viewvhpic

viewvhpic — Lightweight .vhpic Image Viewer

Minimal command-line image viewer for the .vhpic binary format — a compact, header-minimal raster format designed for simple raw pixel storage.

Author: V01G04A81 Viktor Glebov
Version: 1.0 Date: 2025–2026

Description

viewvhpic is a lightweight, purpose-built image viewer for the .vhpic binary raster format.

Unlike general-purpose image viewers, viewvhpic targets the .vhpic format directly — no plugin chains, no dependency on libpng/libjpeg, no unnecessary overhead. It reads the compact binary header, maps the raw pixel array, and renders the image immediately.

If you are working with .vhpic files and need a fast, no-frills viewer with zoom and BMP export, this is the native tool for that workflow.

The .vhpic Format

Overview

Property	Value
File extension	`.vhpic`
Header size	8 bytes (packed struct)
Magic bytes	`VHPX` (4 bytes, offset 0)
Pixel format	Raw binary array, 1 byte per pixel
Compression	None — raw binary
Endianness	Little-endian

Examples

File Header

The file begins with a fixed 8-byte packed header:

struct sthdr {
    uint8_t     hdr[4];   /* Magic: 'V','H','P','X'        */
    uint16_t    wdth;     /* Image width  in pixels (LE)   */
    uint16_t    hght;     /* Image height in pixels (LE)   */
} __attribute__((packed));

Offset	Size	Field	Description
0x00	4 bytes	`hdr`	Magic identifier — ASCII `VHPX`
0x04	2 bytes	`wdth`	Image width in pixels
0x06	2 bytes	`hght`	Image height in pixels

Pixel Data

Immediately following the header is a flat binary array of wdth × hght bytes — one byte per pixel, stored in row-major (left-to-right, top-to-bottom) order.

File layout:

  [ 0x00 .. 0x07 ]  →  struct sthdr  (8 bytes, packed)
  [ 0x08 .. EOF  ]  →  pixel data    (wdth × hght bytes)

Pixel at column x, row y:

  offset = 0x08 + y * wdth + x

Total file size: 8 + wdth × hght bytes.

Usage

Command Line

$ viewvhpic <file.vhpic>

Example:

$ viewvhpic example.vhpic

Opens example.vhpic in the viewer window. The window title displays the filename and image dimensions (width × height).

Hotkeys

Key	Action
`+`	Zoom ×2 (pixel-doubled view)
`-`	Zoom ×1 (1:1 native size)
`F2`	Save current image as `.bmp`

Prerequisites

C++ compiler with C++17 support (GCC, Clang, MSVC)
CMake 3.5 or newer
Qt 5 development libraries (modules: Core, Widgets, Gui)

On Debian/Ubuntu, install the required packages with:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake qtbase5-dev

Build

git clone https://github.com/vigatron/viewvhpic
cd viewvhpic
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .