Using java.awt.image.BufferedImage for creating BIFF8 BITMAP record takes much time - Is there any better approach?

Question

So I am creating a HSSFSheet having a background bitmap set using apache poi and own low level code. The https://www.openoffice.org/sc/excelfileformat.pdf declares for the Record BITMAP, BIFF8:

Pixel data (array of height lines of the bitmap, from bottom line to top line, see below)

...

In each line all pixels are written from left to right. Each pixel is stored as 3-byte array: the red, green, and blue component of the colour of the pixel, in this order. The size of each line is aligned to multiples of 4 by inserting zero bytes after the last pixel.

See picture of the PDF for complete declaration:

For fulfilling this my approach is using java.awt.image.BufferedImage having type BufferedImage.TYPE_3BYTE_BGR. Then getting all bytes R G B from that BufferedImage's raster in correct order (from bottom line to top line) and filled up up to multiple of 4 in width (x direction).

See code:

import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.FileInputStream;

import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.*;

import org.apache.poi.hssf.record.RecordBase;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.record.StandardRecord;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.model.InternalSheet;
import org.apache.poi.util.LittleEndianOutput;

import java.lang.reflect.Field;

import java.util.List;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;

import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;

import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import java.nio.ByteOrder;

import javax.imageio.ImageIO;

public class CreateExcelHSSFSheetBackgroundBitmap {

 static List<Byte> getBackgroundBitmapData(String filePath) throws Exception {

  //see https://www.openoffice.org/sc/excelfileformat.pdf - BITMAP

  List<Byte> data = new ArrayList<Byte>();

  // get file byte data in type BufferedImage.TYPE_3BYTE_BGR
  BufferedImage in = ImageIO.read(new FileInputStream(filePath));
  BufferedImage image = new BufferedImage(in.getWidth(), in.getHeight(), BufferedImage.TYPE_3BYTE_BGR);
  Graphics2D graphics = image.createGraphics();
  graphics.drawImage(in, null, 0, 0);
  graphics.dispose();

  short width = (short)image.getWidth();
  short height = (short)image.getHeight();

  // each pixel has 3 bytes but the width bytes must be filled up to multiple of 4
  int widthBytesMultOf4 = (int)((width * 3 + 3) / 4 * 4);

// --- this part takes much time but I have not found any better possibility

  // put the bytes R G B into the data; lines of the bitmap must be from bottom line to top line
  int bytes = 0;
  for (short y = (short)(height - 1); y >= 0; y--) {
   for (short x = 0; x < width; x++) {
    int r = image.getData().getSample(x, y, 2);
    data.add(Byte.valueOf((byte)r));
    bytes++;
    int g = image.getData().getSample(x, y, 1);
    data.add(Byte.valueOf((byte)g));
    bytes++;
    int b = image.getData().getSample(x, y, 0);
    data.add(Byte.valueOf((byte)b));
    bytes++;
   } 
   // fill up x with 0 bytes up to multiple of 4
   for (int x = width * 3; x < widthBytesMultOf4; x++) {
    data.add(Byte.valueOf((byte)0));
    bytes++;
   }
  }

// ---

  // size  12 bytes (additional headers, see below) + picture bytes
  int size = 12 + bytes;

  // get size int as LITTLE_ENDIAN bytes
  ByteBuffer bSize = ByteBuffer.allocate(4);
  bSize.order(ByteOrder.LITTLE_ENDIAN);
  bSize.putInt(size);

  // get width short as LITTLE_ENDIAN bytes
  ByteBuffer bWidth = ByteBuffer.allocate(2);
  bWidth.order(ByteOrder.LITTLE_ENDIAN);
  bWidth.putShort(width);

  // get height short as LITTLE_ENDIAN bytes
  ByteBuffer bHeight = ByteBuffer.allocate(2);
  bHeight.order(ByteOrder.LITTLE_ENDIAN);
  bHeight.putShort(height);

