Two questions about writing .bmp files. 1: In the BITMAPFILEHEADER structure, what is the bfOffBits member? I just have it always set to 54 because that''s the value I get from a .bmp file I''ve opened... but I have no idea what the value or the variable actually mean. 2: Why is it that when I''m writing the pixel information to the file after I''ve written the headers, if I use an "unsigned char buffer[2048][3]" my bitmap looks fine, but when I use an "unsigned char **buffer" and allocate the required amount of memory, it looks completly messed up? By the way, the bitmap image is 64x32 and 24-bit. Here''s the code I''m using... //This works unsigned char buffer[2048][3]; //*Code that fills up the buffer with my pixels* //*Code that opens up a bitmap file* //*Code that fills up the header files and writes them* fwrite(buffer,sizeof(char),2048*3,fptr);//note: fptr is my file pointer //This doesn''t work unsigned char **buffer buffer=new char*[2048]; for (int i=0;i<2048;i++) buffer=new char[3]; //*Code that fills up the buffer with my pixels* //*Code that opens up a bitmap file* //*Code that fills up the header files and writes them* fwrite(buffer,sizeof(char),2048*3,fptr);//note: fptr is my file pointer I can''t figure out why this happens . I need to get the second example to work, because I need to be able to dynamically allocate the memory for the buffer because the size of the image can change.

About your second example:

You are allocating an array of 2048 pointers, each pointing to an array of 3 unsigned chars.

You should probably allocate your memory like this:

    int number_of_pixels = 2048; // change this for other buffer sizesunsigned char *buffer;buffer = new char[number_of_pixels * 3];    

just remember that each pixel takes up 3 elements in the array when you access it.

Alternatively (and prehaps a bit more intuitive), you can create an array of color-structs, like:

  struct colour{   unsigned char r, g, b;}; int number_of_pixels = 2048; // change this for other buffer sizescolour *buffer;buffer = new color[number_of_pixels];  // then to change the green element of the 6th pixel yo do:buffer[6].g = 45; // whatever  

(btw, you should probably make sure that the colour-struct is packed to byte-boundaries, look up "#pragma pack" if you're using MSVC)

Edited by - Dactylos on October 13, 2001 12:42:13 AM