This is Magick++, the object-oriented C++ API to the ImageMagick image-processing library, the most comprehensive open-source image processing solution available. Read the release notes for Magick++. Magick++ supports an object model which is inspired by PerlMagick. Magick++ executes faster than PerlMagick since it is accessed from a compiled language rather than from a scripting language. This makes it more suitable for Web CGI programs which must start-up and execute quickly. Images support implicit reference counting so that copy constructors and assignment incur almost no cost. The cost of actually copying an image (if necessary) is done just before modification and this copy is managed automatically by Magick++. De-referenced copies are automatically deleted. The image objects support value (rather than pointer) semantics so it is trivial to support multiple generations of an image in memory at one time. Magick++ provides integrated support for the Standard Template Library (STL) so that the powerful containers available (e.g. deque, vector, list, and map) can be used to write programs similar to those possible with PERL & PerlMagick. STL-compatable template versions of ImageMagick's list-style operations are provided so that operations may be performed on multiple images stored in STL containers. Documentation Detailed documentation are provided for all Magick++ classes, class methods, and template functions which comprise the API. Obtaining Magick++ Magick++ is included as part of ImageMagick source releases and may be retrieved via ftp or Subversion. Installation Once you have the sources available, follow these detailed installation instructions for UNIX and Windows. Usage A helper script named Magick++-config is installed under Unix which assists with recalling compilation options required to compile and link programs which use Magick++. For example, the following command will compile and link the source file example.cpp to produce the executable example (notice that quotes are backward quotes): c++ `Magick++-config --cxxflags --cppflags --ldflags --libs` \ -o example example.cpp Windows users may get started by manually editing a project file for one of the Magick++ demo programs. Reporting Bugs Please report any bugs via the Magick++ Bug Tracking System at http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/. Related Packages Users who are interested in displaying their images at video game rates on a wide number of platforms and graphic environments (e.g. Windows, X11, BeOS, and Linux/CGI) may want to try PtcMagick, which provides a simple interface between Magick++ and OpenPTC.