See http://libopenraw.freedesktop.org/ for up to date information.
libopenraw is an ongoing project to provide a free software implementation for camera RAW files decoding. One of the main reason is that dcraw is not suited for easy integration into applications, and there is a need for an easy to use API to build free software digital image processing application.
It also has the goal to address missing feature from dcraw like meta-data decoding and easy thumbnail extraction.
Status
This is currently a work in progress. The only code available is in git. Once a release will be made, it will be announced here.
Planned feature
- Support for as much file format as possible. NEF, CRW, CR2 and DNG obviously as they are the most common (well DNG not really but it is "standard").
- Modular low level API that allow:
- Identify the file
- Parse the file
- Extract the meta-data and the previews
- Allow processing the RAW data in different way, including having them extracted for an application custom processor.
- High level API that allow:
Provide and standard thumbnail - Done
- Preprocess the file using standard parameters
- Extract the metadata as EXIF (and XMP)
- Convert to a DNG file
Plans
Get a basic thumbnail extractor for CR2, CRW, DNG, NEF, ORF - Done
- Get a basic metadata extractor for CR2, CRW, DNG, NEF, ORF
- Get a basic RAW processor for CR2, CRW, DNG, NEF, ORF
Getting code from git
- Anonymous git
git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/libopenraw.git
- For developers (needs authorization).
- Get a username if you don't have one:
See http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/AccountRequests for details.
- Check out the tree:
git clone git+ssh://git.freedesktop.org/git/libopenraw.git
- Get a username if you don't have one:
Links to documentation
Given how manufacturer document these formats, we have to reverse-engineer or use documentation issued from reverse engineering.
Implementation
dcraw the current reference implementation for RAW decoding.
jrawio a Java library that implements RAW image decoding
File format
RAW file standards try to match current standard with currently undocumented file formats and its summary.
TIFF on which DNG and apparently other RAW format are based on.
Adobe DNG a "standard" format that Adobe tries to push.
X3F Foveon, the Foveon partial documentation.
RAWpository archive of sample image data in RAW formats
Metadata
TBD
Communication
There is mailing list for developers available now. Visit http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libopenraw-dev to subscribe