GEGL

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This article or section contains information about computer software currently in development. The content may change as the software development progresses.

GEGL (Generic Graphical Library) is a programming library under development for image processing applications. It is mainly developed to bring support for images with more than 8 bits per color channel to GIMP. It has been partially implemented in GIMP 2.6,^[1] and may be used by other software too.

GEGL uses directed acyclic graph of image operations (called operators) chained together, driven by an on-demand model where work is done only as required. (This enables potential features like having very quick previews while editing, and doing the same operations in full resolution for the final image in the background, like xRes.) The operators can be simple, such as "add" (taking two inputs) or "premultiply by alpha" (taking one input), or more complex, such as colorspace conversions.

GEGL will also provide a generic way to deal with color spaces. The idea is that the fundamental operations are abstracted away from the program in question; GEGL provides optimized and powerful (optionally with SIMD support) treatment of arbitrary color data. This enables an application to efficiently support a wide range of color spaces (from 8-bit RGB to full floating point CMYK) with minimal extra application code.

GEGL was originally conceived as a GIMP core replacement in 2000, but only in 2006 did it reach a stage where the external API is started to stabilize and its capabilities work well. On 2007-12-20, it was added to the development version of GIMP. Some of GIMP's features - mostly the tools which do modify colors, brightness or contrast - have already been converted to GEGL operators.

Historically, the GEGL mascot, a five legged goat envisioned and brought to life by George Lebl,^[2] found life as an easter egg in GNOME desktops.^[3]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• GEGL web site
• GEGL Mailing List Archives
• Øyvind Kolås, GEGL Lead Developer (2005-09-16). Letter to Mark Shuttleworth from GEGL Lead Developer Øyvind Kolås on the dysfunction of bounties (TXT). Retrieved on 2008-03-19. “Why do I plan to make GEGL fly? One thing is certain it is not to have the opportunity to write milestones and roadmaps for a library I don't intimately know and have to do administrative paperwork or such things, I get enough of those in my day-job. Which also provides funds to pay my bills; and provides for transport to some conferences each year.”