  // put the record headers into the data
  Byte[] dataPart = new Byte[] { 0x09, 0x00, 0x01, 0x00, 
     bSize.array()[0], bSize.array()[1], bSize.array()[2], bSize.array()[3], // size
     //now 12 bytes follow
     0x0C, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 
     bWidth.array()[0], bWidth.array()[1], // width
     bHeight.array()[0], bHeight.array()[1], // height
     0x01, 0x00, 0x18, 0x00
   }; 

  data.addAll(0, Arrays.asList(dataPart));

  return data;
 }

 public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

  HSSFWorkbook workbook = new HSSFWorkbook();
  HSSFSheet sheet = workbook.createSheet("Sheet1");
  sheet = workbook.createSheet("Sheet2"); // this sheet gets the background image set

  // we need the binary records of the sheet
  // get InternalSheet
  Field _sheet = HSSFSheet.class.getDeclaredField("_sheet");
  _sheet.setAccessible(true); 
  InternalSheet internalsheet = (InternalSheet)_sheet.get(sheet); 

  // get List of RecordBase
  Field _records = InternalSheet.class.getDeclaredField("_records");
  _records.setAccessible(true);
  @SuppressWarnings("unchecked") 
  List<RecordBase> records = (List<RecordBase>)_records.get(internalsheet);

  // get bytes of the image file
  List<Byte> data = getBackgroundBitmapData("dummyText.png"); //PNG must not have transparency

  // do creating BitmapRecord and ContinueRecords from the data in parts of 8220 bytes
  BitmapRecord bitmapRecord = null;
  List<ContinueRecord> continueRecords = new ArrayList<ContinueRecord>();
  int bytes = 0;
  if (data.size() > 8220) {
   bitmapRecord = new BitmapRecord(data.subList(0, 8220));
   bytes = 8220;
   while (bytes < data.size()) {
    if ((bytes + 8220) < data.size()) {
     continueRecords.add(new ContinueRecord(data.subList(bytes, bytes + 8220)));
     bytes += 8220;
    } else {
     continueRecords.add(new ContinueRecord(data.subList(bytes, data.size())));
     break;
    }
   }
  } else {
   bitmapRecord = new BitmapRecord(data);
  }

  // add the records after PageSettingsBlock
  int i = 0;
  for (RecordBase r : records) {
   if (r instanceof org.apache.poi.hssf.record.aggregates.PageSettingsBlock) {
    break;
   }
   i++;
  }
  records.add(++i, bitmapRecord);
  for (ContinueRecord continueRecord : continueRecords) {
   records.add(++i, continueRecord);  
  }

  // debug output
  for (RecordBase r : internalsheet.getRecords()) {
   System.out.println(r);
  }

  // write out workbook
  workbook.write(new FileOutputStream("CreateExcelHSSFSheetBackgroundBitmap.xls"));
  workbook.close();

 }

 static class BitmapRecord extends StandardRecord {

  //see https://www.openoffice.org/sc/excelfileformat.pdf - BITMAP

  List<Byte> data = new ArrayList<Byte>();

  BitmapRecord(List<Byte> data) {
   this.data = data;
  }

  public int getDataSize() { 
   return data.size(); 
  }

  public short getSid() {
   return (short)0x00E9;
  }

  public void serialize(LittleEndianOutput out) {
   for (Byte b : data) {
    out.writeByte(b);
   }
  }
 }

 static class ContinueRecord extends StandardRecord {

  //see https://www.openoffice.org/sc/excelfileformat.pdf - CONTINUE

  List<Byte> data = new ArrayList<Byte>();

  ContinueRecord(List<Byte> data) {
   this.data = data;
  }

  public int getDataSize() { 
   return data.size(); 
  }

  public short getSid() {
   return (short)0x003C;
  }

  public void serialize(LittleEndianOutput out) {
   for (Byte b : data) {
    out.writeByte(b);
   }
  }
 }

}

The code works but the part between

// --- this part takes much time but I have not found any better possibility

and

// ---

takes much time since 3 bytes R G B for each single pixel needs to be got for getting them according to the above strange format.

