1015 lines
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1015 lines
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Graphics Muse
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<BODY text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"
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vlink="#fa3333" alink="#33CC33" link="#0000FA">
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more lovable!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<!-- =============================================================
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This Page Designed by Michael J. Hammel.
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Permission to use all graphics and other content for private,
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non-commerical use is granted provided you give me (or the
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original authors/artists) credit for the work.
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CD-ROM distributors and commercial ventures interested in
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providing the Graphics Muse for a fee must contact me,
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Michael J. Hammel (mjhammel@csn.net), for permission.
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============================================================= !-->
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© 1996 by
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<A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@csn.net">mjh</A>
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<!-- What is a Graphics Muse? -->
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<FONT size=4><B>muse:</B></FONT>
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<OL>
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<LI><I>v;</I> to become absorbed in thought
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<LI><I>n;</I> [ fr. Any of the nine sister goddesses of learning and the
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arts in Greek Mythology ]: a source of inspiration
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</OL>
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<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/w.gif ALT="W" ALIGN="left"
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HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="36" HEIGHT="28">elcome
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to the Graphics Muse! Why a "muse"?
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Well, except for the sisters aspect, the above definitions are
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pretty much the way I'd describe my own interest in computer graphics:
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it keeps me deep in thought and it is a daily source of inspiration.
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<!-- Text based navigation -->
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<CENTER>
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[<A HREF="#mews">Graphics Mews</A>]
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[<A HREF="#musings">Musings</A>]
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[<A HREF="#resources">Resources</A>]
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<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/t.gif ALT="T" ALIGN="left"
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HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="26" HEIGHT="28">his
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column is dedicated to the use, creation, distribution, and dissussion of
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computer graphics tools for Linux systems.
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<BR clear=both>
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Last month I had promised to do a review of Keith Rule's new book on
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3D File Formats this month. I'll also said there would be a section
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on adding fonts on Linux in last month's colums. Ok, I'm a liar.
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First, I decided that although Keith's book deserves some examination
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I felt that another
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book, Mark Kilgard's OpenGL text, had a more direct bearing on Linux
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users. I'll consider taking a look at Keith's book some time in the
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future.
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<BR clear=both>
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Second, I had quite a bit of other material for January's column so
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had decided to move the font discussion to February's column. However,
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I forgot to update the introduction in January's column to reflect
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this change. My apologies.
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<BR clear=both>
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Now for the bad news: I had a major system crash on the 16th of
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January which first of all caused me over a week of grief trying
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to recover and second caused the loss of a large number of files.
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No, I wasn't doing backups. So shoot me. I managed to recover an
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earlier copy of this month's Muse column from a laptop I have, but
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I lost a good portion of what I'd already done. Now, as I write this,
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I have 3 days to get the column done and uploaded. The result is
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that the book review and a number of other items will have to be put
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off till another time.
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<BR clear=both>
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So, does anyone have a decent tape backup system that can run on
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ftape drives?
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<BR clear=both>
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In this month's column I'll be covering, along with how to add fonts to
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your system:
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<UL>
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<LI> a GIF Animations update: the MultiGIF program
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<LI> some Printer info I gathered in the past month
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<LI> tkPOV V2.0 - a graphical front end to POV-Ray 3.0
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</UL>
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<P>
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<B>NOTE</B>:
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I lost all my old email and mail aliases when my system went down. If
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you have been in touch with me in the past and want to stay in touch
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<A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@csn.net">please send me some email
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(mjhammel@csn.net)</A>! I'm particularly interested in hearing from
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<B>Paul Sargent</B>, who was helping me with my look into BMRT. I lost
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your email address Paul, along with all the messages we'd exchanged on
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the BMRT article series! Write me (or if you know Paul, please have
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him contact me)!
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</A>
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<BR clear=both>
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Disclaimer:
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Before I get too far into this I should note that any of the news items I
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post in this section are just that - news. Either I happened to run
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across
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them via some mailing list I was on, via some Usenet newsgroup, or via
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email from someone. I'm not necessarily endorsing these products (some of
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which may be commercial), I'm just letting you know I'd heard about
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them in the past month.
