Imervue 1.0.20

Imervue, Image + Immerse + View

Imervue

Image + Immerse + View
A GPU-accelerated image viewer built with PySide6 and OpenGL

繁體中文 · 简体中文

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Table of Contents

• Overview
• Features
• Supported Image Formats
• Installation
• Usage
• Browsing Modes
• Keyboard & Mouse Shortcuts
• Menu Structure
• Plugin System
• Multi-Language Support
• User Settings
• Architecture
• License

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Overview

Imervue is a high-performance image viewer designed for smooth navigation and efficient handling of large image collections. It leverages GPU acceleration through OpenGL to deliver fast rendering for both thumbnail grids and deep zoom image viewing.

Key design principles:

• Performance first — GPU-accelerated rendering with modern GLSL shaders and VBO
• Large collection support — Virtualized tile grid loads only visible thumbnails
• Smooth experience — Asynchronous multi-threaded image loading with prefetching
• Extensible — Full plugin system with lifecycle, menu, image, and input hooks

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Features

Core

• GPU-accelerated rendering via OpenGL (GLSL 1.20 shaders with VBO)
• Deep zoom image viewing with multi-level image pyramid (512×512 tiles)
• Virtualized tile-based thumbnail grid with lazy loading
• Asynchronous multi-threaded image loading
• Thumbnail disk cache system (NumPy .npy format with MD5-based cache keys)
• Prefetching of ±3 adjacent images for smooth browsing
• Undo/Redo system (QUndoStack for edits, legacy stack for deletions)

Navigation & Viewing

• Folder-based browsing and single image viewing
• Fullscreen mode with auto-hiding UI (hides after 2s of inactivity)
• Minimap overlay in deep zoom mode
• RGB histogram overlay
• Image rotation (including lossless JPEG rotation via piexif)
• Animated GIF/APNG playback with frame-by-frame controls
• Slideshow mode with configurable interval
• Side-by-side image comparison
• Search/filter images by filename

Organization

• Bookmark system (up to 500 bookmarks)
• Rating system (1–5 stars) and favorites
• Sort by name, modified date, created date, file size, or resolution
• Filter by file extension or rating
• Recent folders and recent images tracking
• Automatic restore of last opened folder on startup

Editing & Export

• Built-in image editor (crop, brightness, contrast, saturation, rotation)
• Export/Save As with format conversion (PNG, JPEG, WebP, BMP, TIFF)
• Quality slider for lossy formats (JPEG, WebP)
• Batch operations (rename, move/copy, rotate selected images)
• Set image as desktop wallpaper
• Copy image / image path to clipboard

Metadata

• EXIF data display in collapsible sidebar
• EXIF editor dialog
• Image info dialog (dimensions, file size, dates)

System Integration

• Windows right-click "Open with Imervue" context menu (file association via registry)
• Folder monitoring with QFileSystemWatcher (auto-refresh on changes)
• Multi-language support (5 built-in languages)
• Plugin system with online plugin downloader
• Toast notification system (info, success, warning, error levels)

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Supported Image Formats

Raster Formats

Format	Extensions
PNG	.png
JPEG	.jpg, .jpeg
BMP	.bmp
TIFF	.tiff, .tif
WebP	.webp
GIF	.gif (animated)
APNG	.apng (animated)

Vector Formats

Format	Extensions
SVG	.svg (rendered via QSvgRenderer, thumbnails downscaled to max 512px)

RAW Camera Formats

Format	Extensions	Camera
CR2	.cr2	Canon
NEF	.nef	Nikon
ARW	.arw	Sony
DNG	.dng	Adobe Digital Negative
RAF	.raf	Fujifilm
ORF	.orf	Olympus

RAW files support embedded preview extraction with fallback to half-size processing.

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Installation

Requirements

• Python >= 3.10
• GPU with OpenGL support (software rendering fallback available)

Install from source

git clone https://github.com/JeffreyChen-s-Utils/Imervue.git
cd Imervue
pip install -r requirements.txt

Install as package

pip install .

Dependencies

Package	Purpose
PySide6	Qt6 GUI framework
qt-material	Material Design theme
Pillow	Image processing
PyOpenGL	OpenGL bindings
PyOpenGL_accelerate	OpenGL performance optimization
numpy	Array operations and thumbnail cache
rawpy	RAW image decoding
imageio	Image I/O

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Usage

Basic Launch

python -m Imervue

Open a specific image

python -m Imervue /path/to/image.jpg

Open a folder

python -m Imervue /path/to/folder

Command-Line Options

Option	Description
--debug	Enable debug mode
--software_opengl	Use software OpenGL rendering (sets QT_OPENGL=software and QT_ANGLE_PLATFORM=warp). Useful when GPU drivers are unavailable or problematic.
file	(positional) Image file or folder to open at startup

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Browsing Modes

Grid Mode (Tile Grid)

When opening a folder, images are displayed in a virtualized thumbnail grid:

