PNG Source Code

For those of you who like to go the do-it-yourself route, here are the tools to make your PNG code go (some of which may also be provided with ready-to-go executables). Some of the code, particularly by members of the PNG Development Group, is still kept up to date at the primary Open Source Lab ftp site, but for most things check the appropriate PNG Applications pages for current links. (This page was previously called Code from the PNG Development Group and later PNG Source Code and Libraries. Now it is simply a list of applications, libraries and toolkits that include source code, with more complete descriptions on the relevant PNG applications pages. The two main PNG-related libraries, libpng and zlib, are linked directly and are still maintained by members of the PNG Group, though.)

Latest releases:

libpng 1.6.58 [license]
zlib 1.3.1 [Y2K] [license]

Libraries and Toolkits

The following programming libraries, toolkits, DLLs and Java classes all include source code and are listed on the toolkits page. Operating-system support is listed in (parenthesized italics), and toolkits that do not derive their PNG support from another listed library (typically libpng)--although they may or may not require zlib--are so noted. (See also Quat in the 3D section for another independent, zlib-based, C implementation of a PNG codec.)

AxPoint (Perl) - XML-based PDF presentation tool
7-Zip (many) - C++ deflate implementation
BMGLib (Win32)
CamlImages (Caml)
Carnegie Mellon Graphics (Win32, Mac OS, Mac OS X, Unix)
Ch PNG (Win32, Unix/X, Mac OS X?)
CImage (Win32)
ClanLib (Linux, Win32, BeOS)
Closure (Unix/X) - independent Common Lisp source code
CL-PNG (many) - independent Common Lisp source code
cl-zlib (Linux, Win32)
CMacPNG (Mac PPC) - C++ PNG class
Crystal Space (many) - 3D game engine
CscHTML (Unix/GTK+) - HTML widget for GTK+
CWebImageDC (Win32)
CxImage (Win32) - C++ multi-format image class
data-demo (JavaScript) - independent JavaScript source code
DirectFB (Linux/fb)
FreeImage (Win32, Linux/Qt, Mac OS X)
FXPy (many)
gd (many)
GDFP (many)
gdk-pixbuf (Unix/GTK)
GD.pm (Perl)
glpng (many)
GraphApp (Unix/X, Win32)
GraphicEx (Win32) - independent Pascal source code
GraphiX/FP (DOS, Win32, Linux/SVGA) - independent Pascal source code
GtkHTML (Unix/GTK+) - HTML 4.0 widget for GTK+
Ilib (many)
ImageFileLib (Win32)
Image Library (many) - independent C++ source code
ImageMagick (many)
Image-Pngslimmer (Perl)
Imager (Perl)
Img (Unix/X, Win32)
Imlib (Unix/X, Unix/GTK)
Io (Unix/X, Win32, Mac OS X) - OO programming language
Java Image Content Handlers (Java)
JIU / Java Imaging Utilities (Java)
Jun for Java (Java) - 3D graphic/multimedia-application framework
lcms (Win32, Linux) - color-management system
libAfterImage (Unix/X)
libferris (Unix/X)
libgraph (many)
libmng (Unix, Win32) - independent C source code
libplot (many)
libpng (many) - independent C source code
libpr0n (many)
LodePNG (many) - independent C++ source code (including inflate/deflate)
MNG Translator (BeOS) - OS extension for MNG/JNG/PNG images
MST Image (many)
OpenGL::Image (Perl)
Panda (Unix, Win32, etc.)
PHP (Unix, Win32)
PLplot (Unix)
png++ (many)
PNG DataType (#4) (Amiga)
PNG Delphi / TPNGImage (Win32) - independent Pascal source code
PNGDIB (Win32)
PngEncoder (Java) - independent Java source code
PNGgraph.pm (1) (Perl)
PNGgraph.pm (2) (Perl)
PNGImageProducer (Java) - independent Java source code
PNG_IO (many) - independent Ada 95 source code
Pnglets (JavaScript) - independent JavaScript source code
PNGLIB (Win32)
PNGlib (Win32) - independent Visual Basic source code
PNGlib (JavaScript) - independent JavaScript source code
PngUnit (Win32)
PNGwriter (many) - C++ class for plotting and graphing
Pygame (Win32, Mac OS, Mac OS X, BeOS, Unix)
Qt (Unix/X, Win32, BeOS) - GUI toolkit
RbPNGLib (Mac PPC) - C++ PNG plug-in for REALbasic
Sixlegs Java PNG (Java) - independent Java source code
Squeak (many) - independent(?) Smalltalk-80 source code
TNGImage (Win32)
wimg (Win32)
wv (Unix, Win32, Amiga, VMS, OS/2)
wxWindows (many) - C++ GUI toolkit
XmHTML (Unix/X) - HTML 3.2 widget for Motif
zlib (many) - primary deflate/zlib implementation