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<tr>
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<td width="50%">
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<H4> xfig 3.2.0 Beta available </H4>
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Xfig is a menu-driven tool that allows the user to draw
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and manipulate objects interactively in an X window. The
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resulting pictures can be saved, printed on postscript
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printers or converted to a variety of other formats (e.g. to
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allow inclusion in LaTeX documents).
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<BR clear=both>
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xfig is available on ftp.x.org in
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<A HREF="ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/applications/drawing_tools/xfig">
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/contrib/applications/drawing_tools/xfig</A>.
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You also need a JPEG library, which can be found in /contrib/libraries.
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and TransFig version 3.2.0-beta1. TransFig contains the postprocessor
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needed by xfig to convert fig files to one of several output formats,
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such as PostScript, pic, LaTeX etc. The TransFig package is in the
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directory
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<A HREF="ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/applications/drawing_tools/transfig">
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/contrib/applications/drawing_tools/transfig</A>.
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</td>
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<td bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
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<td width="49%" valign=top>
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<H4>
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Alexander Zimmermann has uploaded another update to his ImageMagick
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package.
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</H4>
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ImageMagick (TM), version 3.7.9, is a package for display and
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interactive manipulation of images for the X Window System.
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The package has been uploaded to sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/Incoming
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as:
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<UL>
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<LI>ImageMagick-3.7.9-elf.lsm
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<LI>ImageMagick-3.7.9-elf.tgz
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</UL>
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<BR clear=both>
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ImageMagick supports also the Drag-and-Drop protocol form the
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OffiX package and many of the more popular image formats including
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JPEG, MPEG, PNG, TIFF, Photo CD, etc.
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<BR clear=both>
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You will also need the package libIMPlugIn-1.0-elf to get it working.
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These can be retrieved from
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<A HREF="ftp://ftp.wizards.dupont.com/pub/ImageMagick/binaries">
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ftp.wizards.dupont.com
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<BR>
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/pub/ImageMagick/binaries</A>.
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</td>
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<tr>
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<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
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<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
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HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
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<tr>
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<td colspan=4>
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<H4>
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World Movers, the first VRML 2.0 Developer Conference
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</H4>
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I received the following information via email (unsolicited, but
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it's probably the first time I got something I found really
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interesting via a blind email post). Note that I have nothing
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to do with this conference, other than I wish they'd invite me to go -
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expenses paid, of course:
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<P clear=both>
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World Movers, the first VRML 2.0 Developer Conference, will be held on
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January 30 and 31 at the ANA Hotel in San Francisco, CA.<br>
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At World Movers you will:
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<UL>
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<LI> Select from sessions in three key tracks over two days
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<UL>
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<LI> Content Creation
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<LI> Business Applications of VRML
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<LI> Future Directions and Current Technologies
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</UL>
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<LI> Learn how to create great VRML 2.0 content and applications
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<LI> See and learn about real applications that use VRML
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<LI> Find out about the latest tools for VRML 2.0
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</UL>
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<P>
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With a pan-industry advisory board and a wide array of hosts and
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participants, World Movers will give you a complete picture of VRML 2.0
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content and applications from all perspectives.
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<P>
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Register by calling (800)488-2883 or (415)578-6900, or go online at
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<A HREF="http://www.worldmovers.org">
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http://www.worldmovers.org</A>.
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</td>
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<tr>
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<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
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<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
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HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
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<tr>
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<td width="50%">
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<H4>
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PNG Magick Plug-in 0.8
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</H4>
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There is a new plug-in for Unix/Linux versions of Netscape called
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PNG Magick Plug-in 0.8. This plug-in supports
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the following file formats:
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PNG, XPM, TIFF, MIFF, TGA, BMP, PBM, PGM, PPM, PNM, PCX,
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FITS, XWD, GIF, JPEG, WAV and MPEG-1. It is reported to support
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Drag and Drop capabilities as well.
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<BR clear=both>
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For MPEG-1 support you need the Xew library which doesn't seem
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to work well with the Linux version of this plug-in.
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<BR clear=both>
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PNG Magick Plug-in 0.8
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is published under the GNU General public License and is available at
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<A HREF="http://home.pages.de/~rasca/pngplugin/">
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http://home.pages.de/~rasca/pngplugin/</A>.