Does anyone knows of a better approach? Maybe the above strange format is not as strange as I think it is and there are already other usages of it?

You might want to check the official microsoft docs too, they sometimes have some good details in for the records along with explanations of why, see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc313105%28v=office.12%29.aspx — Gagravarr, Sep 20 '18 at 09:45
@Gagravarr: The https://interoperability.blob.core.windows.net/files/MS-XLS/[MS-XLS].pdf seems correct but incomplete. See my answer. Why I am not surprised about this in Microsoft's documentations? — Axel Richter, Sep 21 '18 at 07:08

Harald K · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-24T08:15:55.407

Here's a modified version of your code that works for me, AND is pretty fast.

I'm using byte[] (and ByteArrayOutputStream) all around, no more List<Byte>.
As we already have a BufferedImage of TYPE_3BYTE_BGR, we can use that almost directly as the BMP output. We just need to a) prepend a valid BMP header and b) write bottom-up, c) pad each scanline (row) to a 32 bit boundary and d) switch BGR -> RGB order.
I'm using the Raster to copy (padded) rows of data into the output, as copying larger chunks is faster than copying single bytes.

As already noted in the comments, the structure is a standard BMP with BITMAPCOREHEADER (and no file header). Unfortunately, the ImageIO BMPImageWriter always write the file header and uses the BITMAPINFOHEADER which is 40 bytes. You could probably get around these things, and use the standard writer, by massaging the data a little (hint: the file header contains an offset to the pixel data at offset 10), but as the core BMP format is trivial to implement, it might be just as easy to do as below.

While the documentation certainly implies that using other formats like PNG and JPEG directly, I haven't managed to do this properly.

There's probably still room for improvement if you like, to avoid some byte array copying (ie. use offset/length and pass the entire data array to the Bitmap/ContinueRecords instead of Arrays.copyOfRange()).

Code:

import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.awt.image.Raster;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.lang.reflect.Field;
import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import java.nio.ByteOrder;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

import javax.imageio.ImageIO;

import org.apache.poi.hssf.model.InternalSheet;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.record.RecordBase;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.record.StandardRecord;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFSheet;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook;
import org.apache.poi.util.LittleEndianOutput;

public class CreateExcelHSSFSheetBackgroundBitmap {

    static byte[] getBackgroundBitmapData(String filePath) throws Exception {

        //see https://www.openoffice.org/sc/excelfileformat.pdf - BITMAP

        // get file byte data in type BufferedImage.TYPE_3BYTE_BGR
        BufferedImage in = ImageIO.read(new FileInputStream(filePath));
        BufferedImage image = new BufferedImage(in.getWidth(), in.getHeight(), BufferedImage.TYPE_3BYTE_BGR);
        Graphics2D graphics = image.createGraphics();
        graphics.drawImage(in, null, 0, 0);
        graphics.dispose();

        // calculate row size (c)
        int rowSize = ((24 * image.getWidth() + 31) / 32) * 4;

        ByteArrayOutputStream output = new ByteArrayOutputStream(image.getHeight() * rowSize * 3 + 1024);

        // put the record headers into the data
        ByteBuffer header = ByteBuffer.allocate(8 + 12);
        header.order(ByteOrder.LITTLE_ENDIAN);

        // Undocumented XLS stuff
        header.putShort((short) 0x09);
        header.putShort((short) 0x01);
        header.putInt(image.getHeight() * rowSize + 12); // Size of image stream

        // BITMAPCOREHEADER (a)
        header.putInt(12);

        header.putShort((short) image.getWidth());
        header.putShort((short) image.getHeight()); // Use -height if writing top-down

        header.putShort((short) 1); // planes, always 1
        header.putShort((short) 24); // bitcount

        output.write(header.array());

