README.md

spec - Generate invertible DCT frequency spectrums for viewing and editing.

Usage

spec -g -c csp -t (abs|shift|flat|sign|copy) -R (one|dc|dcs) -T (linear|log) -S (abs|shift|saturate|retain) -G (native|reference|custom(float)) <infile> <outfile>
ispec -g -c csp -t (abs|shift|flat|sign|copy) -R (one|dc|dcs) -T (linear|log) -S (abs|shift|saturate|retain) -G (native|reference|custom(float)) -p -m <signmap> <infile> <outfile>

Spectrogram types

Presets (-t):

• abs - Log-scaled absolute value spectrum, common for viewing. Invertible with a corresponding sign spectrum. (-Rdc -Tlog -Sabs -Gnative)
• shift - Log-scaled spectrum shifted into the 0-1 range, suitable for editing and inverting even at low bitdepths. (-Rone -Tlog -Sshift -Gnative)
• flat - Linear-scaled shifted spectrum for editing with higher-bitdepth editors. (-Rone -Tlinear -Sshift -G1)
• sign - Sign map. Can be provided to ispec to invert an abs spectrum. (-Rone -Tlinear -Ssat -G1)
• copy - The unmodified spectrum in the range -1 through 1 for formats that support this. (-Rone -Tlinear -Sretain -G1)

Other options

-c: Color planes to operate on (R/G/B)

-g: Operate in linear RGB colorspace.

Examples

Generate the spectrogram of an image:

spec flower.png flower.spec.png

spec can be used as a filter, particularly when piping with imagemagick. This allows you to perform e.g. sinc resizes using crop/expand filters:

spec -tflat image.png | convert - -crop 32x32+0+0 - | ispec -tflat | display

Or a smooth low-pass filter using the gradient tool of an image editor:

spec -tshift kodim23.png | convert - -depth 8 tempimg.png
<edit tempimg.png>
ispec -tshift tempimg.png | display

Draw into the absolute value frequency spectrum of an image:

spec -tabs kodim23.png | convert - -depth 8 tempimg.png
<edit tempimg.png>
ispec -tabs -m<(spec -tsign kodim23.png) tempimg.png cover_image.png

And uncover the message later*:

spec -tabs cover_image.png hidden_message.png

*If it hasn't been destroyed by clipping/quantization of the cover image.