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</td>
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<td bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
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<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
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HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
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<td bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
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<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
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WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
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<td width="49%">
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<H4>
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TkFont v1.1
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</H4>
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There is a new tool for viewing fonts on Linux. I haven't tried
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this yet so I don't know how well it works. It has been uploaded
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to <A HREF="http://tsx-11.mit.edu">
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tsx-11.mit.edu</A> in the /incoming directory.
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The file-name is `tkfont-1.1.tar.gz'.
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</td>
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<tr>
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<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
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<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
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HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
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<tr>
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<td colspan=4>
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<H4> Version 0.1.8 of Lib3d is now available from Sunsite.</H4>
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Lib3d is a high performance 3d C++ library distributed under the GNU
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LGPL. Lib3d implements sub-affine texture mapping, Gouraud shading
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and Z-buffer rasterization, with support for X11, DGA, SvgaLib and DOS.
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<BR clear=both>
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Lib3d is available from
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<A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/Incoming/lib3d-0.1.8.tar.gz">
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ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/Incoming/lib3d-0.1.8.tar.gz
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</A>
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<BR clear=both>
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For more information:
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<A HREF="http://www.ozemail.com.au/~keithw">
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http://www.ozemail.com.au/~keithw
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</A>
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</td>
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<tr>
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<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
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<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
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HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
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<tr>
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<td colspan=4>
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<H4>
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CFP: ACM SIGGRAPH 97 Sketches Program
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</H4>
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Deadline: April 16, 1997
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<BR clear=both>
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The following was posted in a number of places. I got it via a
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friend on the Gimp User mailing list. I have no association with
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SIGGRAPH (unfortunately) so can offer no other details than the
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following:
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<P clear=both>
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SKETCHES are live, 15 minute presentations that provide a forum for
|
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unique, interesting ideas and techniques in computer graphics.
|
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Sketches allow the presentation of late-breaking results, works in
|
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progress, art, design, and innovative uses and applications of
|
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graphics techniques and technology. Sketch abstracts will be published
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in the Visual Proceedings.
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<BR clear=both>
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Sketches are a fun, educational, high-profile way to show your work
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and creations. We are seeking submissions in four areas:
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<UL>
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<LI>Animations
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<LI>Applications
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<LI>Art and Design
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<LI>Technical
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</UL>
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|
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For more information, see the SIGGRAPH 97 Call for Participation, send
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email to
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<A HREF="mailto:sketches.s97@siggraph.org">sketches.s97@siggraph.org</A>,
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or for the latest, most
|
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comprehensive information on how to submit to Sketches and other
|
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SIGGRAPH 97 programs, including supplemental documents, please go to:
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<A HREF="http://www.siggraph.org/s97/">
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http://www.siggraph.org/s97/</A>.
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<P clear=both>
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<table>
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<tr><td valign=top>
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To request a copy of the Call for Participation, contact:
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<I>
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<br> SIGGRAPH 97 Conference Management
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<br> Smith, Bucklin & Associates, Inc.
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<br> 401 North Michigan Avenue
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<br> Chicago, Illinois 60611 USA
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<br> +1.312.321.6830
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<br> +1.312.321.6876 fax
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<br>
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<A HREF="mailto:siggraph97@siggraph.org">siggraph97@siggraph.org</A>
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</I>
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<P><B>DEADLINES:</B>
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<br clear=both> 16 April 1997
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<br clear=both> 5 pm Eastern Daylight Time
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<br clear=both> Final Sketch proposals
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</td>
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<td valign=top>
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To discuss your concepts and ideas for Sketches, contact:
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<I>
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<br> David S. Ebert
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<br> SIGGRAPH 97 Sketches Chair
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<br> University of Maryland Baltimore County
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<br> CSEE Department ECS-210
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<br> 1000 Hilltop Circle
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<br> Baltimore, Maryland 21250 USA
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<br> +1.410.455.3541
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<br> +1.410.455.3969 fax
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|
<br>
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|
<A HREF="mailto:sketches.s97@siggraph.org">
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sketches.s97@siggraph.org</A>
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|
</I>
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</td>
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</table>
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</td>
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<tr>
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<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
VSPACE="5" HSPACE="10" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"></td>
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
VSPACE="5" HSPACE="10" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"></td>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td colspan=4>
|
|
<H4>Did You Know?</H4>
|
|
|
|
The
|
|
<A HREF="http://webspace.sgi.com/moving-worlds/">
|
|
VRML 2.0 Specification, Moving Worlds</A>
|
|
from SGI, provides for
|
|
"spatial audio"? This is a definition of how sound is played
|
|
in relationship to your point in space and distance from an object
|
|
which has a sound attached to it. The O2 system from SGI has
|
|
a VRML browser which was demonstrated on Part 2 of PC-TV's series
|
|
on Unix which covered commercial Unix options. Part 3 of this
|
|
series started airing at the end of January and is devoted to
|
|
our favorite OS - Linux!
