Color planes

djdon

Hi,
I am new to graphics programming, I was recently reading a Pcx file decode algorithm,and there are a few things that I would like to clear up

1.What are Color Planes and how they are actually stored in image format like
pcx and in vga memory.

2.What is the difference between
image line length(width*planes)
scan line length(bytes per line* planes)
and actual width of image

3.Is there any ebook someone could recommend which explains these terms in detail ?

Thanks-

zibadian

: Hi,
: I am new to graphics programming, I was recently reading a Pcx file
: decode algorithm,and there are a few things that I would like to
: clear up
:
: 1.What are Color Planes and how they are actually stored in image
: format like
: pcx and in vga memory.
:
: 2.What is the difference between
: image line length(width*planes)
: scan line length(bytes per line* planes)
: and actual width of image
:
: 3.Is there any ebook someone could recommend which explains these
: terms in detail ?
:
: Thanks-
:
1: A color plane describes how a color is encoded using 2 primary colors. One can construct a flat surface with each of the primary colors as its axis and paint every possible color for those 2 primary colors. For an example of a color plane see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YUV

2: image line length is the length in pixels including its color information. Each pixel might be larger than 1 byte, for example when there are 65536 colors per pixel. Now the difference between the image line length and the scan line length should be clear.
The actual width of the image is the width in pixels, without any information about the number of byte per pixel or the encoding of the pixels.

3: Perhaps this site helps you: http://www.fileformat.info/format/pcx/
At its end there are several references.