Fast way to get image dimensions (not filesize)

Question

• The file command prints the dimensions for several image formats (e.g. PNG, GIF, JPEG; recent versions also PPM, WEBP), and does only read the header.

• The identify command (from ImageMagick) prints lots of image information for a wide variety of images. It seems to restrain itself to reading the header portion (see comments). It also uses a unified format which file sadly lacks.

• exiv2 gives you dimensions for many formats, including JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, WEBP, even if no EXIF header present. It is unclear if it reads the whole data for that though. See the manpage of exiv2 for all supported image formats.

• head -n1 will give you the dimensions for PPM, PGM formats.

For formats popular on the web, both exiv2 and identify will do the job. Depending on the use-case you may need to write your own script that combines/parses outputs of several tools.

I not sure you have php installed, but this PHP function is pretty handy

 php -r "print_r(getimagesize('http://www.google.com/images/logos/ps_logo2.png'));"

You can use ImageMagick's identify function. Here's how you do it in bash (Note $0 is the image's path):

width=$(identify -format "%w" "$0")> /dev/null
height=$(identify -format "%h" "$0")> /dev/null

And this also hides any potential error messages. Modern implementations of identify only read the header, not the whole image, so it is fast. Not sure how it compares to other methods though.

https://joseluisbz.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/obtaining-size-or-dimension-of-images/ (BMP, PNG, GIF, JPG, TIF or WMF)

Here for two formats PNG and JPG.

^{My code is from a class designed to my use, you can to edit according to your needs.}

Please check these functions/method using PHP:

  public function ByteStreamImageString($ByteStream,&$Formato,&$Alto,&$Ancho) {
    $Alto = 0;
    $Ancho = 0;
    $Formato = -1;
    $this->HexImageString = "Error";
    if (ord($ByteStream[0])==137 && ord($ByteStream[1])==80 && ord($ByteStream[2])==78){
      $Formato = 1; //PNG
      $Alto = $this->Byte2PosInt($ByteStream[22],$ByteStream[23]);
      $Ancho = $this->Byte2PosInt($ByteStream[18],$ByteStream[19]);
    }
    if (ord($ByteStream[0])==255 && ord($ByteStream[1])==216
        && ord($ByteStream[2])==255 && ord($ByteStream[3])==224){
      $Formato = 2; //JPG
      $PosJPG = 2;
      while ($PosJPG<strlen($ByteStream)){
        if (sprintf("%02X%02X", ord($ByteStream[$PosJPG+0]),ord($ByteStream[$PosJPG+1]))=="FFC0"){
          $Alto = $this->Byte2PosInt($ByteStream[$PosJPG+5],$ByteStream[$PosJPG+6]);
          $Ancho = $this->Byte2PosInt($ByteStream[$PosJPG+7],$ByteStream[$PosJPG+8]);
        }
        $PosJPG = $PosJPG+2+$this->Byte2PosInt($ByteStream[$PosJPG+2],$ByteStream[$PosJPG+3]);
      }
    }
    if ($Formato > 0){
      $this->HexImageString = "";
      $Salto = 0;
      for ($i=0;$i < strlen($ByteStream); $i++){
        $Salto++;
        $this->HexImageString .= sprintf("%02x", ord($ByteStream[$i]));
        if ($Salto==64){
          $this->HexImageString .= "\n";
          $Salto = 0;
        }
      }
    }
  }


  private function Byte2PosInt($Byte08,$Byte00) {
    return ((ord($Byte08) & 0xFF) << 8)|((ord($Byte00) & 0xFF) << 0);
  }

Using the PHP Code:

      $iFormato = NULL;//Format PNG or JPG
      $iAlto = NULL; //High
      $iAncho = NULL;//Wide
      ByteStreamImageString($ImageJPG,$iFormato,$iAlto,$iAncho);//The Dimensions will stored in  iFormato,iAlto,iAncho

Now these functions/method using JAVA:

  private void ByteStreamImageString(byte[] ByteStream,int[] Frmt,int[] High,int[] Wide) {
    High[0] = 0;
    Wide[0] = 0;
    Frmt[0] = -1;
    this.HexImageString = "Error";
    if ((int)(ByteStream[0]&0xFF)==137 && (int)(ByteStream[1]&0xFF)==80 &&(int)(ByteStream[2]&0xFF)==78){
      Frmt[0] = 1; //PNG
      High[0] = this.Byte2PosInt(ByteStream[22],ByteStream[23]);
      Wide[0] = this.Byte2PosInt(ByteStream[18],ByteStream[19]);
    }
    if ((int)(ByteStream[0]&0xFF)==255 && (int)(ByteStream[1]&0xFF)==216
        &&(int)(ByteStream[2]&0xFF)==255 && (int)(ByteStream[3]&0xFF)==224){
      Frmt[0] = 2; //JPG
      int PosJPG = 2;
      while (PosJPG<ByteStream.length){
        if (String.format("%02X%02X", ByteStream[PosJPG+0],ByteStream[PosJPG+1]).equals("FFC0")){
          High[0] = this.Byte2PosInt(ByteStream[PosJPG+5],ByteStream[PosJPG+6]);
          Wide[0] = this.Byte2PosInt(ByteStream[PosJPG+7],ByteStream[PosJPG+8]);
        }
        PosJPG = PosJPG+2+this.Byte2PosInt(ByteStream[PosJPG+2],ByteStream[PosJPG+3]);
      }
    }
    if (Frmt[0] > 0){
      this.HexImageString = "";
      int Salto = 0;
      for (int i=0;i < ByteStream.length; i++){
        Salto++;
        this.HexImageString += String.format("%02x", ByteStream[i]);
        if (Salto==64){
          this.HexImageString += "\n";
          Salto = 0;
        }
      }
    }
  }


  private Integer Byte2PosInt(byte Byte08, byte Byte00) {
    return new Integer (((Byte08 & 0xFF) << 8)|((Byte00 & 0xFF) << 0));
  }

Using the Java code:

        int[] iFormato = new int[1]; //Format PNG or JPG
        int[] iAlto = new int[1]; //High
        int[] iAncho = new int[1]; //Wide
        ByteStreamImageString(ImageJPG,iFormato,iAlto,iAncho); //The Dimensions will stored in  iFormato[0],iAlto[0],iAncho[0]

Imagemagick -ping option

It seems to have been introduced for that purpose.

However as of ImageMagick 6.7.7 I don't observe slowdown even for every large files, e.g.:

head -c 100000000 /dev/urandom > f.gray
# I don't recommend that you run this command as it eats a lot of memory.
convert -depth 8 -size 20000x10000 f.gray f.png
identify f.png

Can you produce an example input image for which it is still slow?

See also: Can ImageMagick return the image size?