Enabling JPEG2000 in ImageMagick

In this article, we will be discussing how to enable JPEG2000 support in ImageMagick. ImageMagick is a powerful software suite that allows you to create, edit, and compose bitmap images. It can read, convert and write images in a variety of formats including JPEG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, and JPEG2000.

JPEG2000 is an image coding system that uses state-of-the-art compression techniques based on wavelet technology. Its architecture lends itself to a wide range of uses from portable digital cameras through to advanced pre-press, medical imaging, and other key sectors.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure that you have sudo or root access to your Linux server or desktop where you will be installing ImageMagick. This is necessary to install the required packages and build ImageMagick from source.

Step 1: Installing Necessary Packages

The first step is to install the necessary packages for JPEG2000 support. We will need libopenjp2-tools and libopenjp2-7-dev. You can install these packages using the apt-get command as follows:

sudo apt-get install libopenjp2-tools libopenjp2-7-dev

The apt-get install command installs packages on your system. The sudo command is used to run the install command with root privileges. libopenjp2-tools and libopenjp2-7-dev are the packages we are installing. These packages provide the tools and libraries needed to support JPEG2000 in ImageMagick.

Step 2: Building ImageMagick from Source

Next, we will build ImageMagick from source. This is necessary because the pre-built ImageMagick packages in many Linux distributions do not include JPEG2000 support.

You can download the ImageMagick source code from the official ImageMagick website. For this tutorial, we will use ImageMagick version 7.1.1-8.

Here is a script that automates the build process on Ubuntu 22:

#!/bin/bash

sudo apt-get install libopenjp2-tools libopenjp2-7-dev pkg-config
version=7.1.1-8
tar_file="ImageMagick-${version}.tar.gz"
folder="ImageMagick-${version}"

if ! [ -f $tar_file ]; then
 echo "$tar_file" not found, downloading...
 wget https://download.imagemagick.org/ImageMagick/download/releases/$tar_file
fi
if ! [ -d $folder ]; then
 echo "$folder" not found, untar-ing...
 tar xvzf $tar_file
fi

cd $folder || exit

./configure --with-openjp2 > configure.log
if grep -q "jp2" configure.log; then
 echo "JP2 enabled"
else
 echo "JP2 not enabled, see configure.log, exiting"
 exit 1
fi

sudo make > make.log
sudo make install > make_install.log
sudo ldconfig /usr/local/lib
if convert -version | grep -q jp2; then
 echo "JP2 installed correctly!"
else
 echo "JP2 not enabled, see make.log and make_install.log, exiting"
 exit 1
fi

cd ..
sudo rm -rf ImageMagick-${version}*

This script first installs the necessary packages (libopenjp2-tools and libopenjp2-7-dev), then downloads and extracts the ImageMagick source code. It then configures the build with JPEG2000 support (--with-openjp2), builds the software (make), and installs it (make install). The ldconfig command is used to update the shared library cache.

Step 3: Verifying JPEG2000 Support

After successfully building and installing ImageMagick, you can check if JPEG2000 support is enabled by running the following command:

identify -list format | grep JP2

This command lists all the image formats supported by ImageMagick (identify -list format) and filters the output for JPEG2000 (grep JP2). If JPEG2000 support is enabled, you should see an output similar to this:

JP2* rw- JPEG-2000 File Format Syntax (2.1.0)

Using ImageMagick with JPEG2000

Now that JPEG2000 support is enabled, you can use ImageMagick to convert jp2 files to other formats. For example, to convert a jp2 file to jpg, you can use the convert command:

convert input.jp2 output.jpg

In this command, input.jp2 is the source jp2 file and output.jpg is the destination jpg file.

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed how to enable JPEG2000 support in ImageMagick. We have covered the installation of necessary packages, building ImageMagick from source, and verifying JPEG2000 support. We have also shown how to use ImageMagick to convert jp2 files to other formats. We hope this guide helps you in your work with ImageMagick and JPEG2000.