• Lazy loading — Only visible thumbnails are rendered and loaded
• Dynamic thumbnail size — Configurable at 128×128, 256×256, 512×512, 1024×1024, or auto
• Scroll and zoom — Navigate large collections smoothly
• Multi-select — Click-drag rectangle selection or long-press to enter selection mode
• Batch operations — Rename, move/copy, rotate, or delete selected images
• Disk cache — Thumbnails cached as .npy files with MD5-based invalidation

Single Image Mode (Deep Zoom)

When opening a single image or double-clicking a thumbnail:

• Multi-level image pyramid — Tiles at 512×512 pixels with LANCZOS downsampling
• LRU tile cache — Up to 256 tiles cached on GPU (1.5 GB VRAM limit)
• Smooth pan and zoom — GPU-accelerated with anisotropic filtering (up to 8x)
• Minimap overlay — Shows current viewport position
• RGB histogram — Toggle with H key
• Centered on load — Fit-to-window by default
• Adjacent image prefetch — Preloads ±3 neighboring images

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Keyboard & Mouse Shortcuts

Navigation (Both Modes)

Shortcut	Action
Arrow Keys	Scroll grid / Switch images (Left/Right in deep zoom)
Shift + Arrow	Fine-grained scrolling (half step)
Home	Reset zoom and pan to origin
Ctrl+F or /	Open search dialog
S	Open slideshow dialog
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Shift+Z / Ctrl+Y	Redo

Deep Zoom / Single Image Mode

Shortcut	Action
F	Toggle fullscreen
R	Rotate clockwise
Shift+R	Rotate counter-clockwise
E	Open image editor
W	Fit to width
Shift+W	Fit to height
H	Toggle RGB histogram overlay
B	Toggle bookmark for current image
Ctrl+C	Copy image to clipboard
Ctrl+V	Paste image from clipboard
0	Toggle favorite (heart)
1–5	Quick rating (1–5 stars)
Delete	Move current image to trash (undoable)
Escape	Exit deep zoom / Exit fullscreen

Animation Playback (GIF / APNG)

Shortcut	Action
Space	Play / Pause
, (comma)	Previous frame
. (period)	Next frame
[	Decrease playback speed
]	Increase playback speed

Tile Grid Mode

Shortcut	Action
Arrow Keys	Scroll grid
Delete	Delete selected tiles
Escape	Deselect all

Mouse Controls

Action	Behavior
Left Click	Select tile or open image
Left Drag	Rectangle multi-select in grid
Long Press (500ms)	Enter tile selection mode
Middle Mouse Drag	Pan/scroll in deep zoom
Scroll Wheel	Zoom in/out or scroll
Right Click	Open context menu

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Menu Structure

File

• New Window
• Open Image
• Open Folder
• Recent (submenu: recent folders and images)
• Bookmarks (manage bookmarked images)
• Commit Pending Deletions (finalize undo stack)
• File Association (Windows only — register/unregister right-click context menu)
• Exit

View

• Tile Size: 128×128 / 256×256 / 512×512 / 1024×1024 / Auto

Sort

• By Name / By Modified Date / By Created Date / By File Size / By Resolution
• Ascending / Descending

Filter

• By Extension: All, JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, SVG, RAW
• By Rating: All, Favorited, 1–5 stars
• Clear Filter

Language

• English / 繁體中文 / 简体中文 / 한국어 / 日本語

Plugins

• Loaded Plugins (shows each plugin name and version)
• Download Plugins (opens online plugin downloader)
• Open Plugin Folder

Instructions

• Keyboard & Mouse Shortcuts (detailed shortcut reference dialog)

Right-Click Context Menu

• Navigation (parent folder, next/previous image)
• Quick actions (show in explorer, copy path, copy image)
• Transformations (rotate CW/CCW, edit image)
• Batch operations (batch rename, move/copy, rotate all)
• Deletion (delete current/selected)
• Set as wallpaper
• Compare / Slideshow
• Export (Save As with format selection)
• Lossless JPEG rotate
• Bookmarks (add/remove)
• Image info
• Recent menu
• Plugin-contributed items

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Plugin System

Imervue supports a plugin system for extending functionality. See the full Plugin Development Guide for details.

Quick Start

1. Create a folder inside plugins/ at the project root
2. Define a class extending ImervuePlugin
3. Register it in __init__.py with plugin_class = YourPlugin
4. Restart Imervue

Available Hooks

Hook	Trigger
on_plugin_loaded()	After plugin is instantiated
on_plugin_unloaded()	At app shutdown
on_build_menu_bar(menu_bar)	After default menu bar is built
on_build_context_menu(menu, viewer)	When right-click menu opens
on_image_loaded(path, viewer)	After image loads in deep zoom
on_folder_opened(path, images, viewer)	After folder opens in grid
on_image_switched(path, viewer)	When navigating between images
on_image_deleted(paths, viewer)	After image(s) are soft-deleted
on_key_press(key, modifiers, viewer)	On key press (return True to consume)
on_app_closing(main_window)	Before application closes
get_translations()	Provide i18n strings

Plugin Downloader

Plugins can be downloaded from the official repository via Plugins > Download Plugins. The downloader fetches from Jeffrey-Plugin-Repos/Imervue_Plugins on GitHub.

