Chapter 3. Applications: Image Viewers
Unlike, say, image converters or editors, there is generally not a great deal to say about a PNG-supporting image viewer other than that it does, in fact, display PNG images. Gamma correction is the primary “special” feature one would like; color correction and the ability to view text annotations would be nice as well, but the reality is that most image viewers concentrate more on speed and breadth of support for different image formats and display depths than on features specific to any one format.
The list of viewers presented here is likewise long on breadth and short on specifics, simply because testing every viewer for every platform--or even a reasonable fraction of them--is impractical. Gamma and text support are noted wherever known, as is the ability to convert to or from other formats, but this is primarily a laundry list of viewers, sorted by platform. The current version of each, as of this writing, is listed wherever possible.
It is even less practical to test every one in 2003 than it was in 1999; the
PNG web site now lists more than 90 additional viewers that either did not support or were not known to support PNG when the first edition went to press:
http://www.libpnq.org/pub/pnq/pnqapvw.html
The web page is updated regularly, but even so, it is guaranteed to be incomplete; PNG support is no longer remarkable, and new viewers are released all the time, usually without any mention of specific image formats. These days almost every image viewer (with the exception of some--but not allviewers for embedded devices) can be assumed to support PNG.
In addition to the viewing applications listed in the following discussion, two demo viewers are described in Chapter 13, “Reading PNG Images”, and Chapter 14, “Reading PNG Images Progressively”. They currently run under 32-bit Windows and Unix/X, and full source code is freely available. One other viewing application is also worth mentioning: Aladdin's Ghostscript, currently at version 5.50, which is (or has in the past been) available for every platform listed here. Ghostscript is a viewer for PostScript and Acrobat (PDF) files, but it can write PNG images and is therefore a special case.
3.1. Windows 95/98/NT
Version 2.3, ACD Systems. Full gamma support; progressive display of interlaced images (sparse method); older versions ignored the background chunk and incorrectly displayed grayscale images with alpha channels. Not tested recently.
http://www.acdsystems.com/paqes/acdsee32.htm
AI Picture Explorer
Version 1.2, Applied Insights. Conversion capabilities; can autogenerate web pages with thumbnail images.
http://users.aol.com/lqozum2/
AI Picture Utility
Alter Image 32
Version 1.0a, Nun's Meadow Software. Conversion capabilities.
http://web2.airmail.net/nunnally/altimq.htm
CPIC
Version 1.80 (“build 273”), Photodex. Conversion capabilities; claims gamma support. CPIC is also sometimes known as CompuPic.
http://www.photodex.com/products/cpic/cpic home.html
CryptaPix
Version 2.02, Briggs Softworks. Encryption capabilities. Versions prior to 2.0 were also available for Windows 3.x.
http://www.briqqsoft.com/cpix.htm
DeBabelizer Pro
Version 4.5, Equilibrium. Conversion capabilities; claims gamma support.
http://www.equilibrium.com/ProductInfo/DBPro/ProNewFeatures.html
Drag And View
FmView
Version 2.0, WinCorner. Integrates into Windows File Manager and Explorer.
http://www.wincorner.com/home/fmview.html
GIF Construction Set
GrafCat
Graphic Viewer
Graphic Workshop
Version 1.1Y, Alchemy Mindworks. Conversion capabilities; no gamma support in older versions. Not tested recently.
http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/qww.html
HiJaak PRO
Version 4.5, IMSI. Conversion capabilities, but apparently not to PNG. HiJaak was originally developed by Inset, which was acquired by Quarterdeck, which finally sold the product to IMSI.
http://www.imsisoft.com/hijaak/hijaak.html
Imagenation
Version 5.0, Spicer Corporation. Conversion capabilities.
http://www.spicer.com/product/imaqenation/imaqenation home.htm
ImgViewer/32
Version 2.31, Arcata Pet Software.[21] Conversion capabilities; claims gamma support. Related software includes WWPlus32 (multiformat wallpaper manager) and WWSaver32 (image-based screensaver).
http://www.arcatapet.com/imqv32.html
IrfanView32
KeyView Pro
Version 6.0, Verity. Conversion and Netscape plug-in capabilities. FTP Software sold KeyView to Verity late in 1997.
http://www.keyview.com/
Makaha
Version 1.6, Brandyware Software. Conversion capabilities.
http://members.aol.com/brandyware/makaha.htm
Photonyx Viewer
PicaView32
Version 1.3, ACD Systems. Integrates into Windows Explorer menus.
http://www.acdsystems.com/paqes/picaview32.htm
PicViewer
PixelGraphicLibrary demo viewer
Version 1.0 beta 5, Peter Beyersdorf. Principally an imaging toolkit, but includes a demo viewer app.
