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DirectXTex, a shared source library for reading and writing .DDS files, and performing various texture content processing operations including resizing, format conversion, mip-map generation, block compression for Direct3D runtime texture resources, and height-map to normal-map conversion. This library makes use of the Windows Image Component (WIC) APIs. It also includes simple .TGA and .HDR readers and writers since these image file format are commonly used for texture content processing pipelines, but are not supported by a built-in WIC codec.
See this blog post for an overview.
DirectXTex library
Texconv utility
Texassemble utility
Texdiag utility
DDSView sample
NuGet
DirectXTex is also available from the NuGet Gallery:
- Windows desktop app using VS 2019 or VS 2022
- Windows desktop app using VS 2019 or VS 2022 for Windows 10 / DX 12
- Universal Windows Platform apps using VS 2019 or VS 2022
vcpkg C++ Package Manager
DirectXTex has a vcpkg installation port as well.
Porting from D3DX
See this post for a complete listing of D3DX equivalents.
DirectXTex vs. DirectX Tool Kit
The DirectXTex library is designed a full-featured texture processing library that includes a sophisticated DDS file reader. This reader can handle numerous legacy formats and automatically performs required conversions. This makes it extremely useful in tools and content pipelines, but is far more code that is really needed for a game or application at runtime that loads 'cooked' textures.
Instead, a game or application should make use of DDSTextureLoader (DX9 / DX11 / DX12) and/or WICTextureLoader (DX9 / DX11 / DX12). These modules provide light-weight versions of texture creation from .dds, .bmp, .png, .gif, .jpg, .tif, and JPEG-XR / HD Photo files. ScreenGrab (DX9 / DX11 / DX12) is a light-weight screenshot capture utility for writing out the same file types.
These modules are included in DirectX Tool Kit (DX11 and DX12), and there are 'standalone' versions available in the DirectXTex distribution as well.
See Direct3D 11 Textures and Block Compression
Xbox
The xtexconv sample also includes some auxiliary platform-specific functionality for Xbox One XDK / Microsoft GDKX development, which are in the Auxiliary folder. This includes functions for tiling & de-tiling textures, and a variant .DDS file reader/writer for storing tiled textures. The DirectX Tool Kit includes the XboxDDSTextureLoader DX11 / DX12 for using placement texture creation using this DDS file variant.
BC/DXT compression
The implementation of BC1-BC7 software compression & decompression in this library comes from the D3DX library, with some fixes included from Xbox variant libraries (XGraphics) for BC1-5. The intent of the software library here is a 'reference' compression scheme for these formats. In other words, it should always be as good as or better than legacy D3DX9/D3DX10/D3DX11.
The GPU implementation of BC6H/BC7 is from the BC6HBC7EncoderCS DirectCompute 4.0 sample that originally shipped in the legacy DirectX SDK.
IHV compressors
The various video independent hardware vendors (IHVs) have their own texture toolsets as well.
-
Intel ISPC compressors: BC6H, BC7, ISPCTextureCompressor
Intel Texture Works Plugin for Photoshop -
NVIDIA Texture Tools
NVIDIA Texture Tools for Adobe Photoshop
Note that the NVIDIA tools haven't been updated in some time, and are currently missing support for the DX10 header extension, BC6H, and BC7.
OSS libraries
- Aras Pranckevičius & Michael Schmidt: bcdec
- Binomial: bc7e
- Eric Lasota: convection
- Fabian Giesen & Sean Barrett: stb
- Ignacio Castano: icbc
- Rich Geldreich: rgbcx, bc7enc, bc7enc_rdo
- Simon Brown: libsquish
Support
For questions, consider using Stack Overflow with the directxtk tag, or the DirectX Discord Server in the dx12-developers or dx9-dx11-developers channel.
For bug reports and feature requests, please use GitHub issues for this project.
Security
The DirectXTex library functions are invoked by client code. While effort is made to validate parameters and arguments in code, the client code is responsible for validating any relevant user-input. The primary security focus for DirectXTex is the image loading code which process potentially untrusted content from disk/memory. When using Windows Imaging Component (WIC), that component has a strong security guarantee and validation story for security vulnerabilities. For the custom DDS, HDR, and TGA codecs, significant hardening and validation has been applied and the code is subject to file-fuzzing.
This project is subject to Microsoft's Open Source Security Policy.
For a list of known vulnerabilities, see GitHub.
Roadmap
Planned work is implementing DirectX12 features like the DirectCompute-based GPU BC6/BC7 codec (currently only supports DirectX 11), and an implementation of Standard Swizzle.
New command-line tools are planned texenvmap for generating various styles of environment maps, and textile for processing data for texture tiling.
Contributing
This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com.
When you submit a pull request, a CLA bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., status check, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.
Tests for new features should also be submitted as a PR to the Test Suite repository.
Information on coding-style can be found here.
Code of Conduct
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.
Trademarks
This project may contain trademarks or logos for projects, products, or services. Authorized use of Microsoft trademarks or logos is subject to and must follow Microsoft's Trademark & Brand Guidelines. Use of Microsoft trademarks or logos in modified versions of this project must not cause confusion or imply Microsoft sponsorship. Any use of third-party trademarks or logos are subject to those third-party's policies.
Credits
The DirectXTex library is the work of Chuck Walbourn, with contributions from Matt Lee, Xin Huang, Craig Peeper, and the numerous other Microsoft engineers who developed the D3DX utility library over the years.
Thanks to Paul Penson for his help with the implementation of MemoryStreamOnBlob.
Thanks to Andrew Farrier and Scott Matloff for their on-going help with code reviews.
Thanks to Park DongHa for their contribution of the JPEG/PNG auxiliary functions.
Thanks to Isaac Plunkett, Danny Chen, Jesse Natalie, and James Stanard for their help with the Standard Swizzle implementation.