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
|
|
There is a wonderful description on using color palettes with
|
|
Web pages at
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.adobe.com/newsfeatures/palette/main.html">
|
|
http://www.adobe.com/newsfeatures/palette/main.html</A>. The page
|
|
is a reprinted article by Lisa Lopuck from Adobe Magazine and is
|
|
quite detailed. Check it out!
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
|
|
Have you been thinking about using POV-Ray 3.0's new <I>caustics</I>
|
|
feature? Are you unsure exactly what it does? Want to learn all
|
|
about it? Then check out
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.enter.net/~cfusner/tutorial/caustic.html">
|
|
The Caustic Tutorial for POV</A>. This is a very detailed
|
|
explanation on what caustics are and how to use them.
|
|
Briefly,
|
|
<BLOCKQUOTE>
|
|
caustics are formed when light is either focused or dispersed due to
|
|
passing through media with different indices of refraction. Bright spots
|
|
in the shadows are where light is focused and dark spots are where the
|
|
light has been dispersed.
|
|
</BLOCKQUOTE>
|
|
Thanks to
|
|
<A HREF="mailto:protering@bosque.com">Paul R. Rotering</A> for this description (taken from the IRTC-L
|
|
mailing list).
|
|
|
|
<P><FONT size=4><B>Q and A</B></FONT>
|
|
<P>
|
|
<I>Q: What is displacement mapping?</I>
|
|
<P>
|
|
A: Displacement mapping is not only the perturbing of the surface
|
|
normal of an object, like bump maps do, but in fact a distorting
|
|
of the object itself. You can think of it
|
|
as a height field over an arbitrary surface. The latest version of
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.seas.gwu.edu/student/gritz/bmrt.html">
|
|
BMRT</A> is reported to support displacement maps. Few other
|
|
publicly available renderers provide this feature.
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<I>Q:
|
|
I have just downloaded the complete batch of plug-ins from the
|
|
"Plug-in Registry", and noticed that the "interpolate",
|
|
"lightest" and "darkest" plug-ins appear to do the same thing
|
|
as the "blend",
|
|
"add" and "multiply" channel ops respectively. Is this correct, or is
|
|
there some difference under certain circumstances?
|
|
</I>
|
|
<P>
|
|
A:
|
|
Not exactly. Blend uses integer values and restricts you to
|
|
interpolation. Interpolate/Extrapolate uses floating point values and
|
|
does not restrict the range of the blending value --- you can do
|
|
extrapolation, too (look at my home page for some examples):
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.nuclecu.unam.mx/~federico/gimp">
|
|
http://www.nuclecu.unam.mx/~federico/gimp</A>
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
Lightest and Darkest pick the lightest and darkest pixels from two
|
|
images. It is not the same as add and multiply except for bilevel
|
|
images.