http://www.beyersdorf.com/pqraphe.html
PixFolio
PolyView
QuickTime PictureViewer
Version 3.0, Apple Computer. Full gamma and color-correction support via ColorSync; claims full alpha support (but not clear in what form). PictureViewer completely supersedes the Tiny Viewer demo app that Sam Bushell included with his QuickTime 2.5 PNG-Importer. Note that any QuickTime-aware application (even Apple's SimpleText) can be used to view PNG images if Qt3 is installed.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
Quick View Plus
Version 5.0, Jasc Software. This is software with history. Originally developed by Mastersoft as Viewer 95, both it and Mastersoft were acquired by Frame, which was almost immediately acquired by Adobe. The program and associated technologies were rereleased as Adobe File Utilities by Mastersoft in 1996, then sold to Inso in 1997. Inso gave the software its current name, but apparently sold or licensed the rights to the Windows version to Jasc in 1998. Inso still sells the Unix version and possibly the Windows version, but apparently only to government and “enterprise” customers.
http://www.jasc.com/qvp.html
Riptide Photo Studio
Showcase
ThumbsPlus
Version 3.30, Cerious Software. Conversion capabilities, but without the ability to write interlaced or transparent PNGs; possibly full gamma support; can autogenerate web pages with thumbnail images.
http://www.thumbsplus.com/
VidFun
WebGraphics Optimizer
Version 4.0, Plenio Software Solutions. Conversion capabilities; Version 2.x had broken support for two-bit images, no gamma support, and no control over compression level or filtering (to the extent that it would happily write an output file larger than the input). Not tested recently.
http://www.webopt.com/
3.2. Windows 3.x
ACDSee16
CPIC
Version 1.80 (“build 273”), Photodex. Conversion capabilities; claims gamma support. CPIC is also sometimes known as CompuPic.
http://www.photodex.com/products/cpic/cpic home.html
Drag And View
“Gold” version (possibly 1.3), Canyon Software. If the download filename, dragvu13.zip, can be trusted, and if the version numbering is the same as that for the 32-bit Windows version discussed earlier, then the 16-bit version may not include PNG support after all.
http://www.canyonsw.com/dnv.htm
GIF Construction Set
GrafCat
Graphic Workshop
Version 1.1Y, Alchemy Mindworks. Conversion capabilities; no gamma support in older versions. Not tested recently.
http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/qww.html
GraphX Viewer
Version 1.51 only, Group 42. Conversion capabilities; full gamma support. Group 42 is the company for which Guy Schalnat worked while he wrote the first version of libpng. Unfortunately, there has been no further PNG-related work since he left.
Imagenation
Version 5.0, Spicer Corporation. Conversion capabilities.
http://www.spicer.com/product/imaqenation/imaqenation home.htm
KeyView Pro
Version 6.0, Verity. Conversion and Netscape plug-in capabilities. FTP Software sold KeyView to Verity late in 1997.
http://www.keyview.com/
PicaView16
Version 1.6, ACD Systems. Integrates into Windows File Manager.
http://www.acdsystems.com/pages/picaview16.htm
PixFolio
QuickShow Lite
Quick View Plus
Version 5.0, Jasc Software. See its earlier listing in the 32-bit Windows section for a brief history.
http://www.jasc.com/qvp.html
ThumbsPlus
Version 3.30, Cerious Software. Conversion capabilities, but without the ability to write interlaced or transparent PNGs; possibly full gamma support; can autogenerate web pages with thumbnail images.
http://www.thumbsplus.com/
VidFun
Viewer Pro!
Version 4.2, Brandyware Software. Conversion capabilities.
http://members.aol.com/brandyware/viewer.htm
3.3. VMS
The selection of PNG-supporting image viewers for VMS (or OpenVMS nowadays) is rather limited; indeed, I am aware of only two viewers, both ports of popular Unix/X viewers:
ImageMagick display
Version 4.2.0, John Cristy. Conversion capabilities (mostly via accompanying convert utility); full gamma support; reported to include chromaticity support; partial MNG support. There is also a 32-bit Windows port, but it requires a third-party X server to run.
http://www.wizards.dupont.com/cristy/ImaqeMaqick.html
XV
Version 3.10a, John Bradley. Conversion capabilities, including interlacing support but without the ability to write transparent PNGs; full gamma support; preserves text information. XV is widely considered to be the preeminent image viewer for the X Window System. The only major drawback is that it was last released in December 1994, five days before the CompuServe/Unisys GIF announcement that began the PNG saga, and therefore does not include PNG support in the default distribution. Fortunately, it is available as C source code, and the home page includes not only the PNG patch but also several others, so it can be recompiled and tweaked at will. An upcoming patch will allow an image-background color to be set, similar to the -bgcolor option in the demo viewers in Chapter 13, “Reading PNG Images” and Chapter 14, “Reading PNG Images Progressively”.
