Getting colour data from a bitmap

Simple question. How do i do it? :)

I've searched the MSDN and here on vbforums, but so far have only found how to load a bmp:

Code:

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HBITMAP hBmp = (HBITMAP)LoadImage(NULL, "Terrain.bmp", IMAGE_BITMAP, 0, 0, LR_DEFAULTCOLOR | LR_LOADFROMFILE);

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and how to put it into a device context (which i don't think i want to do.


What i'm trying to do here is create a terrain generator using a bitmap as the hightmap. I've currently got the engine working, all i need now is a way do get a heightmap in. So i decided on a grey-scale bmp as that seemed the easiest way (creating terrain).


As always thanks for any help you may provide. :)

You can get the BITMAP structure of the HBITMAP and read the color data. It's probably the easiest way, unless you're handling a DIB section, in which case you need to use a different way to get the data.

You can search for image libraries too, there are enough available for free, they allow loading of other images (GIF, JPG, PNG, PCX, ...) too.

Ok, i may be being really dumb here but i added this code:

Code:

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Bitmap bmp;
bmp.FromFile("Terrain.bmp");

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with the appropriate includes:

Code:

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#include <gdiplus.h>
#include <Gdiplusheaders.h>

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But i get errors about Bitmap being an indeclared identifyer. What am i doing wrong??

You probably need
using namespace Gdiplus;

Here, you can find the file format for bmp's

http://www.wotsit.org/search.asp

Thanks for the replys. It works now. :)