GD

[Jouke]

Item Description: GD.pm - Interface to Gd Graphics Library

Review Synopsis: If you want to create dynamic images in Perl there's only one choice: GD!

I've been using the GD module for a few months for creating dynamic images for our website, and I must say: I couldn't think of anything better

GD offers a set of functions to draw lines, points, brushes, text and use existing imagefiles, and offers output functions to output the image as JPEG or PNG (GIF support has been removed due to the fileformat patent-thing :( ).

Some people have also written subclasses like GD::Graph3d (I believe), which offers a nice, clean interface to draw piecharts, linegraphs and bargraphs. I've never really used these though.

Like the POD documentation says: " GD.pm is a port of Thomas Boutell's gd graphics library.", and I'm happy that Lincoln D. Stein ported it!

Jouke.

[Euclid]

The latest version of the GD library supports the GIF format now that the Unisys patent has expired.

Other great features of the latest version of GD include anti-aliasing, alpha channels, and True Color (24-bit support). More details at GD Home Page

I use GD to create graphics based on various geometrical and mathematical algorithms. The GD module is much easier to use than ImageMagick.