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
Both of these questions were answered by Mena Quintero Federico,
|
|
aka Quartic, on the Gimp User mailing list.
|
|
|
|
</td>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
VSPACE="5" HSPACE="10" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"></td>
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
VSPACE="5" HSPACE="10" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"></td>
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<A NAME="musings">
|
|
<table>
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/musings.gif ALT="Musings" ALIGN="left"
|
|
HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="247" HEIGHT="52">
|
|
</td>
|
|
</table>
|
|
</A>
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
<TABLE width=560>
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td valign=top>
|
|
<H4>GIF animations update: MultiGIF
|
|
</H4>
|
|
|
|
After my first column (Linux Gazette, issue 12),
|
|
<A HFEF="newt@pobox.com">Greg Roelofs</A>
|
|
wrote me to tell me about another tool for creating animated
|
|
GIF images. Andy Wardley's
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.peritas.com/~abw/multigif.html">MultiGIF</A>
|
|
allows the use of sprite images as part of the animation. Sprite
|
|
images are like small sections of an image. Instead of
|
|
creating a series of GIF images that are all the same size and simply
|
|
appending each one at the end of the other (as WhirlGIF does), the user can
|
|
create an initial image along with a series of smaller images that are
|
|
positioned at offsets from the upper left corner of the full image.
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
By using sprites (I'm not completely sure what a sprite
|
|
really is, but Greg used this term and it appears similar to other
|
|
uses I've seen - someone correct me if it's not the correct use of
|
|
the term) the GIF animator can reduce the file size anywhere from
|
|
a factor of two to a factor of 20 in size. As proof, Greg offered
|
|
his animated
|
|
<A HREF="http://quest.jpl.nasa.gov/PNG/">
|
|
PNG-balls</A>, which went from 577k to 233k in size.
|
|
Another animation, a small horizontally oscillating "Cylon eyes"
|
|
(referring to the old Battlestar Gallatica metal menace), provided
|
|
a savings of a factor of 20.
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
MultiGIF comes with C source code and is shareware. Andy only asks
|
|
that you provide a donation if you find you are using it frequently.
|
|
There is also a utility called gifinfo which can be used to identify
|
|
GIF files, including multiframe GIF animations.
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
Both WhirlGIF and MultiGIF come with fairly decent documentation
|
|
describing how to use the various command line options. About the
|
|
only thing that might be missing is why you would use one option over or in
|
|
conjunction with another, but thats a minor point. I find the use of
|
|
sprites with MultiGIF and its smaller output files more useful to me.
|
|
However, new users who are not quite familiar with how to create sprites
|
|
(including transparency) with tools like the Gimp might prefer the simpler
|
|
WhirlGIF.
|
|
</td>
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"></td>
|
|
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
<TABLE width=560>
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td valign=top width="44%">
|
|
<H4><I>
|
|
Adding Fonts to your system
|
|
</I> </H4>
|
|
|
|
Fonts are used extensively for creating graphics images.
|
|
Many of the graphics on my Web pages and in the
|
|
Graphics Muse use fonts I've installed from
|
|
collections of fonts on commercial CDs.
|
|
Fonts are also used for ordinary text in X applications, from
|
|
the fonts in your xterm to the title bars provided by your
|
|
window manager to the pages displayed by xman.
|
|
The difference is hard to distinguish, but
|
|
whether used for ordinary text or to create
|
|
outrageous graphics, adding fonts to your system and letting
|
|
your X server know about them is the first step .
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
Just so you know: nearly all X applications accept the "-fn"
|
|
and/or "-font" command line arguments. This is a feature built into
|
|
the X Windows API. How this is used depends on the application. For
|
|
xterms, just use "-fn <fontname>" to specify the font used in the
|
|
xterm window. This does not specify what font to use for the xterm
|
|
title bar. That is controlled by the window managers X resources.
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
To know what fonts are available on your system you can look
|
|
under the font directories for fonts.alias files. There is supposed to be
|
|
one of these in each directory under
|
|
<FONT size=2><I>
|
|
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts</FONT></I>,
|
|
but whether there is or not depends on the distribution you're using.
|
|
The name to use is the
|
|
name on the left. For example, under
|
|
<FONT size=2><I>
|
|
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc</FONT></I>,
|
|
in the file fonts.alias there is the following line:
|
|
<table>
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td width=10% valign=top>
|
|
<FONT size=2><B>
|
|
5x7
|
|
</B></FONT></td>
|
|
<td width=90% valign=top>
|
|
<FONT size=2><B>
|
|
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal-<BR>
|
|
-7-70-75-75-c-50-iso8859-1
|
|
</B></FONT></td>
|
|
</table>
|
|
To use this font with xterms I would do:
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
<FONT size=2><B>
|
|
xterm -fn 5x7
|
|
</B></FONT>
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
You can actually use the string on the right, but unless you understand
|
|
how fonts are defined you probably don't want to do this.
