:

GifImage

decode

public static final GifImage decode(java.io.InputStream inputStream)
                             throws java.io.IOException

Returns a loaded and decoded GifImage which gets its gif image data from the specified input stream.

Parameters:

inputStream - the input stream to use in fetching the gif image data

Returns:

a GifImage which gets its gif image data from the specified input stream

Throws:

java.io.IOException - If an error occurs during reading or the specified input stream contains invalid gif image data

java.lang.NullPointerException - If input stream is null

See Also:

GifImage

decode

public static final GifImage decode(java.net.URL input)
                             throws java.io.IOException

Returns a loaded and decoded GifImage which gets its gif image data from the specified URL.

Parameters:

input - a URL to read from

Returns:

a GifImage which gets its gif image data from the specified URL

Throws:

java.io.IOException - If an error occurs during reading or the specified URL contains invalid gif image data

java.lang.NullPointerException - If a URL is null

See Also:

GifImage