Homebrew developers for Nintendo's Wii console have just gotten another tool to add to their arsenal: PNGU v0.1c, a set of functions that comes with a Wii port of the png reference library, libpng.

The .png format has a few advantages over the jpeg format such as alpha channels and transparency colors, so devs will probably appreciate this library. Here's a look at what PNGU can do at this stage:

• Loads png files from buffer or front SD cardP.
• Decompress png files and convert them to YCbYCr, RGBA8, 4x4 RGB565, 4x4 RGB5A3 and 4x4 RGBA8 formats.
• Only tested with png files in RGB8 format (but it's probably that works well with others png formats like RGBA8)

The archive below includes a readme file, but unfortunately it's in Spanish. You can check out the WiiBrew entry for PNGU for more info, though. We also recommend clicking on the via link below, which takes you to the (Spanish-only) website for PNGU.


Download: PNGU v0.1c (compiled library and source code)