        // Output rows bottom-up (b)
        Raster raster = image.getRaster()
                             .createChild(0, 0, image.getWidth(), image.getHeight(), 0, 0, new int[]{2, 1, 0}); // Reverse BGR -> RGB (d)
        byte[] row = new byte[rowSize]; // padded (c)

        for (int i = image.getHeight() - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
            row = (byte[]) raster.getDataElements(0, i, image.getWidth(), 1, row);
            output.write(row);
        }

        return output.toByteArray();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        HSSFWorkbook workbook = new HSSFWorkbook();
        HSSFSheet sheet = workbook.createSheet("Sheet2"); // this sheet gets the background image set

        // we need the binary records of the sheet
        // get InternalSheet
        Field _sheet = HSSFSheet.class.getDeclaredField("_sheet");
        _sheet.setAccessible(true);
        InternalSheet internalsheet = (InternalSheet)_sheet.get(sheet);

        // get List of RecordBase
        Field _records = InternalSheet.class.getDeclaredField("_records");
        _records.setAccessible(true);
        @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
        List<RecordBase> records = (List<RecordBase>)_records.get(internalsheet);

        // get bytes of the image file
        byte[] data = getBackgroundBitmapData("dummy.png"); //PNG must not have transparency

        // do creating BitmapRecord and ContinueRecords from the data in parts of 8220 bytes
        BitmapRecord bitmapRecord;
        List<ContinueRecord> continueRecords = new ArrayList<>();
        int bytes;

        if (data.length > 8220) {
            bitmapRecord = new BitmapRecord(Arrays.copyOfRange(data, 0, 8220));
            bytes = 8220;
            while (bytes < data.length) {
                if ((bytes + 8220) < data.length) {
                    continueRecords.add(new ContinueRecord(Arrays.copyOfRange(data, bytes, bytes + 8220)));
                    bytes += 8220;
                } else {
                    continueRecords.add(new ContinueRecord(Arrays.copyOfRange(data, bytes, data.length)));
                    break;
                }
            }
        } else {
            bitmapRecord = new BitmapRecord(data);
        }

        // add the records after PageSettingsBlock
        int i = 0;
        for (RecordBase r : records) {
            if (r instanceof org.apache.poi.hssf.record.aggregates.PageSettingsBlock) {
                break;
            }
            i++;
        }
        records.add(++i, bitmapRecord);
        for (ContinueRecord continueRecord : continueRecords) {
            records.add(++i, continueRecord);
        }

        // debug output
        for (RecordBase r : internalsheet.getRecords()) {
            System.out.println(r);
        }

        // write out workbook
        workbook.write(new FileOutputStream("backgroundImage.xls"));
        workbook.close();

    }

    static class BitmapRecord extends StandardRecord {

        //see https://www.openoffice.org/sc/excelfileformat.pdf - BITMAP

        byte[] data;

        BitmapRecord(byte[] data) {
            this.data = data;
        }

        public int getDataSize() {
            return data.length;
        }

        public short getSid() {
            return (short)0x00E9;
        }

        public void serialize(LittleEndianOutput out) {
            out.write(data);
        }
    }

    static class ContinueRecord extends StandardRecord {

        //see https://www.openoffice.org/sc/excelfileformat.pdf - CONTINUE

        byte[] data;

        ContinueRecord(byte[] data) {
            this.data = data;
        }

        public int getDataSize() {
            return data.length;
        }

        public short getSid() {
            return (short)0x003C;
        }

        public void serialize(LittleEndianOutput out) {
            out.write(data);
        }
    }
}

