Object ViewerForm: TViewerForm Caption = 'Image Viewer' Menu = MainMenu1 object Image1: TImageĪlign = alClient end object MainMenu1: TMainMenu object File1: TMenuItem. To build a full-blown image viewer program, ImageV, around the Image component, we only need to create a form with an image that fills the whole client area, a simple menu, and an OpenDialog component: I'll cover Delphi metafile support later in this chapter. Metafiles have two main advantages: the limited amount of storage they require compared to other graphical formats, and the device-independence of their output. Later on, this metafile can be played or executed to call the corresponding functions, thus producing a graphic.

In Delphi, you can use a TMetafileCanvas and the highlevel TCanvas methods. We wish to warn you that since Image View (Plus More) files are downloaded from an external source, FDM Lib. We cannot confirm if there is a free download of this software available. To produce a Windows metafile, a program should call GDI functions, redirecting their output to the file. Using the link below to download Image View (Plus More) from the developers website was possible when we last checked. Delphi also ships with JPG support for TImage, and third parties have GIF and other file formats covered. Metafiles are usually referred to as vector graphics and are similar to the graphics file formats used for clip-art libraries.

They are a collection of graphical commands, similar to a list of GDI function calls that need to be executed to rebuild an image. Windows metafiles, however, are not so common. Bitmap and icon files are well-known formats. The default file formats are bitmap files (BMP), icon files (ICO), or Windows metafiles (WMF). In general, in the Image control you can load any graphic file type that has been registered with the VCL TPicture class. The ShapeBmp program can be used as an image viewer, because you can load any bitmap in it.

Artist image viewer