VkImageViewCreateInfo

The VkImageViewCreateInfo structure is defined as:

typedef struct VkImageViewCreateInfo {
    VkStructureType sType;
    const void* pNext;
    VkImageViewCreateFlags flags;
    VkImage image;
    VkImageViewType viewType;
    VkFormat format;
    VkComponentMapping components;
    VkImageSubresourceRange subresourceRange;
} VkImageViewCreateInfo;

• sType is a VkStructureType value identifying this structure.
• pNext is NULL or a pointer to a structure extending this structure.
• flags is a bitmask of VkImageViewCreateFlagBits specifying additional parameters of the image view.
• image is a VkImage on which the view will be created.
• viewType is a VkImageViewType value specifying the type of the image view.
• format is a VkFormat specifying the format and type used to interpret texel blocks of the image.
• components is a VkComponentMapping structure specifying a remapping of color components (or of depth or stencil components after they have been converted into color components).
• subresourceRange is a VkImageSubresourceRange structure selecting the set of mipmap levels and array layers to be accessible to the view.

Some of the image creation parameters are inherited by the view. In particular, image view creation inherits the implicit parameter usage specifying the allowed usages of the image view that, by default, takes the value of the corresponding usage parameter specified in VkImageCreateInfo at image creation time. The implicit usage can be overridden by adding a VkImageViewUsageCreateInfo structure to the pNext chain, but the view usage must be a subset of the image usage. If image has a depth-stencil format and was created with a VkImageStencilUsageCreateInfo structure included in the pNext chain of VkImageCreateInfo, the usage is calculated based on the subresource.aspectMask provided:

• If aspectMask includes only VK_IMAGE_ASPECT_STENCIL_BIT, the implicit usage is equal to VkImageStencilUsageCreateInfo::stencilUsage.
• If aspectMask includes only VK_IMAGE_ASPECT_DEPTH_BIT, the implicit usage is equal to VkImageCreateInfo::usage.
• If both aspects are included in aspectMask, the implicit usage is equal to the intersection of VkImageCreateInfo::usage and VkImageStencilUsageCreateInfo::stencilUsage.

If image is a 3D image, its Z range can be restricted to a subset by adding a VkImageViewSlicedCreateInfoEXT to the pNext chain.

If image was created with the VK_IMAGE_CREATE_MUTABLE_FORMAT_BIT flag, and if the format of the image is not multi-planar, format can be different from the image’s format, but if image was created without the VK_IMAGE_CREATE_BLOCK_TEXEL_VIEW_COMPATIBLE_BIT flag and they are not equal they must be compatible. Image format compatibility is defined in the Format Compatibility Classes section. Views of compatible formats will have the same mapping between texel coordinates and memory locations irrespective of the format, with only the interpretation of the bit pattern changing.

If image was created with a multi-planar format, and the image view’s aspectMask is one of VK_IMAGE_ASPECT_PLANE_0_BIT, VK_IMAGE_ASPECT_PLANE_1_BIT or VK_IMAGE_ASPECT_PLANE_2_BIT, the view’s aspect mask is considered to be equivalent to VK_IMAGE_ASPECT_COLOR_BIT when used as a framebuffer attachment.

If image was created with the VK_IMAGE_CREATE_BLOCK_TEXEL_VIEW_COMPATIBLE_BIT flag, formatmust be compatible with the image’s format as described above; or must be an uncompressed format, in which case it must be size-compatible with the image’s format. In this case, the resulting image view’s texel dimensions equal the dimensions of the selected mip level divided by the compressed texel block size and rounded up.

The VkComponentMapping components member describes a remapping from components of the image to components of the vector returned by shader image instructions. This remapping must be the identity swizzle for storage image descriptors, input attachment descriptors, framebuffer attachments, and any VkImageView used with a combined image sampler that enables sampler Y′C_BC_R conversion.

If the image view is to be used with a sampler which supports sampler Y′C_BC_R conversion, an identically defined object of type VkSamplerYcbcrConversion to that used to create the sampler must be passed to vkCreateImageView in a VkSamplerYcbcrConversionInfo included in the pNext chain of VkImageViewCreateInfo. Conversely, if a VkSamplerYcbcrConversion object is passed to vkCreateImageView, an identically defined VkSamplerYcbcrConversion object must be used when sampling the image.

If the image has a multi-planar format, subresourceRange.aspectMask is VK_IMAGE_ASPECT_COLOR_BIT, and usage includes VK_IMAGE_USAGE_SAMPLED_BIT, then the formatmust be identical to the image format and the sampler to be used with the image view must enable sampler Y′C_BC_R conversion.

When such an image is used in a video coding operation, the sampler Y′C_BC_R conversion has no effect.

If image was created with the VK_IMAGE_CREATE_MUTABLE_FORMAT_BIT and the image has a multi-planar format, and if subresourceRange.aspectMask is VK_IMAGE_ASPECT_PLANE_0_BIT, VK_IMAGE_ASPECT_PLANE_1_BIT, or VK_IMAGE_ASPECT_PLANE_2_BIT, format must be compatible with the corresponding plane of the image, and the sampler to be used with the image view must not enable sampler Y′C_BC_R conversion. The width and height of the single-plane image view must be derived from the multi-planar image’s dimensions in the manner listed for plane compatibility for the plane.

Any view of an image plane will have the same mapping between texel coordinates and memory locations as used by the components of the color aspect, subject to the formulae relating texel coordinates to lower-resolution planes as described in Chroma Reconstruction. That is, if an R or B plane has a reduced resolution relative to the G plane of the multi-planar image, the image view operates using the (u_plane, v_plane) unnormalized coordinates of the reduced-resolution plane, and these coordinates access the same memory locations as the (u_color, v_color) unnormalized coordinates of the color aspect for which chroma reconstruction operations operate on the same (u_plane, v_plane) or (i_plane, j_plane) coordinates.