Thank you very much. This indeed will be the best solution until now although it is not really much different from my code in the answer. And "...is a standard BMP..." ;-) Is it really a standard BMP? Or is it not exactly the kind of very special BMP which OpenOffice had described already? And as said in my answer, Excel itself is always using this kind of BMP independent of what type the image chosen for the background was. — Axel Richter, Sep 21 '18 at 15:51
Re. "standard BMP" see [Wikipedia on the BMP file format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP_file_format#DIB_header_(bitmap_information_header)). Yes, I would say it's a standard BMP. The BMP structure It's just prepended with a Excel-specific header instead of the BMP file header. — Harald K, Sep 23 '18 at 17:18

Axel Richter · Answer 2 · 2018-09-22T06:10:20.727

As often it is simply stupidity of the programmer himself ;-). In German there is a saying: "Can't see the forest because of the trees.".

Simply getting the Raster of the BufferedImage once outside the loops instead of getting it inside the loops over and over again increases the speed enormously:

...
  // put the bytes R G B into the data; lines of the bitmap must be from bottom line to top line
  int bytes = 0;
  Raster raster = image.getData();
  for (short y = (short)(height - 1); y >= 0; y--) {
   for (short x = 0; x < width; x++) {
    int r = raster.getSample(x, y, 2);
    data.add(Byte.valueOf((byte)r));
    bytes++;
    int g = raster.getSample(x, y, 1);
    data.add(Byte.valueOf((byte)g));
    bytes++;
    int b = raster.getSample(x, y, 0);
    data.add(Byte.valueOf((byte)b));
    bytes++;
   } 
   // fill up x with 0 bytes up to multiple of 4
   for (int x = width * 3; x < widthBytesMultOf4; x++) {
    data.add(Byte.valueOf((byte)0));
    bytes++;
   }
  }
...

But the hint from @Gagravarr in his comment looks interesting also.

2.4.19 BkHim

The BkHim record specifies image data for a sheet (1) background

cf (2 bytes): A signed integer that specifies the image format. MUST be a value from the following:

Value: 0x0009

Meaning: Bitmap format. The image data is stored in a bitmap format as described in [MSDN-BMP]

Value: 0x000E

Meaning: Native format. The image data is stored in the native format of another application and cannot be directly processed.

This sounds as if if being 0x000E the first bytes instead of 0x0009 then native picture bytes (PNG, JPG, BMP, ...) could be stored directly. Will try this tomorrow.

Well, as often only futile effort with Microsoft's "documentations". The https://interoperability.blob.core.windows.net/files/MS-XLS/[MS-XLS].pdf seems correct but incomplete, at least on page 211: 2.4.19 BkHim. So using 0x000E instead of 0x0009 will not simply allowing storing a native imageBlob.

But also the description of 0x0009:

Bitmap format. The image data is stored in a bitmap format as described in [MSDN-BMP]

only links to an incomplete description of what kind of bitmap must be used here. Nothing about the header structure at the beginning and pixel bytes from bottom line to top line. And also nothing about the need aligning the size of each line to multiples of 4 by inserting zero bytes after the last pixel. But without knowing this all even using a bitmap 0x0009 will not work.

When I put any kind of background image into a worksheet in a *.xls file using Excel's GUI and then have a look into that file using a hex dump, then this always looks like:

0xe900SSSS09000100SSSSSSSS0c000000WWWWHHHH01001800PPP...

where S means size, W means width, H means height and P means pixel bytes.

This is independent of whether I put a BMP, JPG or PNG as background image into a worksheet. Always this special kind of BMP data is used.

So what OpenOffice has recognized using reverse engineering in https://www.openoffice.org/sc/excelfileformat.pdf is more useful than the "documentation" from Microsoft.

So following code for putting background image in HSSFSheet works for me tested with multiple different kinds of image files (BMP, PNG, JPG).

