writing/reading bitmaps to a tfilestream

Question

i've searched and searched and can't seem to find anything that describes what i'm look to do in delphi code. the solutins are sometimes close but not close enough for me to figure out. so here i am asking..

i have many bitmaps that i am retreaving from screenshots. what i have been doing is saving to bitmaps_001.bmp, but it takes a lot a storage space, so i upgraded the routine to save as bitmaps_001.png, and this saves even greater space, but now i want to save to one file, a tfilestream, and read from it using a tprogressbar that i can drag left/right as the images show on screen.

basically, i am trying to acomplish the following:

procedure SaveBMPtoStream(st: tfilestream; bmp: tbitmap);
procedure ReadBMPfrStream(st: tfilestream; bmp: tbitmap; bnum: integer);

so far the code (below)works as is, (it writes and reads in one bitmap image at the press of a tbutton) but i can only write one bitmap image. i need to write as many images as necessary per session to the tfilestream in realtime, possibly using a ttimer control and let it write as many images until i press the stop tbutton. what can i do to modify the code below to solve this? thank you.

i am running windows xp, attached to external usb3.0 1tb drive with NTFS file system.

type
  TMS = TFileStream; 
var
  MS:  TMS; 
  pos: int64;   // bnum for 0-99,999 images.
  sz:  integer; // size of the image/stream ?

//write bitmaps to stream
procedure SaveBMPtoStream(ms: TMS; Bmp: TBitmap; bnum: integer);
begin
  // create (or append to) stream
  if fileexists('d:\streams\s.stm') then MS := TFileStream.Create('d:\streams\s.stm', fmOpenReadWrite)
    else MS := TFileStream.Create('d:\streams\s.stm', fmCreate);
  //sz:=MS.Size; pos:=ms.Position;
  bmp.SaveToStream(MS); 
  // free stream
  ms.free;
end;

//read bitmaps from stream
procedure ReadBMPfrStream(ms: TMS; Bmp: TBitmap; bnum: integer);
begin
  // open stream.
  MS := TFileStream.Create ('d:\streams\s.stm', fmOpenReadWrite); 
  // read in bitmap from stream
  //sz:=MS.Size; pos:=ms.Position;
  bmp.LoadFromStream(MS);
  // free stream
  ms.free;
end;

Answer 1

Function LoadBMPFromStream(const fn: String; Bmp: TBitmap; Nr: Integer):Boolean;
var // Nr is 0 based first Bitmap=0
  fs: TFileStream;
  ms: TMemoryStream;
  intNr: Integer;
  pos: Cardinal;
  size: DWord;
begin
  intNr := 0;
  if fileexists(fn) then
  begin
    Result := true;
    fs := TFileStream.Create(fn, fmOpenRead or fmShareDenyNone);
    try
      fs.Read(size, SizeOf(DWord)); // Read Size of first Bitmap
      while (Nr > intNr) and (fs.Position < fs.size) do
      begin
        fs.Seek(size, soFromCurrent);
        fs.Read(size, SizeOf(DWord)); // Read Size of  Bitmap with intNr
        inc(intNr);
      end;
      if fs.Position < fs.size then
      begin
        ms := TMemoryStream.Create;
        try
          ms.CopyFrom(fs, size);
          ms.Position := 0;
          Bmp.LoadFromStream(ms);
        finally
          ms.Free;
        end;
      end
      else Result := false;
    finally
      fs.Free;
    end;

  end;
end;


procedure SaveBMPtoStream(const fn: String; Bmp: TBitmap);
var
  fs: TFileStream;
  ms: TMemoryStream;
  pos: Cardinal;
  size: DWord;
begin
  if fileexists(fn) then
  begin
    fs := TFileStream.Create(fn, fmOpenReadWrite or fmShareDenyNone);
    fs.Seek(0, soEnd);
  end
  else
  begin
    fs := TFileStream.Create(fn, fmCreate or fmShareDenyNone);
  end;
  try
    ms := TMemoryStream.Create;
    try
      Bmp.SaveToStream(ms);
      size := ms.size;
      ms.Position := 0;
      fs.Write(size, SizeOf(DWord)); // Write Size of next Bitmap first
      fs.CopyFrom(ms, size);
    finally
      ms.Free;
    end;
  finally
    fs.Free;
  end;

end;

procedure TForm6.Button2Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
  // load first Picture
  LoadBMPFromStream('C:\temp\test.str', Image3.picture.bitmap, 0);
  // load third picture
  // LoadBMPFromStream('C:\temp\test.str', Image3.picture.bitmap, 2);
end;

procedure TForm6.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
  SaveBMPtoStream('C:\temp\test.str', Image1.picture.bitmap);
  SaveBMPtoStream('C:\temp\test.str', Image2.picture.bitmap);
  SaveBMPtoStream('C:\temp\test.str', Image1.picture.bitmap);
end;

Answer 2

You want to save All images to the SAME file? Your easiest option then would be using a 7zip file with 0 compression (only store), this will manage the indexing/saving/retrieving of files from the archive for you very easily.

Here's a good free component that can do this: http://www.rg-software.de/rg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=51

You could also try using only bitmaps now again, while using a fast compression setting in the 7zip, this will probably achieve better speeds than PNG.