BMP Format Overview
This topic provides information about the native BMP codec available through the Windows Imaging Component (WIC).
Codec Identity
The following table provides codec identification information.
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Formal Name(s) | Windows Bitmap Format |
| File Name Extension(s) | bmp, dib |
| MIME type | image/bmp |
| Specification Support | BMP Specification v5 |
The following table lists the GUIDs used to identify the native BMP codec components.
| Component | Friendly Name | GUID |
|---|---|---|
| Container Format | GUID_ContainerFormatBmp | 0af1d87e-fcfe-4188-bdeba7906471cbe3 |
| Decoder | CLSID_WICBmpDecoder | 6b462062-7cbf-400d-9fdb813dd10f2778 |
| Encoder | CLSID_WICBmpEncoder | 69be8bb4-d66d-47c8-865aed1589433782 |
Encoding
The WIC encoding API are designed to be codec-independent and therefore image encoding for WIC-enabled codecs is essentially the same. For more information about image encoding using the WIC API, see the Encoding Overview.
Encoder Options
WIC-enabled codecs differ at the encoding option level. Encoder options reflect the capabilities of an image encoder and each native codec supports a set of these encoder options. Encoder options can be basic WIC supported options available to all WIC enabled codes (though not necessarily supported) or codec-specific options designed by the image format codec. To manage these encoding options during the encoding process, WIC uses the IPropertyBag2 interface . For more information about using the IPropertyBag2 interface for WIC encoding see the Encoding Overview.
The following table lists the WIC encoder options supported by the native BMP codec.
| Property Name | VARTYPE | Value Range | Default Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| EnableV5Header32bppBGRA | VT_BOOL | VARIANT_TRUE/VARIANT_FALSE | VARIANT_FALSE |
EnableV5Header32bppBGRA
Specifies whether to allow encoding data in the GUID_WICPixelFormat32bppBGRA pixel format. If this option is set to VARIANT_TRUE, the BMP will be written out with a BITMAPV5HEADER header.
The default value is VARIANT_FALSE.
If an encoder option is present in the IPropertyBag2 option list that the codec does not support, it is ignored.
Note for 16-bit and 32-bit Windows BMP files, the BMP codec ignores any alpha channel, as many legacy image files contain invalid data in this extra channel. Starting with Windows 8, 32-bit Windows BMP files written using the BITMAPV5HEADER with valid alpha channel content are read as WICPixelFormat32bppBGRA
Decoding
The WIC decoding API are designed to be codec-independent and image decoding for WIC-enabled codecs is essentially the same. For more information about image decoding, see the Decoding Overview. For more information about using decoded image data, see the Bitmap Sources Overview.