http://www.trilon.com/xv/
3.4. Unix
Version 3.0 beta, Caldera Graphics. Conversion capabilities; claims full 16-bit-per-sample support and strongly implies full gamma and color correction, including ICC profiles.
http://www.caldera.fr/en/cameleo/
Electric Eyes
Red Hat Advanced Development Labs. Electric Eyes is a new, Linux/GNOME-based image viewer by The Rasterman (who's perhaps better known for his spectacularly fancy Enlightenment desktop). It is also one of the prototype applications for Imlib, an X-based imaging toolkit described in Chapter 16, “Other Libraries and Concluding Remarks”.
http://www.labs.redhat.com/ee.shtml
GRAV
Version 3.5, Michael Knigge. Broken support for 24-bit images. GRAV is a non-X-based image viewer for Linux, similar to Zgv, later in this list; it uses svgalib to display on a Linux console. It has not been updated since January 1996 and apparently is no longer under development.
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/qraphics/viewers/svqa/qrav-3.5.tar.qz
Image Alchemy
Version 1.11, Handmade Software. Conversion capabilities (in fact, primarily a command-line conversion tool); claims full alpha support, gamma support, and support for ICC profiles via ColorSync. Note that only the versions for DOS and Macintosh and the commercial versions for Sun, SGI, and HP workstations include viewing capability.
http://www.handmadesw.com/hsi/alchemy.html
ImageMagick display
Version 4.2.0, John Cristy. Conversion capabilities (mostly via accompanying convert utility); full gamma support; partial MNG support. There is also a 32-bit Windows port, but it requires a third-party X server to run.
http://www.wizards.dupont.com/cristy/ImaqeMaqick.html
Photon Picture Viewer/pv
QNX Software Systems. No gamma support; QNX only. The Photon Picture Viewer is part of the Photon microGUI and can be downloaded as part of QNX's 1.44 MB “Internet Appliance” demo diskette.
http://www.qnx.com/products/photon/
PingPong
Version 1.28, Willem van Schaik. Conversion capabilities (PNG to TIFF only, apparently, with preservation of alpha/transparency); NeXTStep and OpenStep only.
http://www.schaik.com/pinqponq/
Quick View Plus
Version 4.5, Inso. There is also a version 5.0 for Windows, sold by Jasc Software; see the listing in the 32-bit Windows section for at least part of the strange story.
http://www.inso.com/qvp/
ToyViewer
Version 3.02, Takeshi Ogihara. Conversion capabilities; transparency support; support for writing text comments; NeXTstep and OpenStep only. The latest NeXTStep version is 2.6a.
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~hq2t-oqhr/next/toyv-enq.html
Viewpng
Version of May 9, 1997, Glenn Randers-Pehrson. Full alpha and gamma support; partial (out-of-date) MNG support; SGI IRIX only. Viewpng requires the separate pnggzip utility (included) for its compression and decompression.
ftp://swrinde.nde.swri.edu/pub/mnq/applications/sqi/
xli
Version 1.16, Graeme Gill. Like XV, the next entry, xli (a modified version of xloadimage) has not been updated since 1994, before PNG was born. But it is available as C source code from ftp://ftp.x.org/ and elsewhere, and a PNG patch by Smarasderagd has been available for years, so compiling a PNG-capable version is straightforward.
http://web.access.net.au/arqyll/xli.html http://www.reptiles.orq/~smar/xli-pnq.tar.qz
XV
Version 3.10a, John Bradley. Conversion capabilities, including interlacing support but without the ability to write transparent PNGs; full gamma support; preserves text information. XV is widely considered to be the preeminent image viewer for the X Window System.[22] The only major drawback is that it was last released in December 1994, five days before the CompuServe/Unisys GIF announcement that began the PNG saga and therefore does not include PNG support in the default distribution. Fortunately, it is available as C source code, and the home page includes not only the PNG patch but also several others, so it can be recompiled and tweaked at will. An upcoming patch will allow an image-background color to be set, similar to the -bgcolor option in the demo viewers in Chapter 13, “Reading PNG Images” and Chapter 14, “Reading PNG Images Progressively”.
http://www.trilon.com/xv/
Zgv
Version 3.0, Russell Marks. Zgv is a non-X-based image viewer for Linux, similar to GRAV, earlier in this list; it uses svgalib to display on a Linux console.