Also changed using List<Byte> data to byte[] data. So org.apache.poi.hssf.record.ContinueRecord can be used directly and must not be recreated.

import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;

import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.*;

import org.apache.poi.hssf.record.RecordBase;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.record.StandardRecord;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.record.ContinueRecord;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.model.InternalSheet;

import org.apache.poi.util.LittleEndianOutput;

import java.lang.reflect.Field;

import java.util.List;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;

import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.awt.image.Raster;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;

import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import java.nio.ByteOrder;

import javax.imageio.ImageIO;

public class CreateExcelHSSFSheetBackgroundBMP {

 static byte[] getBackgroundBitmapData(String filePath) throws Exception {

  // see https://www.openoffice.org/sc/excelfileformat.pdf - 5.6 BITMAP
  // and https://interoperability.blob.core.windows.net/files/MS-XLS/[MS-XLS].pdf - 2.4.19 BkHim

  // get file byte data in type BufferedImage.TYPE_3BYTE_BGR
  BufferedImage in = ImageIO.read(new FileInputStream(filePath));
  BufferedImage image = new BufferedImage(in.getWidth(), in.getHeight(), BufferedImage.TYPE_3BYTE_BGR);
  Graphics2D graphics = image.createGraphics();
  graphics.drawImage(in, null, 0, 0);
  graphics.dispose();

  short width = (short)image.getWidth();
  short height = (short)image.getHeight();

  // each pixel has 3 bytes but the width bytes must be filled up to multiple of 4
  int widthBytesMultOf4 = (int)((width * 3 + 3) / 4 * 4);

  // size 12 bytes (additional headers, see below) + picture bytes
  int size = 12 + height * widthBytesMultOf4;

  // create the header section
  ByteBuffer headers = ByteBuffer.allocate(20);
  headers.order(ByteOrder.LITTLE_ENDIAN);
  headers.putShort((short)0x09); // 0x0009 = signed integer that specifies the image format BMP
  headers.putShort((short)0x01); // reserved (2 bytes): MUST be 0x0001
  headers.putInt(size); // signed integer that specifies the size of imageBlob in bytes
  // BMP header section:
  headers.putInt(0x0C); // length 0x0C = 12 bytes
  headers.putShort(width); // pixels width
  headers.putShort(height); // pixels heigth
  headers.putShort((short)0x01); // number of planes: always 1
  headers.putShort((short)0x18); // color depth 0x018 = 24 bit

  //create data ByteArrayOutputStream
  ByteArrayOutputStream data = new ByteArrayOutputStream();

  // write headers section
  data.write(headers.array());

  // put the bytes R G B into the data; lines of the bitmap must be from bottom line to top line
  Raster raster = image.getData();
  for (short y = (short)(height - 1); y >= 0; y--) {
   for (short x = 0; x < width; x++) {
    int r = raster.getSample(x, y, 2);
    data.write((byte)r);
    int g = raster.getSample(x, y, 1);
    data.write((byte)g);
    int b = raster.getSample(x, y, 0);
    data.write((byte)b);
   } 
   // fill up x with 0 bytes up to multiple of 4
   for (int x = width * 3; x < widthBytesMultOf4; x++) {
    data.write((byte)0);
   }
  }

  return data.toByteArray();
 }

 public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

  HSSFWorkbook workbook = new HSSFWorkbook();
  HSSFSheet sheet = workbook.createSheet("Sheet1");
  sheet = workbook.createSheet("Sheet2"); // this sheet gets the background image set

  // we need the binary records of the sheet
  // get InternalSheet
  Field _sheet = HSSFSheet.class.getDeclaredField("_sheet");
  _sheet.setAccessible(true); 
  InternalSheet internalsheet = (InternalSheet)_sheet.get(sheet); 

  // get List of RecordBase
  Field _records = InternalSheet.class.getDeclaredField("_records");
  _records.setAccessible(true);
  @SuppressWarnings("unchecked") 
  List<RecordBase> records = (List<RecordBase>)_records.get(internalsheet);

  // get bytes of the image file
  byte[] data = getBackgroundBitmapData("dummyText.png"); //PNG must not have transparency

