Graphics-2-FPGA

Hi,

I would like to ask if somebody has come across the same problem: I need to convert a picture (bmp format) to a .hex or .mif file which will go into ROM's in a Stratix-2 FPGA. Do you know of any conversion utility which translates .bmp to .hex suitable for FPGA's?

Thanks!

Phil wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would like to ask if somebody has come across the same problem: I need to convert a picture (bmp format) to a .hex or .mif file which will go into ROM's in a Stratix-2 FPGA. Do you know of any conversion utility which translates .bmp to .hex suitable for FPGA's?
>
> Thanks!

I don't know of anything that converts files directly to hex, but it's
not
hard to do it in two steps.  Several image viewers and editors
including
Irfanview and PhotoShop can load Windows bitmap files and save them
in raw (binary) format.  Then you can just convert binary to hex, for
which
I use "od" from either a Unix/Linux machine or the MCS toolkit under
Windows.  You may need to do further editing of the hex file to get it
into a format that Quartus understands.

HTH
Gabor

On Wed, 8 Nov 2006 04:51:24 -0800, Phil <mountaineering@web.de> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I would like to ask if somebody has come across the same problem: I need to convert a picture (bmp format) to a .hex or .mif file which will go into ROM's in a Stratix-2 FPGA. Do you know of any conversion utility which translates .bmp to .hex suitable for FPGA's?
>
>Thanks!

Paint Shop Pro will save raw image bitmaps with no headers. 
You could load these into a device (eprom) programmer software and then save as a hex file (Assuming
the hex file you mention is the same as the sort used for porgramming eproms etc. 
Some programmer makers do evaluation SW that works without the hardware present.  I'm sure teher
must also be binary to hex converter utils out there.

> I'm sure teher must also be binary to hex converter utils out there.

SRecord (http://srecord.sourceforge.net/) converts to and from a lot of
formats. It's the swiss army knife for loader file conversion, IMO :-)

Hope this helps

Arnim

Phil wrote:

> I would like to ask if somebody has come across the same problem: I
> need to convert a picture (bmp format) to a .hex or .mif file which
> will go into ROM's in a Stratix-2 FPGA. Do you know of any conversion
> utility which translates .bmp to .hex suitable for FPGA's?

I've got a small utility that converts BIN to HEX for exactly that
purpose. However, I suspect you really want to convert your BMP to an
uncompressed, raw bitmap first? If so, then as someone else suggested,
use PaintShopPro or similar.

I'd steer clear of MIFs - I used to use them but you run into problems
when simulating using other tools. I can't think of any reason why you'd
ever need MIFs rather than HEX files...

Regards,

-- 
Mark McDougall, Engineer
Virtual Logic Pty Ltd, <http://www.vl.com.au>
21-25 King St, Rockdale, 2216
Ph: +612-9599-3255 Fax: +612-9599-3266

Thanks @ All!