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/qraphics/viewers/svqa/zqv3.0-bin.tar.qz
3.5. OS/2
Version 2.31, Bitware Australia. Conversion capabilities in registered version.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepaqes/bitware/
PMJPEG
Version 1.9 only, PixVision Software. No alpha support; claims gamma support. Version 1.83 is the last version available as shareware from the web site; it is not clear whether version 1.9 was actually released or not.
http://www.pixvision.com/html/product info 1.html
PMView
Version 1.02, Peter Nielsen. Conversion capabilities; claims gamma support. Despite its seemingly interminable pre-1.0 beta period, PMView was probably the most popular image viewer for 32-bit OS/2.[23]
http://www.pmview.com/
3.6. Macintosh
Version 1.80 (“build 280”), Photodex. Conversion capabilities; claims gamma support. CPIC is also sometimes known as CompuPic.
http://www.photodex.com/products/cpic/cpic home.html
DeBabelizer
Version 3.0, Equilibrium. Conversion capabilities; claims gamma support.
http://www.equilibrium.com/ProductInfo/DB3/DB3NewFeatures.html
GIFConverter
Version 2.4, Kevin Mitchell. Conversion capabilities; no transparency, gamma or text support.
http://www.kamit.com/qifconverter/
GraphicConverter
Version 3.4.1, Lemke Software. Conversion capabilities; claims alpha and gamma support.
http://www.lemkesoft.de/us qcabout.html
Image32
Image Alchemy
Version 1.11, Handmade Software. Conversion capabilities (in fact, primarily a conversion tool); claims full alpha support, gamma support and support for ICC profiles via ColorSync. Note that only the versions for DOS and Macintosh and the commercial versions for Sun, SGI, and HP workstations include viewing capability.
http://www.handmadesw.com/hsi/alchemy.html
QuickTime PictureViewer
Version 3.0, Apple Computer. Full gamma and color-correction support via ColorSync; claims full alpha support (but not clear in what form). PictureViewer completely supersedes the Tiny Viewer demo app that Sam Bushell included with his QuickTime 2.5 PNG-Importer. Note that any QuickTime-aware application (even Apple's SimpleText) can be used to view PNG images if Qt3 is installed.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
ThumbsPlus
Beta 11/version 3.10, Cerious Software. Conversion capabilities, but without the ability to write interlaced or transparent PNGs; possibly full gamma support; can autogenerate web pages with thumbnail images.
http://www.thumbsplus.com/http://www.thumbsplus.com/macbeta.htm
3.7. Java
As of January 1999 there were two Java viewers available, but with the recent addition of PNG support to the Java Advanced Imaging API, PNG-viewing capability can be expected soon in numerous Java applications and applets.
PNGImageViewer
PngThing
Sergey Kucherov. Requires Java (JDK) 1.1 or later.
http://users.luckynet.co.il/~serqe3/pnqthinq/PnqThinq.html
3.8. DOS
Version 9.04, Bob Berry.[24] Conversion capabilities; gamma support; progressive display of interlaced images. Related software includes CompuShow 2000.
ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/qraphics/cshow904.zipftp://ftp.simtel
Display
Version 1.90t5 beta or 1.89, Jih-Shin Ho. Conversion capabilities; gamma support. Development apparently ended in June 1997.
ftp://ftp.edu.tw/Graphics/Display/http://fn2.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/~crnelson/
Graphic Workshop
Version 7.0f, Alchemy Mindworks. Conversion capabilities. Version 7.0f was the first and last DOS release to have PNG support. See also the 16-bit and 32-bit Windows versions earlier in this chapter.
http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/qws.html
Image Alchemy
Version 1.11, Handmade Software. Conversion capabilities (in fact, primarily a command-line conversion tool); claims full alpha support, gamma support, and support for ICC profiles via ColorSync. Note that only the versions for DOS and Macintosh and the commercial versions for Sun, SGI, and HP workstations include viewing capability.
http://www.handmadesw.com/hsi/alchemy.html
NView
Version 1.5f, Jacques Nomssi Nzali. Development apparently ended in June 1996.
http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~nomssi/nview.html
PictView
Version 1.80, Jan Patera. Conversion capabilities, but PNG support is read-only.
http://pascal.fjfi.cvut.cz/~patera/pictview/http://www.qeocities.com/SiliconVa
QPV/386
Version 1.7e, Oliver Fromme. QPV/386 is a multipurpose image viewer known for its speed; QPNG/386 is its free, PNG- and TGA-only sibling. Development on both apparently ended in November 1996.
