Compare 16 bpp to 32 bpp bitmap conversions - winapi

Question

I got a 16 bpp bitmap that I converted to 32 bpp via code below:
void Rgb555ToRgb8(const UChar* bitmapData, UInt32 width, UInt32 height, UChar* buf)
{
UInt32 dst_bytes_per_row = width * 4;
UInt32 src_bytes_per_row = ((width * 16 + 31) / 32) * 4;
UInt16 red_mask = 0x7C00;
UInt16 green_mask = 0x3E0;
UInt16 blue_mask = 0x1F;
for (UInt32 row = 0; row < height; ++row)
{
UInt32 dstCol = 0, srcCol = 0;
do
{
UInt16 rgb = *(UInt16*)(bitmapData + row * src_bytes_per_row + srcCol);
UChar red_value = (rgb & red_mask) >> 10;
UChar green_value = (rgb & green_mask) >> 5;
UChar blue_value = (rgb & blue_mask);
buf[row*dst_bytes_per_row + dstCol] = blue_value << 3;
buf[row*dst_bytes_per_row + dstCol + 1] = green_value << 3;
buf[row*dst_bytes_per_row + dstCol + 2] = red_value << 3;
buf[row*dst_bytes_per_row + dstCol + 3] = rgb >> 15;
srcCol += 2;
dstCol += 4;
} while (srcCol < src_bytes_per_row);
}
}
Here is conversion result: [2]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/1ajO7.png
I also tried to convert this image via GdiPlus:
Gdiplus::Bitmap* bmp = new Gdiplus::Bitmap(w,h,PixelFormat32bppRGB);
Resultant image is .
Notice that the 2 results don't look exactly the same (e.g., the background in GdiPlus result is white). How can I modify my code to match GdiPlus result?

Answer 1

There are two issues that need to be addressed:
Unused bits
When moving from 5 bits of information to 8 bits of information you gain an additional 3 bits. As implemented, the code doesn't make use of that additional range, and is biased towards darker color components. This is an illustration of what blue_value << 3 actually does:
5 bits per channel 8 bits per channel
bbbbb -> bbbbb000
To address this, the least significant 3 bits need to grow as the channel value gets higher. A simple (yet somewhat inaccurate) would be to just copy the most significant 3 bits down to the least significant 3 bits, i.e.
buf[row*dst_bytes_per_row + dstCol] = (blue_value << 3) | (blue_value >> 2);
buf[row*dst_bytes_per_row + dstCol + 1] = (green_value << 3) | (green_value >> 2);
buf[row*dst_bytes_per_row + dstCol + 2] = (red_value << 3) | (red_value >> 2);
The exact mapping would be a bit more involved, something like
blue_value = static_cast<UChar>((blue_value * 255.0) / 31.0 + 0.5);
That converts from 5 bits to the respective 8 bit value that's nearest to the ideal value, including the 4 values that were 1/255th off in the bit-shifting solution above.
If you opt for the latter, you can build a lookup table that stores the mapped values. This table is only 32 entries of one byte each, so it fits into a single cache-line.
Alpha channel
Assuming that the MSB of your source image is indeed interpreted as an alpha value, you're going to have move that into the destination as well. Since the source is only 1 bit of information, the raw transformation is trivial:
buf[row*dst_bytes_per_row + dstCol + 3] = rgb & (1 << 15) ? 255 : 0;
That may or may not be all that's needed. Windows assumes premultiplied alpha, i.e. the stored values of the color channels must be premultiplied by the alpha value (see BLENDFUNCTION for reference).
If the alpha value is 255, the color channel values are already correct. If the alpha value is 0, all color channels need to be multiplied by zero (or simply set to 0). The translation doesn't produce any other alpha values.