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
I don't want this to turn into an X Windows column. There are other
|
|
places for such discussions, and I'm sure LG could use a regular
|
|
columnist for X. But this column is about computer graphics so
|
|
this is all I'm going to say about using fonts in X applications
|
|
from the X resources standpoint. In any case, since the X server
|
|
is being used to handle the fonts, adding fonts to
|
|
your system is the same whether you use them for graphics or as
|
|
X resources.
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
Suppose you had a font called <I>westerngoofy</I> that you
|
|
wanted to use in the Gimp as the start
|
|
of some neat title graphic for a Web page.
|
|
By default there isn't an entry in any of the fonts.alias files
|
|
for <I>westerngoofy</I>, so when you use the text tool in the Gimp
|
|
it won't show up in the list of available fonts.
|
|
There are 3 steps to making this font available for use with the
|
|
Gimp:
|
|
<UL>
|
|
<LI>Grab the fonts and place them in a local directory
|
|
<LI>Configure that directory for use as a font directory
|
|
<LI>Tell the X server about this new font directory
|
|
</UL>
|
|
|
|
|
|
The first part is simple - grab a copy of the font file and put it
|
|
in some directory. Make sure you've uncompressed it if the archive
|
|
you retrieved the file from compresses the fonts. Most X servers
|
|
don't understand compressed fonts (some do, but all understand
|
|
uncompressed fonts). The directory can be owned by anyone. It does
|
|
not have to be a directory under the system fonts directories
|
|
(generally these are under
|
|
<FONT size=2><I>
|
|
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts</FONT></I>). On my system I have a "src/X11"
|
|
|
|
<P clear=both>
|
|
<CENTER>
|
|
<A HREF="#next-column">-Top of next column-</A>
|
|
</CENTER>
|
|
</td>
|
|
|
|
<td bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
|
|
<td bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
|
|
<td bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<td valign=top width="53%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
|
|
<table>
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td valign=top cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
|
|
<UL>
|
|
<LH>
|
|
<A NAME="next-column">
|
|
<B>More Musings...</B>
|
|
</A>
|
|
</LH>
|
|
<LI>
|
|
<A HREF="more-musings.html#printer-info">
|
|
Printer Info
|
|
</A> - my journey into color printing
|
|
<LI>
|
|
<A HREF="more-musings.html#tkpov">
|
|
tkPOV V2.0
|
|
</A> - a graphical front end to POV-Ray 3.0
|
|
|
|
</UL>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
VSPACE="5" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1">
|
|
</td>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"></td>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td valign=top cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
|
|
HSPACE="8" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1">
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
directory under my home directory. Under this I created a "fonts"
|
|
directory where I put new fonts that I find. If you are the owner
|
|
of your system and have root access you might want to put the fonts
|
|
under /usr/local/fonts or someplace similar.
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
Note that since TrueType fonts are not supported by default by most
|
|
X servers we won't concern ourselves with how to use them here. The
|
|
font format you should be using are Type1 fonts. There are plenty
|
|
of places to get these, including numerous CD-ROMs available from
|
|
any decent computer software stores. Some online resources are
|
|
listed in the
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel/linux/lgh.html">
|
|
Linux Graphics mini-Howto</A> under the "Other Topics" section.
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
Next you need to configure your new fonts directory so that the
|
|
X server can provide you FontName-to-File mappings. To do this you
|
|
need to get hold of a little Perl script called
|
|
<A HREF="http://goblet.anu.edu.au/~m9305357/type1inst.html">
|
|
<I>type1inst</I></A>,
|
|
which is short for "Type 1 Install". This script is easy to use and comes
|
|
with documentation explaining what you about to do. Basically,
|
|
you run the script to create a couple of files, fonts.alias and
|
|
fonts.dir, which the X server uses to associate a fonts name to
|
|
the font file. You can also use <I>mkfontdir</I>, but I like
|
|
<I>type1inst</I>
|
|
better. <I>mkfontdir</I> doesn't always seem to be available
|
|
on all platforms and finding a binary version (or even source)
|
|
has never been easy for me (I think it's buried in the X11 source
|
|
tree, which I really don't want to download just for one program).
