Support for GPU based image processing through Direct2D

Sep 29, 2015 20:16 GMT  ·  By

Lumia Imaging SDK 3.0 has just been released with a few new features and improvements. First of all, it's worth mentioning that Lumia Imaging SDK powers lots of apps in the Windows Store, with more than 100 million downloads, which is an impressive feat to say the least.

According to Microsoft, the most important new feature included in this update is support for GPU-based image processing through Direct2D.

Basically, this translates into significant performance improvements compared to the same application implemented with an earlier CPU-only version of the SDK.

“Where possible, exact implementation details of GPU support have been abstracted away from the API so that majority of the developers don’t need to be aware of what’s happening under the hood,” says Microsoft in a blog post.

But that's not all, as Microsoft has confirmed the latest update also brings supports for Windows 10 Universal Platform, which means it will now target smartphones, tablets and computers powered by Windows 10.

Windows 10 APIs interoperability

However, Microsoft announced that it would continue to support development for both Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 platforms.

It looks like the new version of Lumia Imaging SDK has been implemented as Windows Runtime Component, thus allowing its APIs to be called from apps written in various languages like C#, C++, JavaScript and Visual Basic.

Another improvement included in the latest Lumia Imaging SDK update is related to interoperability with Windows 10 APIs, which means rendering to SwapChainPanel will now be supported, while Direct3DSurface, SoftwareBitmap and WriteableBitmap can be used both as image sources and as rendering targets.

In order to start developing with Lumia Imaging 3.0 SDK for Windows 10, you will need to install the SDK using NuGet Package Manager from within the Visual Studio, or download the package directly from nuget.org.