RGBA Mode and Windows Palette Management
While most GDI applications tend to use color-indexing with logical palettes, the RGBA mode is usually preferable for OpenGL applications. It works better than color mapping for several effects, such as shading, lighting, fog, and texture mapping.
The RGBA mode uses red, green, and blue (R, G, and B) color values that together specify the color of each pixel in the display. The R, G, and B values specify the intensity of each color (red, green, and blue); the values range from 0.0 (least intense) to 1.0 (most intense). The number of bits for each component varies depending on the hardware used (2, 3, 5, 6, and 8 bits are possible).The color displayed is a result of the sum of the three color values. If all three values are 0.0, the result is black. If the three values are all 1.0, the result is white. Other colors are a result of a combination of values of R, G, and B that fall between 0 and 1.0. The A (alpha) bit isn't used to specify color.
The standard super-VGA display uses palettes with eight color-bits per pixel. The eight bits are read from the buffer and used as an index in the system palette to get the R, G, and B values. When an RGB palette is selected and realized in a device context, OpenGL can render using the RGBA mode.
Because there are eight color-bits per pixel, OpenGL emphasizes the use of a three-three-two RGBA palette. "Three-three-two" refers to how the color-bit data is handled by the hardware or physical palette. Red (R) and green (G) are each specified by three bits; blue (B) is specified by two bits. Red is the least-significant bit and blue is the most-significant bit.
You determine the colors of your application's logical palette with PALETTEENTRY structures. Typically you create an array of PALETTEENTRY structures to specify the entire palette entry table of the logical palette.
RGBA Mode Palette Sample
The following code fragment shows how you can create a three-three-two RGBA palette.
/*
* win8map.c - program to create an 8-bit RGB color map for
* use with OpenGL
*
* For OpenGL RGB rendering you need to know red, green, & blue
* component bit sizes and positions. On 8 bit palette devices you need
* to create a logical palette that has the correct RGBA values for all
* 256 possible entries. This program creates an 8 bit RGBA color cube
* with a default gamma of 1.4
*
* Unfortunately, because the standard 20 colors in the system palette
* cannot be changed,if you select this palette into an 8-bit display
* DC, you will not realize all of the logical palette. The program
* changes some of the entries in the logical palette to match enties in
* the system palette using a least-squares calculation to find which
* entries to replace
*
* Note: Three bits for red & green and two bits for blue; red is the
* least-significant bit and blue is the most-significant bit
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#define DEFAULT_GAMMA 1.4F
#define MAX_PAL_ERROR (3*256*256L)
struct colorentry {
unsigned char red;
unsigned char green;
unsigned char blue;
};
struct rampentry {
struct colorentry color;
long defaultindex;
unsigned char flags;
};
struct defaultentry {
struct colorentry color;
long rampindex;
unsigned char flags;
};
/* values for flags */
#define EXACTMATCH 0x01
#define CHANGED 0x02 /* one of the default entries is close */
/*
* These arrays hold bit arrays with a gamma of 1.0
* used to convert n bit values to 8-bit values
*/
unsigned char threeto8[8] = {
0, 0111>>1, 0222>>1, 0333>>1, 0444>>1, 0555>>1, 0666>>1, 0377
};
unsigned char twoto8[4] = {
0, 0x55, 0xaa, 0xff
};
unsigned char oneto8[2] = {
0, 255
};
struct defaultentry defaultpal[20] = {
{ 0, 0, 0 },
{ 0x80,0, 0 },
{ 0, 0x80,0 },
{ 0x80,0x80,0 },
{ 0, 0, 0x80 },
{ 0x80,0, 0x80 },
{ 0, 0x80,0x80 },
{ 0xC0,0xC0,0xC0 },
{ 192, 220, 192 },
{ 166, 202, 240 },
{ 255, 251, 240 },
{ 160, 160, 164 },
{ 0x80,0x80,0x80 },
{ 0xFF,0, 0 },
{ 0, 0xFF,0 },
{ 0xFF,0xFF,0 },
{ 0, 0, 0xFF },
{ 0xFF,0, 0xFF },
{ 0, 0xFF,0xFF },
{ 0xFF,0xFF,0xFF }
};
struct rampentry rampmap[256];
void