Browsers

The following web browsers all include source code and are listed on the browsers page. Operating-system support is listed in (parenthesized italics):

Amaya (Unix/X, Win32)
AMosaic (Amiga)
Arena (Unix/X)
AWeb (Amiga)
BrowseX (Unix/X, Win32)
Chimera (Unix/X)
Closure (Unix/X)
CSCMail (Unix/GTK+)
Dillo (Unix/GTK+)
Encompass (Unix/GNOME)
Epiphany (Unix/GNOME)
Galeon (Unix/GNOME)
Grail (Unix/X, Win32, Mac OS)
Kazehakase ( )
K-Meleon (Win32)
Konqueror (Unix/KDE)
Links ( )
mMosaic (Unix/X)
Mozilla (Unix/X, Win32, Mac PPC, OS/2, BeOS, RISC OS)
NCSA MacMosaic (Mac OS)
NCSA X Mosaic (Unix/X)
NetSurf ( )
Safari (Mac OS X)
ViewML (Linux/X, Linux/MicroWindows)
X-Smiles (Java)
Zen (Linux/fbcon, Linux/GTK+)

Viewers

The following image viewers all include source code and are listed on the viewers page. Operating-system support is listed in (parenthesized italics):

Axv (Unix/GTK+)
BePNG (BeOS)
Electric Eyes (Linux/GNOME)
Eye of Gnome (Unix/GNOME)
GQview (Unix/GTK+)
GTK See ( )
ImageJ (Java)
ImageMagick display (Unix/X, VMS/X, Win32)
IV / ImgView / Image Viewer (Unix/GTK+)
JImageView (Java)
Jsee (Java)
KSquirrel ( )
paul (Unix/GTK+)
pho (Unix/GTK+)
Piclab (Win32)
PikView (Unix/KDE)
PixiePlus (Unix/KDE3)
PNGDIB viewer (Win32)
PngUnit (Win32)
PNGView (Win32)
Quick Image Viewer / qiv (Unix/GTK+)
RO-Viewer (Win32)
rpng / rpng2 (Unix/X, VMS/X, Win32)
ShowImg (Unix/KDE2)
SVG Viewer (Java)
tnailer (Perl)
ToyViewer (Mac OS X, NeXTStep/OpenStep)
view (FreeBSD/VGL)
ViewDT (Amiga) - front end only; requires binary datatype
VisualPng (Win32)
wb0 (Linux/SVGA)
wxyzv (Unix/X)
xli (Unix/X)
XV (Unix, VMS)
Xzgv (Linux/GTK+)
ZBoxZ (Palm OS)
Zgv (Linux/SVGA)

Image Editors

The following image editors all include source code and are listed on the editors page. Operating-system support is listed in (parenthesized italics):

D-Pixed PNG add-in (Win32)
Gill (Unix/GTK+)
GIMP (Unix/GTK+, Win32, OS/2)
GNOME-Iconedit (Unix/GTK+)
Inkscape (Unix/GTK+, Win32/GTK+)
ivtools (Unix/X, Win32)
Karbon14 ( )
Kontour (Unix/KDE)
Krita (Unix/KDE) - formerly known as KImageShop and Krayon
mvComicsMaker (Linux/Qt)
Paint.Net ( )
Sketch (Unix/X)
Sodipodi (Unix/GTK+, Win32/GTK+)
TuxPaint (Linux/SDL, Win32/SDL, etc.)
xart (Unix/X)
xfig (Unix/X)
XPaint (Unix/X)

Converters

The following image converters all include source code and are listed on the converters page. Operating-system support is listed in (parenthesized italics):

