DDS Viewer

This tool provides a DDS texture viewer and inspector for Windows 10. It accepts DirectDraw Surface (.dds) files and renders a faithful preview while exposing core texture metadata. It is designed for game developers, 3D artists, QA testers, and pipeline engineers who need quick texture validation without installing heavy graphic tool suites. Typical use cases include verifying file correctness before import, confirming resolution and mipmap presence, and ensuring compression formats align with engine expectations.
Core logic centers on DDS header parsing and texture decoding rules. Required features include file input, header validation, metadata extraction (width, height, depth, mipmap count, array size, pixel format), and a rendered preview. Optional/advanced features include format conversion to PNG/JPEG, batch analysis, cube-map recognition, and basic color space detection. The tool aims to be deterministic and suitable for integration into asset pipelines with clear pass/fail signals.
Inputs consist of a DDS file and optional decoding flags. Outputs are a rendered image preview, a metadata block, and a structured payload with width, height, depth, mipmaps, array size, and format. Validation enforces a valid DDS magic number, supported fourCC codes (dx-, e.g., DXT1/3/5), and non-zero dimensions. Output formats are designed for straightforward consumption by pipelines and editors.
DDS parsing follows the standard header layout. For compressed formats, the data size is computed as: size = ceil(width/4) * ceil(height/4) * blockSize, where blockSize is 8 for DXT1 and 16 for DXT3/5. Uncompressed sizes use width * height * bytesPerPixel. Mipmaps, array elements, and surface type influence the metadata block. Error handling covers invalid headers, unsupported formats, zero dimensions, and mismatched data lengths.
Invalid magic numbers, unsupported fourCC codes, zero/negative dimensions, corrupted data blocks, or missing file data trigger explicit errors. Large textures may require memory considerations; the tool reports limits without crashing and gracefully degrades to a best-effort preview when possible.
DDS follows DirectX texture conventions typical in Windows-centric game pipelines. Units are pixels; no currency or region-specific formatting is required. Localization is anchored to English-language metadata conventions for pipeline interoperability.
Assumes input is a DDS file conforming to common DDS variants. Excludes in-depth editing, full-featured DDS editing, and non-DDS image editing. Not a general-purpose image converter; focus remains on inspection, validation, and basic export-ready metadata.