gammacorrect(double gamma)
{
int i;
unsigned char v, nv;
double dv;
for (i=0; i<8; i++) {
v = threeto8[i];
dv = (255.0 * pow(v/255.0, 1.0/gamma)) + 0.5;
nv = (unsigned char)dv;
printf("Gamma correct %d to %d (gamma %.2f)\n", v, nv, gamma);
threeto8[i] = nv;
}
for (i=0; i<4; i++) {
v = twoto8[i];
dv = (255.0 * pow(v/255.0, 1.0/gamma)) + 0.5;
nv = (unsigned char)dv;
printf("Gamma correct %d to %d (gamma %.2f)\n", v, nv, gamma);
twoto8[i] = nv;
}
printf("\n");
}
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
long i, j, error, min_error;
long error_index, delta;
double gamma;
struct colorentry *pc;
if (argc == 2)
gamma = atof(argv[1]);
else
gamma = DEFAULT_GAMMA;
gammacorrect(gamma);
/* First create a 256 entry RGB color cube */
for (i = 0; i < 256; i++) {
/* BGR: 2:3:3 */
rampmap[i].color.red = threeto8[(i&7)];
rampmap[i].color.green = threeto8[((i>>3)&7)];
rampmap[i].color.blue = twoto8[(i>>6)&3];
}
/* Go through the default palette and find exact matches */
for (i=0; i<20; i++) {
for(j=0; j<256; j++) {
if ( (defaultpal[i].color.red == rampmap[j].color.red) &&
(defaultpal[i].color.green == rampmap[j].color.green) &&
(defaultpal[i].color.blue == rampmap[j].color.blue)) {
rampmap[j].flags = EXACTMATCH;
rampmap[j].defaultindex = i;
defaultpal[i].rampindex = j;
defaultpal[i].flags = EXACTMATCH;
break;
}
}
}
/* Now find close matches */
for (i=0; i<20; i++) {
if (defaultpal[i].flags == EXACTMATCH)
continue; /* skip entries w/ exact matches */
min_error = MAX_PAL_ERROR;
/* Loop through RGB ramp and calculate least square error */
/* if an entry has already been used, skip it */
for(j=0; j<256; j++) {
if (rampmap[j].flags != 0) /* Already used */
continue;
delta = defaultpal[i].color.red - rampmap[j].color.red;
error = (delta * delta);
delta = defaultpal[i].color.green - rampmap[j].color.green;
error += (delta * delta);
delta = defaultpal[i].color.blue - rampmap[j].color.blue;
error += (delta * delta);
if (error < min_error) { /* New minimum? */
error_index = j;
min_error = error;
}
}
defaultpal[i].rampindex = error_index;
rampmap[error_index].flags = CHANGED;
rampmap[error_index].defaultindex = i;
}
/* First print out the color cube */
printf("Standard 8-bit RGB color cube with gamma %.2f:\n", gamma);
for (i=0; i<256; i++) {
pc = &rampmap[i].color;
printf("%3ld: (%3-D, %3-D, %3-D)\n", i, pc->red,
pc->green, pc->blue);
}
printf("\n");
/* Now print out the default entries that have an exact match */
for (i=0; i<20; i++) {
if (defaultpal[i].flags == EXACTMATCH) {
pc = &defaultpal[i].color;
printf("Default entry %2ld exactly matched RGB ramp entry
%3ld", i, defaultpal[i].rampindex);
printf(" (%3-D, %3-D, %3-D)\n", pc->red, pc->green, pc->blue);
}
}
printf("\n");
/* Now print out the closest entries for rest of
* the default entries */
for (i=0; i<20; i++) {
if (defaultpal[i].flags != EXACTMATCH) {
pc = &defaultpal[i].color;
printf("Default entry %2ld (%3-D, %3-D, %3-D) is close to ",
i, pc->red, pc->green, pc->blue);
pc = &rampmap[defaultpal[i].rampindex].color;
printf("RGB ramp entry %3ld (%3-D, %3-D, %3-D)\n",
defaultpal[i].rampindex, pc->red, pc->green, pc->blue);
}
}
printf("\n");
/* Print out code to initialize a logical palette
* that will not overflow */
printf("Here is code you can use to create a logical palette\n");
printf("static struct {\n");
printf(" WORD palVersion;\n");
printf(" WORD palNumEntries;\n");
printf(" PALETTEENTRY palPalEntries[256];\n");
printf("} rgb8palette = {\n");
printf(" 0x300,\n");
printf(" 256,\n");
for (i=0; i<256; i++) {
if (rampmap[i].flags == 0)
pc = &rampmap[i].color;
else
pc = &defaultpal[rampmap[i].defaultindex].color;
printf(" %3-D, %3-D, %3-D, 0, /* %ld",
pc->red, pc->green, pc->blue, i);
if (rampmap[i].flags == EXACTMATCH)
printf(" - Exact match with default %d",
rampmap[i].defaultindex);
if (rampmap[i].flags == CHANGED)
printf(" - Changed to match default %d",
rampmap[i].defaultindex);
printf(" */\n");
}
printf("};\n");
printf("\n * * *\n\n");
printf(" hpal = CreatePalette((LOGPALETTE *)&rgb8palette);\n");
return 0;
}
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