AdvanceCOMP (DOS, Win32, Linux) - recompresses PNG and MNG images
A Mort les GIFs (Java) - converts GIF to PNG and MNG
any2png (Unix, Win32/Cygwin) - converts various formats to PNG
bmp2png / png2bmp (DOS, Win32) - converts between PNG and Windows BMP
dvipng (Unix, Win32, etc.) - converts TeX DVI format to PNG
dvips (Unix, Win32, etc.) - converts TeX DVI format to PostScript
ecg2png (Unix/Qt) - converts electrocardiogram scans to PNG
eps2png (Perl) - converts encapsulated PostScript to PNG
FOP (Java) - converts XML+XSL to PDF, SVG, PostScript, etc.
Ghostscript (many) - converts PostScript to various formats
gif2png (many) - converts GIF to PNG
hp2xx (many) - converts HPGL to PNG
ImageJ (Java) - converts various formats to various other formats
ImageMagick convert (many) - converts various formats to various other formats
imc (Unix) - converts text commands to PNG
img2pdf (many) - converts PNG, TIFF, JPEG images to PDF
img2png (Atari) - converts Atari IMG to PNG
mag2png ( ) -
OptiPNG (Unix, Win32) - shrinks (optimizes) PNGs losslessly
pdf2html (Unix) - converts PDF to PNG (and HTML)
pdftex / pdflatex (Unix, Mac OS X, Win32) - TeX-to-PDF converter
pdftohtml (Unix) - PDF-to-HTML converter
pho (Unix/GTK+) - converts and rotates various formats
Piclab (Win32)
PixiePlus (Unix/KDE3) - converts various formats to various other formats
png2ansi (DOS, Unix, etc.) - converts PNG to ASCII text with ANSI control codes
png2html (many) - converts PNG to (really big) HTML
png2html.php (PHP4) - converts PNG to (really big) HTML
png2ico (many) - converts PNG to Windows ICO
png2jpg (Unix) - HTTP proxy to convert PNG to JPEG
png2linuxlogo (many) - converts PNG to linux_logo.h
png2txt (many) - converts PNG to 80-column ASCII text
pngcsum (many) - recomputes internal CRCs and writes new PNG (for those who binary-edit PNGs)
pngcrush (many) - shrinks PNGs losslessly by optimizing the filtering and compression strategies
pngmeta (many) - converts PNG text annotations to HTML, XML, etc.
pngnq (many) - shrinks PNGs by quantizing/dithering 32-bit RGBA to 8-bit RGBA-palette (NeuQuant algorithm)
PNG Pooper (BeOS) - converts various formats to PNG using the Translation Kit
pngquant (many) - shrinks PNGs by quantizing/dithering 32-bit RGBA to 8-bit RGBA-palette (median-cut algorithm)
pngrewrite (many) - shrinks PNGs by reducing unnecessarily large palettes and bit depths
pngslice (many) - slices PNG into several and truncates right (or left) sides
pngsplit (many) - breaks PNG, MNG or JNG into constituent chunks
png-tEXt.pl (Perl) - adds text chunks to PNG images
pngtoico (many) - converts PNG to Windows ICO
pngtools (many) - dumps PNG internal info, converts to canonicalized form, etc.
PngUnit (Win32) - converts Windows BMP to PNG
pngwolf (many) - shrinks PNGs losslessly by optimizing the filtering and compression methods
pnmtopng (many) - converts PBM/PGM/PPM to and from PNG
pstoedit (Unix, OS/2, Win32) - converts PostScript and PDF to PNG and other things
pstopng (many) - converts PostScript to PNG
pstopngtops (many) - converts PostScript to PNG to bitmapped Encapsulated PostScript
ptot (many) - converts PNG to TIFF
scr2png (FreeBSD) - converts FreeBSD screenshots to PNG
ShowImg (Unix/KDE2) - converts various formats to various other formats
SNG (many) - converts PNG to and from editable text
svg2png (Unix/GTK+) - converts SVG to PNG
tiff2png (many) - converts TIFF to PNG
tnailer (Perl) - converts PNGs and JPEGs to thumbnails and other sizes
ToyViewer (Mac OS X, NeXTStep/OpenStep) - converts various formats to various other formats
TweakPNG (Win32) - lists and modifies PNGs
wbmptopng (many) - converts WAP bitmaps to grayscale PNG
wmftopng (many) - converts WMF to PNG
wpng (many) - converts PGM/PPM to PNG
Xenomorph (Unix/Qt3) - filters PNG, MNG or JPEG images; writes PNG
xPNG / fixPNG (DOS) - modifies PNGs
XV (Unix, VMS) - converts various formats to various other formats

