Data Spree PFNC Pixel Format

Parse and model GenICam PFNC pixel format designations and decode image buffers via extensible decoders. We follow semantic versioning; breaking changes only occur in major versions. Every public symbol defined under pfnc.* is stable.

Introduction

This library provides a structured representation of GenICam PFNC pixel format designations and a pluggable system for decoding image buffers into numpy arrays.

It is intended for industrial camera and machine vision use cases where pixel formats are specified using PFNC strings (e.g. RGB8, Mono12Packed, BayerRG10) and need to be parsed, inspected, or decoded outside of a vendor-specific SDK.

The focus of this project is:

• correct parsing of PFNC designations
• explicit modeling of pixel format properties
• extensibility via registries (decoders, data types, components, packing, interface specifics)

This is not a general-purpose image processing library.

Getting Started

Installation

pip install pfnc

or, when using pdm:

pdm add pfnc

Basic Usage

from dataspree.pfnc import PixelFormat

pf = PixelFormat.from_designation("RGB8")

image = pf.decode(
    buffer,
    width=256,
    height=256,
    copy=False,
)

Extending the library

The library is designed to be extensible. You can register custom decoders or extend parsing behavior for additional PFNC variants.

Registering a custom decoder

from dataspree.pfnc import register_decoder, PixelFormatDecoder

class MyDecoder(PixelFormatDecoder):
    priority = 10

    def supports(self, pixel_format) -> bool:
        ...

    def decode(self, data, width, height, *, copy=False):
        ...

register_decoder(MyDecoder)

Advanced extensions

Advanced users may extend:

• data types
• components
• packing rules
• interface specifics

These extension points are intentionally exposed.

Scope and limitations

Parsing support covers common PFNC designations.

Decoding support depends on available decoders.

Not all packed or planar formats may be decodable out of the box.

See the documentation for details on supported formats.