UINT16 monochrome image to 8bit monochrome Qimage using freeImage - image

Question

I want to convert a UINT16 monochrome image to a 8 bits image, in C++.
I have that image in a
char *buffer;
I'd like to give the new converted buffer to a QImage (Qt).
I'm trying with freeImagePlus
fipImage fimage;
if (fimage.loadfromMemory(...) == false)
//error
loadfromMemory needs a fipMemoryIO adress:
loadfromMemory(fipMemoryIO &memIO, int flag = 0)
So I do
fipImage fimage;
BYTE *buf = (BYTE*)malloc(gimage.GetBufferLength() * sizeof(BYTE));
// 'buf' is empty, I have to fill it with 'buffer' content
// how can I do it?
fipMemoryIO memIO(buf, gimage.GetBufferLength());
fimage.loadFromMemory(memIO);
if (fimage.convertTo8Bits() == true)
cout << "Good";
Then I would do something like
fimage.saveToMemory(...
or
fimage.saveToHandle(...
I don't understand what is a FREE_IMAGE_FORMAT, which is the first argument to any of those two functions. I can't find information of those types in the freeImage documentation.
Then I'd finish with
imageQt = new QImage(destiny, dimX, dimY, QImage::Format_Indexed8);
How can I fill 'buf' with the content of the initial buffer?
And get the data from the fipImage to a uchar* data for a QImage?
Thanks.

Answer 1

The conversion is simple to do in plain old C++, no need for external libraries unless they are significantly faster and you care about such a speedup. Below is how I'd do the conversion, at least as a first cut. The data is converted inside of the input buffer, since the output is smaller than the input.
QImage from16Bit(void * buffer, int width, int height) {
int size = width*height*2; // length of data in buffer, in bytes
quint8 * output = reinterpret_cast<quint8*>(buffer);
const quint16 * input = reinterpret_cast<const quint16*>(buffer);
if (!size) return QImage;
do {
*output++ = *input++ >> 8;
} while (size -= 2);
return QImage(output, width, height, QImage::Format_Indexed8);
}