3D and VRML

The following 3D applications all include source code and are listed on the 3D apps page. The VRML browsers are also listed on the VRML browsers page. Operating-system support is listed in (parenthesized italics):

Blender ( ) -
Cn3D (Win32, Unix/X, Mac OS) - 3D molecular structure viewer
Contact (Win32) - VRML browser
Crystal Space (many) - 3D game engine
Flounder (Unix/X) - 4D data-visualization program
FreeWRL (Perl) - VRML browser with HMD support
Gforge (Unix, DOS) - fractal terrain generator
HF-Lab (Unix, DOS) - fractal height-field generator
Jun for Java (Java) - 3D graphic/multimedia-application framework
Mathematica PNGBitmap (Unix/X, Win32, Mac OS) - texture-import/file-export add-on
Moonlight|3D ( ) -
OpenGL::Image (Perl)
OpenVRML / Lookat (Unix/X, Win32) - VRML library and browser
POV-Ray (many) - ray-tracer (photorealistic renderer)
Q3BSP (Win32) - Quake 3 to VRML converter
Quat (Unix/FLTK, Win32/FLTK) - 3D quaternion fractal generator
Tachyon (many) - parallel/multiprocessor ray-tracer library
white_dune (Unix/Motif) - VRML editor and animation tool

Games and Entertainment

The following games and entertainment applications all include source code and are listed on the games / entertainment page. Operating-system support is listed in (parenthesized italics):

AdvanceMAME (DOS, Win32/SDL, Linux/SDL) - arcade emulator
AdvanceMENU (DOS, Win32/SDL, Linux/SDL) - front end / game launcher for arcade emulators
ampsig ( )
Circus Linux (Linux/X) - arcade game
EasySok (Unix/KDE3) - Sokoban game (recording capability)
GF1 (Linux, Win32) - solitaire strategy game
gfract (Unix/GTK+) - fractal generator
Glito (Unix/X, Win32) - IFS (fractal) explorer
GLtron (Linux/X, Win32, Mac OS, Mac OS X) - TRON lightcycle game
Glulxe (Win32, Mac?) - interpreter for interactive fiction (e.g., Zork)
GNU Backgammon (Unix/GTK+, Win32) - backgammon game
Hyperplay (Unix/GTK+, Win32, OS/2) - engine for interactive fiction (e.g., Zork)
JavaBrot (Java/Win32, Java/Linux, etc.) - fractal generator
mapdraw (many) - renders Wolfenstein 3D game maps in text or PNG format
nwrk-matrix (many) - displays dropping-characters effect from The Matrix
PilotGOne (Palm OS) - Go game, recorder/playback utility
Pueblo/UE ( )
Pygame (many) - Python- and SDL-based multimedia library/toolkit
Quat (Unix/FLTK, Win32/FLTK) - 3D quaternion fractal generator
Sphere (Win32) - tile-based, role-playing game (RPG) engine
Stereograph (Linux) - stereogram generator
Stratagus (Linux, Win32, BSD, BeOS, Mac OS X) - cell-based strategy-game engine
TADS (Win32) - development system for interactive fiction
TADSMap (many) - mapping add-on for interactive fiction
XaoS (many) - fractal generator/zoomer

Office / Business

The following office and productivity applications all include source code and are listed on the office / business apps page. Operating-system support is listed in (parenthesized italics):

AbiWord (Win32, Unix/X, BeOS) - word processor
Anyware / Applixware Office ( ) -
AxPoint (Perl) - XML-based PDF presentation tool
Balsa ( ) -
Evolution ( ) -
GanttProject (Java) - project-planning/Gantt-chart tool
ImPress (Win32, Unix/X) - page-layout app
KOffice (Unix/KDE) - office suite
MagicPoint (Unix/X) - text-based presentation app
Nautilus (Unix/GTK+) - file manager and graphical shell
OpenOffice.org (Unix/X, Mac OS X, Win32) - office suite
ROX-Filer (Unix/GTK) - file manager
Ted (Unix/X) - text editor/word processor