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Multi-Language Support

Built-In Languages

Language	Code
English	English
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)	Traditional_Chinese
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)	Chinese
한국어 (Korean)	Korean
日本語 (Japanese)	Japanese

Language can be changed from the Language menu. A restart is required for the change to take effect.

Adding Languages via Plugins

Plugins can register entirely new languages using language_wrapper.register_language(), or add translations for existing languages via get_translations(). See the Plugin Development Guide for details.

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User Settings

Settings are stored in user_setting.json in the working directory.

Setting	Type	Description
language	string	Current language code
user_recent_folders	list	Recently opened folders
user_recent_images	list	Recently opened images
user_last_folder	string	Last opened folder (auto-restored on startup)
bookmarks	list	Bookmarked image paths (max 500)
sort_by	string	Sort method (name/modified/created/size/resolution)
sort_ascending	bool	Sort order
image_ratings	dict	Image path → rating (1–5) mapping
image_favorites	set	Favorited image paths
thumbnail_size	int/null	Grid thumbnail size (128/256/512/1024/null for auto)

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Architecture

Imervue/
├── __main__.py              # Application entry point
├── Imervue_main_window.py   # Main window (QMainWindow)
├── gpu_image_view/          # GPU-accelerated viewer
│   ├── gpu_image_view.py    # Main viewer widget (QOpenGLWidget)
│   ├── gl_renderer.py       # OpenGL shader-based renderer
│   ├── actions/             # Viewer actions (zoom, pan, rotate, etc.)
│   └── images/              # Image loading, pyramid, tile management
├── gui/                     # UI components
│   ├── bookmark_dialog.py   # Bookmark manager dialog
│   ├── exif_editor.py       # EXIF metadata editor
│   ├── exif_sidebar.py      # Collapsible EXIF sidebar
│   ├── export_dialog.py     # Export/Save As dialog
│   ├── image_editor.py      # Image editor (crop, adjust, rotate)
│   └── toast.py             # Toast notification system
├── image/                   # Image utilities
│   ├── info.py              # Image info extraction
│   ├── pyramid.py           # Deep zoom image pyramid
│   ├── thumbnail_disk_cache.py  # Thumbnail cache (MD5 + .npy)
│   └── tile_manager.py      # Tile grid management
├── menu/                    # Menu definitions
│   ├── file_menu.py         # File menu
│   ├── filter_menu.py       # Filter menu
│   ├── language_menu.py     # Language menu
│   ├── plugin_menu.py       # Plugins menu
│   ├── recent_menu.py       # Recent items submenu
│   ├── right_click_menu.py  # Context menu
│   ├── sort_menu.py         # Sort menu
│   └── tip_menu.py          # Instructions menu
├── multi_language/          # i18n
│   ├── language_wrapper.py  # Language singleton manager
│   ├── english.py           # English translations
│   ├── chinese.py           # Simplified Chinese
│   ├── traditional_chinese.py  # Traditional Chinese
│   ├── korean.py            # Korean
│   └── japanese.py          # Japanese
├── plugin/                  # Plugin system
│   ├── plugin_base.py       # ImervuePlugin base class
│   ├── plugin_manager.py    # Plugin discovery and lifecycle
│   └── plugin_downloader.py # Online plugin downloader
├── system/                  # System integration
│   └── file_association.py  # Windows file association (registry)
└── user_settings/           # User configuration
    ├── user_setting_dict.py # Settings I/O (thread-safe)
    ├── bookmark.py          # Bookmark management
    └── recent_image.py      # Recent images tracking

Rendering Pipeline

1. OpenGL Context — GPUImageView extends QOpenGLWidget
2. Shader Programs — Two GLSL 1.20 programs (textured quads + solid color rectangles)
3. Texture Management — LRU cache with 256-tile limit and 1.5 GB VRAM budget
4. Deep Zoom Pyramid — Multi-level tile pyramid built with LANCZOS resampling at 512×512 tile size
5. Anisotropic Filtering — Up to 8x when hardware supports it
6. Fallback — Immediate mode rendering if shader compilation fails

Thumbnail Cache

• Key: MD5 hash of {path}|{mtime_ns}|{file_size}|{thumbnail_size}
• Format: NumPy .npy binary (fast I/O, no compression overhead)
• Location: %LOCALAPPDATA%/Imervue/cache/thumbnails (Windows) or ~/.cache/imervue/thumbnails (Linux/macOS)
• Invalidation: Automatic when file metadata changes

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Copyright (c) 2026 JE-Chen