A JavaScript PCX decoder for NodeJS & Browser

pcx-js is a simple PCX decoder for JavaScript which works both in NodeJS & in the Browser.

The decoder supports the following PCX variants:

• 24 bit (3 planes)
• 8 bit (1 plane)
• 4 bit (4 planes)

Demo

Head over to https://warpdesign.github.io/pcx-js/ for a demo.

Installation

NodeJS

npm install pcx-js

Browser

<script type="text/javascript" src="pcx.js"></script>

Usage

NodeJS

let pcx = require('pcx-js'),
    fs = require('fs');

let buffer = fs.readFileSync('./img/16col.pcx'),
    myPcx = new pcx(buffer),
    data = myPcx.decode();

Browser

    var pcx = new PCX(buffer),
        pcxData = pcx.decode(context);

PCX file format

PCX file format is quite simple.

Every PCX file starts with the magic word 10 (0xA) and is followed by a version number from 1 to 5.

The header is 128 bytes long and can contain an optional 16 colors palette:

The width and height of the image is given by Xmax - Xmin + 1 and the size of a scanline is give by width * bytesPerRow.

Note Since bytesPerRow is always even, there may be an optional marker at the end of each plane.

PCX RLE encoding

PCX uses a quite simple encoding called RLE (Run-length encoding) which is a lossless data compression in which several consecutive pixels of the same color are grouped in a sequence. Instead of saving each pixel, RLE saves the count and then the value that needs to get repeated.

Let's imagine a picture with the following colors:

0x5 0x10 0x10 0x10 0x10 ...

The encoded RLE data would look like this:

0x5 0xC4 0x10 ...

The first pixel is not repeated so appears decoded. For the next one, we have to repeat it 4 times. To do so, we have to create a new byte with the PCX marker 0xC0 (2 most significant bits are set to 1: 1100000000 in binary) and mask it with the repeat count:

0xC0 | 0x4 == 0xC4

The next byte is then pixel value that we want to repeat: 0x10.

PCX 24bit pixel format vs HTML Canvas

Each PCX scanline is divided into RGB planes (there may be an optional third plane for luminance or alpha but this is not supported). For example, a 4x4 pixels 24bit file would look like this:

row 1
RRRR
GGGG
BBBB

row 2
RRRR
GGGG
BBBB

row 3
RRRR
GGGG
BBBB

row 4
RRRR
GGGG
BBBB

HTML Canvas uses the following RGBA pixel format and stores each pixel consecutively, so the previous 4x4 24bit file would be encoded like this in Canvas' pixel format:

row 1
RGBA RGBA RGBA RGBA
row 2
RGBA RGBA RGBA RGBA
row 3
RGBA RGBA RGBA RGBA
row 4
RGBA RGBA RGBA RGBA

• PCX.decode both decodes RLE pixel data and convert it into HTML Canvas RGBA format.

## 256 Colors palette PCX supports 256 colors palette mode. In this mode, the palette is stored, uncompressed, at the end of the file, just after a 12 marker.

Each palette entry is a 3 byte triple with each component ranging from 0 to 255 so no conversion is needed for HTML 5 Canvas.

Total palette size is 3 * 256 = 768 bytes.

## Rendering using Canvas

Drawing pixel onto the screen is as simple as calling CanvasContext.putImageData and feeding it with an array of RGBA data.

CanvasContext.createImageData takes care of allocating the memory for writing pixel data.

## Working on binary data using JavaScript in the Browser

Since a few years, JavaScript provides an easy way to work with binary Data using the ArrayBuffer and TypedArray objects.

And most filesystem APIs like the FileReader API have been updated to work with it:

var reader = new FileReader();
       
reader.onload = (e) => {
   // An array buffer is a simple binary buffer
   let buffer = e.target.result;
   
   // To access it we simply create a TypedArray view
   let byteView = new Uint8Array(e.target.result);
   
   // now we may read/write on the buffer using the typedArray:
   byteView[0] = 0x24;
 
   // The neat thing is that much like with C pointers, you may
   // have several views pointing to the same buffer:
   // create a Word view on the same buffer
   let wordView = new Uint16Array(e.target.result)
   wordView[0] = 0x2435;
}
 
reader.readAsArrayBuffer(file);

What's missing

PCX-js loader does not support 1/2 bit files or files with an alpha channel.