Scientific / Graphing

The following scientific, technical and graphing applications all include source code and are listed on the scientific / graphing apps page. Operating-system support is listed in (parenthesized italics):

CellProfiler (Win32, Mac OS X, MatLab) - image analysis of biological cells
Cn3D (Win32, Unix/X, Mac OS) - 3D molecular structure viewer
DNA-CGR (Linux/SVGA) - DNA/RNA-sequence visualization tool
DTM / Digital Terrain Mapping (Win32) - digital elevation map viewer
Flounder (Unix/X) - 4D data-visualization program
g3data (Unix/GTK+) - utility to automate extraction of data values from graphs
gerbv / Gerber Viewer (Unix/GTK+) - CAD viewer for printed circuit board layouts
Gmsh ( ) -
gnuplot (many) - plotting and graphing program
Grace (Unix/Motif, OS/2, VMS, Win32) - 2D graphing program
GrADS (Unix/X) - 4D data analysis and visualization tool
GraphViz (Unix, Win32, Mac OS X) - suite of 2D graph-visualization tools
GRASS (Unix/X, Win32/Cygwin) - Geographic Information System
KMatplot (Unix/KDE) - WYSIWYG plotting and graphing program
kst (Unix/KDE) - data plotting and graphing program
Mathematica PNGBitmap (Unix/X, Win32, Mac OS) - texture-import/file-export add-on
mathmlrender (Unix/GTK+) - MathML renderer for PHP4
MRTG / Multi Router Traffic Grapher (Unix, Win32) - network-stats graphing utility
myPACS (Unix/CGI) - web-based medical image-management system
PHPLOT (Unix/PHP) - plotting and graphing program
Ploticus (Unix/X) - plotting and charting program
plotutils (many) - vector-based plotting and conversion tools, ODE solver, etc.
PLplot (Unix)
PNGwriter (many) - C++ class for plotting and graphing
PyChart ( ) -
R (Unix/X, Win32) - statistical computing and graphing language
RRDtool ( ) -
Webalizer (Unix, Mac PPC, OS/2, Win32) - web-stats analysis and graphing utility
zimg (Unix, OS/2, etc.) - false-color 2D plotting program

Miscellaneous

The following miscellaneous applications all include source code and are listed on the miscellaneous apps page. Operating-system support is listed in (parenthesized italics):

addtRNS.cgi (Perl) - transparency-adding CGI script
Apache Toolbox (Unix) - automated build tool for Apache web server
Berlin Project (Linux/GGI) - advanced windowing system
Catalog (Perl) - hierarchical-catalog maintenance system
CopyRightLeft (Win32) - utility to add copyright string to pixel data
cyclo.cgi (Perl) - PNG-to-animated-MNG CGI script
Digital Image Recovery (Win32) - file-recovery tool for digital photos on flash cards
DIRT (Unix/X) - web server with on-the-fly image creation
Image::Dot ( ) -
Doxygen (Unix, Win32) - multi-language documentation system
Drive Rescue (Win32) - file-recovery tool for FAT and NTFS hard drives
Eterm (Unix/GTK+) - VT102 terminal emulator
FBShot (Linux/fbcon) - screen-capture utility
file (many) - file-type identifier
FileSnoop (Win32) - file-dumping and sniffing utility
Freevo (Linux/X) - PVR/DVR (TiVo-like) application
FXTV (BSD/X) - TV-in-a-window application
GMask (Win32) - "masking tiles" remover
gnubiff ( ) -
IDS (Perl) - CGI script to create photo galleries
imghide (many) - steganographic utility
Itsbit ( ) -
move.cgi (Perl) - PNG-to-scrolling-MNG CGI script
PHPoll (PHP) - web-voting utility
pngcheck (many) - PNG tester/dumper
PNGstat (Perl) - PNG info-dumper
pngtester.cgi (Perl) - PNG/JNG/MNG-testing CGI script
Remind (Unix) - reminder and calendar-generating program
sanecgi (Unix/Perl) - Web interface to scanners
scroll.cgi (Perl) - PNG-to-scrolling-MNG CGI script
txtcut.cgi (Perl) - text-chunk-stripping CGI script
USFlag (Win32, Unix) - utility to create scaled US flags
vgrabbj (Linux) - USB video-capture utility
VideoteXt (Unix/X) - videotext decoder
w3cam (Linux) - video-capture utility with Web interface
WumPNG / Dumping (DOS) - PNG tester/dumper
WWWis (Perl) - HTML IMG-sizer script
XEmacs (Unix/X) - editor / kitchen sink
xine (Unix/X, Win32, OS/2) - movie player (DVD, VCD, QuickTime, ...)
XVidCap (Unix/X) - screen-capture utility