  // do creating BitmapRecord and ContinueRecords from the data in parts of 8220 bytes
  BitmapRecord bitmapRecord = null;
  List<ContinueRecord> continueRecords = new ArrayList<ContinueRecord>();
  int bytes = 0;
  if (data.length > 8220) {
   bitmapRecord = new BitmapRecord(Arrays.copyOfRange(data, 0, 8220));
   bytes = 8220;
   while (bytes < data.length) {
    if ((bytes + 8220) < data.length) {
     continueRecords.add(new ContinueRecord(Arrays.copyOfRange(data, bytes, bytes + 8220)));
     bytes += 8220;
    } else {
     continueRecords.add(new ContinueRecord(Arrays.copyOfRange(data, bytes, data.length)));
     break;
    }
   }
  } else {
   bitmapRecord = new BitmapRecord(data);
  }

  // add the records after PageSettingsBlock
  int i = 0;
  for (RecordBase r : records) {
   if (r instanceof org.apache.poi.hssf.record.aggregates.PageSettingsBlock) {
    break;
   }
   i++;
  }
  records.add(++i, bitmapRecord);
  for (ContinueRecord continueRecord : continueRecords) {
   records.add(++i, continueRecord);  
  }

  // debug output
  for (RecordBase r : internalsheet.getRecords()) {
   System.out.println(r.getClass());
  }

  // write out workbook
  FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream("CreateExcelHSSFSheetBackgroundBMP.xls");
  workbook.write(out);
  workbook.close();
  out.close();

 }

 static class BitmapRecord extends StandardRecord {

  // see https://www.openoffice.org/sc/excelfileformat.pdf - 5.6 BITMAP
  // and https://interoperability.blob.core.windows.net/files/MS-XLS/[MS-XLS].pdf - 2.4.19 BkHim

  byte[] data;

  BitmapRecord(byte[] data) {
   this.data = data;
  }

  public int getDataSize() { 
   return data.length; 
  }

  public short getSid() {
   return (short)0x00E9;
  }

  public void serialize(LittleEndianOutput out) {
   out.write(data);
  }
 }

}

It looks to me like all you need is a standard BMP structure, so you should be fine, just writing using `ImageIO.write(image, "BMP", )` and then just include the resulting byte array in your data (prepended with the 8 bytes `0x09000100<32 bit size as LE>`) . The header you write after *"now 12 bytes follow"* is actually the `BITMAPCOREHEADER`. Note also that a `List` is a very inefficient representation for a series of bytes, using `byte[]` will likely be an order of magnitude faster (or if you don't know the size up front, use a `ByteArrayOutputStream`). — Harald K, Sep 21 '18 at 07:48
PS: I do believe that (by reading the MSDN-BMP link) that you should be able to store the image as PNG, JPEG, GIF or TIFF in addition to BMP (as these are supported by Windows GDI). All using the `0x0009` value. The "magic" value `0x0C000000` is simply the length of the `BITMAPCOREHEADER` structure, and is all that is used to identify it. The padding to 32 bit boundaries is a property of the BMP file format. — Harald K, Sep 21 '18 at 08:08
PPS: Using `ImageIO.write(image, "BMP", )` as I wrote above may not work directly, as it will also write a BMP *file header* of 14 bytes before the `BITMAPCOREHEADER`. You might need to strip away those 14 bytes. :-) — Harald K, Sep 21 '18 at 08:12
@haraldK: Tried all you mentioned without success. So except your correct hints not to use `List`, which was an artifact from earlier tests, and that `0x0C000000` is simply the length of the header structure, your hints all are not useful. Both your useful hints I have considered in my code in the answer now. But this is an open question and there is complete working code given. So please do convincing me by providing an own answer using default BMP or even PNG or JPG directly ;-). — Axel Richter, Sep 21 '18 at 09:27

Using java.awt.image.BufferedImage for creating BIFF8 BITMAP record takes much time - Is there any better approach?

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