An External Image is an intermediate object. It is a representation of a graphic but is not associated with a port and cannot be used directly for drawing.
An object of type
external-image
is created by reading an image from a file, or by externalizing an
image
object, or by copying an existing
external-image
. Or, if you have the image bitmap data, you can create one directly as in the
examples/capi/buttons/button.lisp
example.
The
external-image
contains the bitmap data, potentially compressed. You can copy
external-image
objects, or write them to file, or compress the data.
You cannot query the size of the image in an
external-image
object directly. To get the dimensions without actually drawing it on screen see Pixmap graphics ports.