Image-Base

I've made some Image-Base uploads, extending Mark Summerfield's original. Past versions can be found at backpan under my dir and Mark Summerfield's dir.

Image::Base at cpan

And some extras in a separate,

Image-Base-Other -- text files, multiplexing

Then some subclasses to point Image::Base code at big drawing libraries, on-screen windows, etc.

Image-Base-GD -- PNG, JPEG and other formats
Image-Base-Gtk2 -- window drawing, pixbufs, various file formats
Image-Base-Imager -- various file formats
Image-Base-Imlib2 -- various file formats
Image-Base-Magick -- many file formats
Image-Base-PNGwriter -- PNG format
Image-Base-Prima -- window drawing and various file formats
Image-Base-SVG -- to SVG.pm module
Image-Base-Tk -- photo and canvas drawing
Image-Base-Wx -- image and DC drawing
Image-Base-X11-Protocol -- windows and pixmaps

It started with PNGwriter and GD as ways to generate PNG in a common style and avoid the oddities of each module, then got a bit carried away.

Other Image::Base modules include

Image::Xpm -- XPM format (pure Perl)
Image::Xbm -- XBM bitmap format (pure Perl)
Image::Pbm -- PBM/PGM/PPM formats (the "PNM" formats, using PBMlib)

The primitives in Image::Base are quite limited, but if a few lines and boxes are all you need then these modules mean you don't have to wrestle each library, or can let the user choose what's easiest to install, etc.

Here's some comparison notes if choosing among the various Perl image drawing modules,

Imager is interesting native Perl drawing (with C code helpers) supporting several file formats and extendable to more.
GD is a straightforward Perl wrapper for the GD library. It can do PNG, JPEG, GIF and more.
PNGwriter is C++ based and PNG-only. Its native coordinates have Y going up the screen, which is good for things like graph drawing though in the computer world it's normally Y downwards.
Imlib2 does all the basics, though as of 1.4.4 its ellipse() might be a bit dubious.
Prima draws using the X server (or the MS-DOS windows thing) then has its own file I/O. There's various file formats, including postscript file output in the printer support.
Perl-Tk also ends up needing an X server but doesn't use it for the drawing. It can do JPEG, XPM, XBM, GIF, BMP, PPM/PGM, and TIFF, plus some postscript out of a Canvas.
Gtk2-Perl pixbufs can read quite a few formats and write major ones like PNG, JPEG and TIFF, but there's no native pixel drawing operations to speak of. Unless already using Gtk it's probably too much to drag in.
ImageMagick is big and has nearly every file format under the sun and various drawing operations but takes some brain power to get used to the concepts and the Perl interface.
SVG module is a structured approach to writing SVG files. Simple SVG isn't hard to print directly. SVG::Parser probably allows updating of straightforward SVG files.

Support for nitty gritty details in the file formats tends to be a bit variable. Support for text comments etc in images is usually very limited, which is bad if you want to preserve or add copyright notices etc in a file. ExifTool is good for text parts, but even it may sometimes applies its own ideas of canonicalizing info parts, and its version 8.60 doesn't support Perl 5.8 wide-chars. pngtextadd is a simple way to add text comments into to PNG images after drawing.

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