Summary

Gmicky, the G'MIC mascot, by Mahvin. Gmicky, the G'MIC mascot (by Mahvin)

G'MIC stands for GREYC's Magic Image Converter. This project aims to : Define a lightweight but powerful script language (G'MIC) dedicated to the design of image processing pipelines. Provide an interpreter of this language, distributed as a C++ open-source library embeddable in third-party applications. Propose three usable binary tools embedding this interpreter : The command-line executable gmic to use the G'MIC framework from a shell. In this setting, G'MIC may be seen as a direct (and friendly) competitor of the ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick software suites. The interactive and extensible plug-in gmic_gimp to bring G'MIC capabilities to the image retouching software GIMP. ZArt, a real-time interface for webcam images manipulation. G'MIC is focused on the design of possibly complex pipelines for converting, manipulating, filtering and visualizing generic 1d/2d/3d multi-spectral image datasets. This includes of course color images, but also more complex data as image sequences or 3d(+t) volumetric float-valued datasets. G'MIC is an open framework : the default language can be extended with custom G'MIC-written commands, defining thus new available image filters or effects. By the way, G'MIC already contains a substantial set of pre-defined image processing algorithms and pipelines (more than 1000). G'MIC has been designed with portability in mind and runs on different platforms (Windows, Unix, MacOSX). It is distributed under the CeCILL license (GPL-compatible). Since 2008, it is developed in the Image Team of the GREYC laboratory, in Caen/France, by permanent researchers working in the field of image processing on a daily basis.

Main features

G'MIC defines a complete image processing framework, and thus can manage generic image data as other image-related tools. Anyway, the specific features described below make it a bit particular :

• It internally works with lists of images. Image manipulations and interactions can be done either grouped or focused on specific items.


• It can process a wide variety of image types, including multi-spectral (arbitray number of channels) and 3d volumetric images, as well as image sequences, or 3d vector objects. Images with different pixel types are supported, allowing to process flawlessly images with 8bits or 16bits integers per channel, as well as float-valued datasets.


• It provides small but efficient visualization modules dedicated to the exploration/viewing of 2d/3d multi-spectral images, 3d vector objects (elevation map, isocurves, isosurfaces,...), or 1d graph plots.


• It proposes commands to handle custom interactive windows where events can be managed easily by the user.


• It is highly extensible through the importation of custom command files which add new commands that become understood by the language interpreter.


• Most of the functionalities can be used inside GIMP via the provided plug-in, allowing end-users to integrate any G'MIC-based pipeline directly in a nice GUI, without coding efforts.


• It is based on the latest development versions of the CImg Library, a well established C++ template image processing toolkit, developed by the same team of developers.

Screenshots

Here are some screenshots illustrating various uses of G'MIC. It shows how it is able to process and visualize different types of 1d/2d/3d image datasets. G'MIC is actually a handy toolbox for many image/signal processing applications. See also the Gallery section for more detailed examples on its use.

The Team

Project Manager and Main Developer :

• David Tschumperlé

Contributors :

• Members of the Image Team at the GREYC laboratory, in Caen/France (testing).
• Sébastien Fourey (code of ZArt).
• Aurélien Ceyden (packaging).
• Claude Bulin (packaging).
• Partha Bagchi (packaging).
• Roberto Ferramosca (packaging).
• Sylvie Alexandre (packaging).
• Karsten Rodenacker (testing, packaging).
• Bernd Zeimetz (packaging).
• Jérome Ferrari (testing, tutorials).
• Tom Keil (testing, filters, tutorials).
• Andy Kelday (testing, filters).
• PhotoComiX (testing, translation, filters).
• Gentlemanbeggar (filters).
• Arto Huotari (filters).
• Iain Fergusson (filters).
• Mahvin (testing, corrections and design).
• François Collard (testing).
• Angelo Lama (testing).
• Claes Holmerson (tutorials).
• Mauro Quercia (translation).
• Stepanekos (translation).
• Dani Sardaà (translation).
• Mark (translation).
• Guilherme Razgriz (translation).
• Yuri Shemanin (testing).
• Stephane de la Linuxerie (design).

Statistics

G'MIC is an open-source product distributed under the CeCILL License (GPL-compatible).
Copyrights (C) From July 2008, David Tschumperlé - GREYC UMR CNRS 6072, Image Team.