C++ VB, How do you read from a picture (bmp/jpg.. etc) into an array

[zredcard]

so far ive got

int width;
int height;
int bitdepth;
stringstream ss;
string str;
typedef unsigned char byte
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
str = argv[1];
stringstream(str) >> width;
str = argv[2];
stringstream(str) >> height;
str = argv[3];
stringstream(str) >> bitdepth;

ifstream inFile(argv[4], ios::in | ios::binary);

byte * array = new byte[width*height];

int * intA = new int[width*height];

int x;

while(x < width*height)
{
inFile >> array[x];
x++;
}
for(int k = 0; k < width*height; k++)
intA[k] = (int)array[k];

return 0;
}





when i run this with
rawread<width><height><bitdepth><filename> in the command line i get a multitude of "=" (equal) signs!?

help please, and ive just gotten to know C++ so simple is better. I just want to read a picture into an array of integers, so that i can do things like invert it by subtracting from 255 etc.... Thanks.

[archonmagnus]

Without interfacing APIs or image libraries, you'll need to review the file format specifications. I'd recommend starting with a bitmap image as it is the most "straight-forward" and easiest to implement. JPEG uses a discrete cosine transformation, quantization tables, and huffman tables to compress the image data--so you'd need to write the decompression routines first.

With bitmaps, the image data is stored (upside-down) starting at a 54 byte offset in the order Blue, Green, Red. The image width is stored as a four-byte long at bytes 18-21, the height is a four-byte long at bytes 22-25, and the bit-depth (or bit-count) is a two-byte short at bytes 28-29.

Here are a couple of links to more information regarding the bmp filetype specification:
http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscrape.../bmpffrmt.html
http://www.archonmagnus.com/computing/formats/bmp.php

I had a few PDF links, but I can't seem to find them. Sorry. I hope this will get you started though.

[weaknessforcats]

Check out the SDK DirectX.