Your best bet as always is to find a well tested library. However, you said that is difficult, so here is some dodgy largely untested code that should work for a fair number of cases:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Drawing;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
namespace ImageDimensions
{
public static class ImageHelper
{
const string errorMessage = "Could not recognize image format.";
private static Dictionary<byte[], Func<BinaryReader, Size>> imageFormatDecoders = new Dictionary<byte[], Func<BinaryReader, Size>>()
{
{ new byte[]{ 0x42, 0x4D }, DecodeBitmap},
{ new byte[]{ 0x47, 0x49, 0x46, 0x38, 0x37, 0x61 }, DecodeGif },
{ new byte[]{ 0x47, 0x49, 0x46, 0x38, 0x39, 0x61 }, DecodeGif },
{ new byte[]{ 0x89, 0x50, 0x4E, 0x47, 0x0D, 0x0A, 0x1A, 0x0A }, DecodePng },
{ new byte[]{ 0xff, 0xd8 }, DecodeJfif },
};
/// <summary>
/// Gets the dimensions of an image.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="path">The path of the image to get the dimensions of.</param>
/// <returns>The dimensions of the specified image.</returns>
/// <exception cref="ArgumentException">The image was of an unrecognized format.</exception>
public static Size GetDimensions(string path)
{
using (BinaryReader binaryReader = new BinaryReader(File.OpenRead(path)))
{
try
{
return GetDimensions(binaryReader);
}
catch (ArgumentException e)
{
if (e.Message.StartsWith(errorMessage))
{
throw new ArgumentException(errorMessage, "path", e);
}
else
{
throw e;
}
}
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Gets the dimensions of an image.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="path">The path of the image to get the dimensions of.</param>
/// <returns>The dimensions of the specified image.</returns>
/// <exception cref="ArgumentException">The image was of an unrecognized format.</exception>
public static Size GetDimensions(BinaryReader binaryReader)
{
int maxMagicBytesLength = imageFormatDecoders.Keys.OrderByDescending(x => x.Length).First().Length;
byte[] magicBytes = new byte[maxMagicBytesLength];
for (int i = 0; i < maxMagicBytesLength; i += 1)
{
magicBytes[i] = binaryReader.ReadByte();
foreach(var kvPair in imageFormatDecoders)
{
if (magicBytes.StartsWith(kvPair.Key))
{
return kvPair.Value(binaryReader);
}
}
}
throw new ArgumentException(errorMessage, "binaryReader");
}
private static bool StartsWith(this byte[] thisBytes, byte[] thatBytes)
{
for(int i = 0; i < thatBytes.Length; i+= 1)
{
if (thisBytes[i] != thatBytes[i])
{
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
private static short ReadLittleEndianInt16(this BinaryReader binaryReader)
{
byte[] bytes = new byte[sizeof(short)];
for (int i = 0; i < sizeof(short); i += 1)
{
bytes[sizeof(short) - 1 - i] = binaryReader.ReadByte();
}
return BitConverter.ToInt16(bytes, 0);
}
private static int ReadLittleEndianInt32(this BinaryReader binaryReader)
{
byte[] bytes = new byte[sizeof(int)];
for (int i = 0; i < sizeof(int); i += 1)
{
bytes[sizeof(int) - 1 - i] = binaryReader.ReadByte();
}
return BitConverter.ToInt32(bytes, 0);
}
private static Size DecodeBitmap(BinaryReader binaryReader)
{
binaryReader.ReadBytes(16);
int width = binaryReader.ReadInt32();
int height = binaryReader.ReadInt32();
return new Size(width, height);
}
private static Size DecodeGif(BinaryReader binaryReader)
{
int width = binaryReader.ReadInt16();
int height = binaryReader.ReadInt16();
return new Size(width, height);
}
private static Size DecodePng(BinaryReader binaryReader)
{
binaryReader.ReadBytes(8);
int width = binaryReader.ReadLittleEndianInt32();
int height = binaryReader.ReadLittleEndianInt32();
return new Size(width, height);
}
private static Size DecodeJfif(BinaryReader binaryReader)
{
while (binaryReader.ReadByte() == 0xff)
{
byte marker = binaryReader.ReadByte();
short chunkLength = binaryReader.ReadLittleEndianInt16();
if (marker == 0xc0)
{
binaryReader.ReadByte();
int height = binaryReader.ReadLittleEndianInt16();
int width = binaryReader.ReadLittleEndianInt16();
return new Size(width, height);
}
binaryReader.ReadBytes(chunkLength - 2);
}
throw new ArgumentException(errorMessage);
}
}
}
Hopefully the code is fairly obvious. To add a new file format you add it to imageFormatDecoders
with the key being an array of the "magic bits" which appear at the beginning of every file of the given format and the value being a function which extracts the size from the stream. Most formats are simple enough, the only real stinker is jpeg.
Here is working, but slow solution. You can speed it up by using Bitmap.LockBits().
using (Image img = Image.FromFile(filename))
using (Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(img))
{
for (int x = 0; x < img.Width; x++)
{
for (int y = 0; y < img.Height; y++)
{
Color c = bmp.GetPixel(x, y);
if (c.R == 255 && c.G == 255 && c.B == 255)
bmp.SetPixel(x, y, Color.FromArgb(0));
}
}
bmp.Save("out.png", ImageFormat.Png);
}
Best Answer
What you're asking for is programmatic segmentation of foreground and background. As this is an active research area, you're unlikely to find any ready-mode source code that works out of the box (especially in Java).
If you have the time, look up image segmentation and browse through relevant papers on Google Scholar. You will see that in the general case, it's not an easy problem for a computer to solve. In specific cases, you can try to take advantage of certain conditions. In the image you've specified, the background is really blurry, so the edges of the figure really stand out well. Edge detection with the Canny operator gives you this:
It's not perfect, but it's a start. Using the edge information, you can locate major external contours and extract the dancer figure.