MNG

The following MNG-supporting applications all include source code and are listed on the MNG apps pages. Operating-system support is listed in (parenthesized italics):

AdvanceCOMP (DOS, Win32, Linux) - recompresses PNG and MNG images
AdvanceMAME (DOS, Win32/SDL, Linux/SDL) - arcade emulator
AdvanceMENU (DOS, Win32/SDL, Linux/SDL) - front end / game launcher for arcade emulator
A Mort les GIFs (Java) - converts GIF to PNG and MNG
blinkentools (Win32, Mac OS X, Unix) - text-to-MNG converter
bootsplash ( ) -
Crystal Space (many) - 3D game engine
CxImage (Win32) - C++ multi-format image class
cyclo.cgi (Perl) - PNG-to-animated-MNG CGI script
EasySok (Unix/KDE3) - Sokoban game (recording capability)
FileSnoop (Win32) - file-dumping and sniffing utility
FreeImage (Win32) - image toolkit
GIMP (Unix/GTK+, Win32, OS/2) - image/animation editor
Glito (Unix/X, Win32) - IFS (fractal) explorer
ImageFileLib ( ) -
ImageMagick (many) - MNG viewer/converter
Konqueror (Unix/KDE) - web browser
KSquirrel ( ) -
lcms (Unix, Win32, etc.) - color management system
libmng (Unix, Win32) - MNG reference library (in C)
libpr0n (many) - Mozilla image-rendering library (in C++)
MagicPoint (Unix/X) - presentation app
MicroPlayer / µ-Player (Java) - MNG viewer applet
MINGLIB (many) - MNG library (in Pascal)
MNG4IE (Win32) - MNG ActiveX control for Internet Explorer
mngcntr.cgi ( ) -
MNG Compiler (Perl, Win32) - text/PNG-to-MNG converter
MNGcount (Perl) - web-page counter
MNGEdit (Win32) - MNG animation editor
MNGeye ( ) -
MNG-LC Player (Java) - MNG viewer
mngplay (Unix/X, Win32, BeOS, Mac OS) - MNG viewer
MNGPLG (Win32) - MNG plug-in for Netscape
MNG Plug-in (Linux/Qt) - MNG plug-in for Netscape
MNG QuickTime Component ( ) -
MNG Translator (BeOS) - OS extension for MNG/JNG/PNG images
mngview (Win32) - MNG viewer (in Pascal)
move.cgi (Perl) - PNG-to-scrolling-MNG CGI script
Mozilla (Unix/X, Win32, Mac PPC, OS/2, BeOS, RISC OS) - web browser
pngcheck (many) - MNG dumper/tester
pngtester.cgi (Perl) - PNG/JNG/MNG-testing CGI script
Pueblo/UE ( ) -
Qt (Unix/X, Win32, BeOS) - GUI toolkit
QuickTime MNG Component (Mac OS X, Mac OS, Win32) - MNG plug-in to QuickTime framework
scroll.cgi (Perl) - PNG-to-scrolling-MNG CGI script
ShowImg (Unix/KDE2) - image viewer and converter
TADS (Win32) - development system for interactive fiction
TNGImage (Win32) - PNG/MNG/JNG Delphi (Pascal) component
x11rec (Unix/X) - screen-capture utility
Xenomorph (Unix/Qt3) - filters PNG, MNG or JPEG images; writes PNG
XVidCap (Unix/X) - screen-capture utility

Here are some related PNG pages at this site:

Last modified 17 April 2026.