http://www.tu-clausthal.de/~inof/q.htmlftp://ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/msdos/mir
SEA
Version 1.34, Bart Wakkee, Ralph Gortzen, and Harold de Laat (distributed by Photodex). Conversion capabilities.
http://www.photodex.com/products/dos/dos home.html#sea
3.9. BeOS
In addition to the following three viewers, Al Evans's BePNG and Jeremy Moskovich's BeShow were once available. But incompatibilities in the development versions of BeOS took their toll, and the two viewers were never updated to work with BeOS releases more recent than DR8 or DR9; they have since been moved to the “obsolete” area of Be's FTP site. BePNG was unique in having native support for PNG; all of the others use the datatypes facility developed by Jon Watte and later incorporated into the operating system as the BeOS translation kit. PNG support is provided via Simon Clarke's BPNGHandler:
http://www.be.com/beware/Datatypes/PNGHandler.html
It appeared in October 1998 that PNGHandler might have been renamed to PNGTranslator as of version 1.20 (see also the discussion in Chapter 16, “Other Libraries and Concluding Remarks”), but as of February 1999, the web page still referred to the original name.
DTPicView
Version 3.1.0, Edmund Vermeulen.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~edmundv/#DTPicViewhttp://www.be.com/beware/Graphics/DTPi
LiView
QuickPic
Version 0.90, Frank Fejes. Development apparently ended in February 1997; the app was never updated to work with BeOS versions more recent than DR8.
http://yoss.canweb.net/~frank/QuickPic/
3.10. Atari
GEM-View
Version 3.18, Dieter Fiebelkorn. GEM-View can view and save PNG images if Eric Prevoteau's PNG load/save modules have been installed.
http://www.castrop-rauxel.netsurf.de/homepaqes/dieter.fiebelkorn/GEMVIEW.HTML ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/atari/Graphics/qvw pnq.lzh
3.11. Amiga
The Amiga includes a lovely facility known as datatypes, basically an extension of normal shared libraries (or DLLs) to provide generic data handling capabilities. With this facility, any datatypes-aware program--whether viewer, web browser, or image editor--can be extended after the fact, simply by adding the appropriate datatype for whatever new format comes along. In the case of PNG, two datatypes are available: Cloanto's and Andreas Kleinert's:
http://www.aminet.orq/pub/aminet/util/dtype/PNG dt.lhahttp://www.aminet.orq/pu
Except where noted, all of the Amiga image viewers that follow require one of these datatypes for PNG support. (Indeed, there are probably many other datatypes-based viewers that are not listed here.)
Image Engineer
Version 3.41, Simon Edwards. Conversion capabilities. Image Engineer uses the SuperView Library (see Chapter 16, “Other Libraries and Concluding Remarks”) for its image support instead of datatypes.
http://amiqaworld.com/support/imaqeenqineer/
Multiview
Amiga. Multiview was apparently a standard, datatypes-aware viewer shipped as part of the Amiga operating system.
PPShow
Version 4.0, Nico François. Insofar as its last release was in February 1994--more than a year before the PNG specification was frozen--PPShow is a fine example of the power of Amiga datatypes.
http://www.aminet.orq/pub/aminet/qfx/show/PPShow40.lha
SViewII
Version 8.10, Andreas Kleinert. Conversion capabilities. Formerly known as SuperView, SViewII includes the SuperView Library (discussed in Chapter 16, “Other Libraries and Concluding Remarks”) for all image I/O, instead of datatypes, despite the fact that Andreas wrote one of the available datatypes.
http://home.t-online.de/home/Andreas Kleinert/sview.htm
ViewDT
Cloanto. ViewDT is a demo viewer included with Cloanto's PNG datatype; source code is included. Cloanto also once had a viewer called Personal View, but it no longer seems to exist.
http://www.aminet.orq/pub/aminet/util/dtype/PNG dt.lha
ViewTEK
Visage
Version 39.21, Magnus Holmgren. Visage has had native PNG support since version 39.12.
http://www.alqonet.se/~lear/visaqe.html
3.12. Acorn RISC OS
Although there are undoubtedly other image viewers available for the Archimedes, discovering them is tricky for those who are unacquainted with Acorn software sites. But at least one PNG-capable viewer exists:
Translator
Version 8.00, John Kortink. Conversion capabilities.
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/J.Kortink/indexsw.htm
[21] Wacky fact: Arcata Pet Software's name comes from the associated pet store and supply shop.
[22] In fact, it is my preferred viewer.
[23] It was definitely my preferred OS/2 viewer.
[24] Contrary to the claim in the first edition of this book, Bob was not the inventor of the GIF image format, so one should not consider him the grandfather of PNG. (It's good to keep these things straight.)
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