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
The last step is to let the X server know about the new font
|
|
directory. The <I>xset</I> command allows a user to configure
|
|
a number of options for the X server. One of these options is
|
|
the paths to search for font files. The format of the command
|
|
is as follows:
|
|
<P>
|
|
|
|
<FONT size=2><B>
|
|
xset fp+ <path>
|
|
</FONT></B>
|
|
<P>
|
|
The <I>fp</I> option is used to modify the font path. The plus
|
|
sign is used to add a font path. Because the plus sign is after
|
|
the <I>fp</I> the font path specified will be appended to the
|
|
current list of paths, if any. Using <I>+fp</I> would prepend
|
|
the new path to the front of the current list. There are other
|
|
possibilities. Running
|
|
<P>
|
|
|
|
<FONT size=2><B>
|
|
xset -?
|
|
</FONT></B>
|
|
<P>
|
|
will provide a thorough list of options. The man page for xset
|
|
also contains good descriptions of the options.
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
Now that the server knows where to look, it has to be told to
|
|
go ahead and check for fonts in the new directories. The
|
|
<I>rehash</I> option to xset does this. Simply run
|
|
<P>
|
|
|
|
<FONT size=2><B>
|
|
xset fp rehash
|
|
</FONT></B>
|
|
<P>
|
|
and your new fonts are ready for use!
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
Of course, once you've installed the fonts in a directory and
|
|
run <I>type1inst</I> you can put the <I>xset</I> commands in your
|
|
.xinitrc file so they are run every time you start up your X
|
|
environment (such as with the <I>startx</I> script). This is what
|
|
I do so that I always have access to the set of fonts I've installed
|
|
from CD-ROMs or from font archives from the net.
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
|
|
Thats all there is to it. You should now be able to use your fonts
|
|
with tools like the Gimp or XPaint in order to create lots of
|
|
interesting logos for Web pages. Enjoy!
|
|
|
|
</td>
|
|
</table>
|
|
</td>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<A NAME="resources">
|
|
<table>
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td>
|
|
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/resources.gif ALT="Resources" ALIGN="left"
|
|
HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="246" HEIGHT="57">
|
|
</td>
|
|
</table>
|
|
</A>
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
The following links are just starting points for finding more information
|
|
about computer graphics and multimedia in general for Linux systems. If
|
|
you have some application specific information for me, I'll add them to my
|
|
other pages or you can contact the maintainer of some other web site. I'll
|
|
consider adding other general references here, but application or site
|
|
specific information needs to go into one of the following general
|
|
references and not listed here.
|
|
|
|
<BR clear=both>
|
|
<P>
|
|
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel/linux-graphics-howto.html">
|
|
Linux Graphics mini-Howto
|
|
</A>
|
|
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel/povray/povray.html">
|
|
Unix Graphics Utilities
|
|
</A>
|
|
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.digiserve.com/ar/linux-snd/">
|
|
Linux Multimedia Page
|
|
</A>
|
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<P>
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Some of the Mailing Lists and Newsgroups I keep an eye on and where I get alot
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of the information in this column:
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<P> <A HREF="http://www.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/~gimp/">
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The Gimp User and Gimp Developer Mailing Lists</A>.
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<BR> The IRTC-L discussion list (I'll get an address next month).
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<BR> <A HREF="news:comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing">
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comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing</A>
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<BR> <A HREF="news:comp.graphics.rendering.renderman">
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|
comp.graphics.rendering.renderman</A>
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|
<BR> <A HREF="news:comp.os.linux.announce">
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comp.os.linux.announce</A>
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<br>
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|
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<P>
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<A NAME="future">
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<H2>Future Directions</H2>
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|
</A>
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Next month:
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<UL>
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|
<LI>BMRT Part I: An Introduction - creating a simple scene and rendering it
|
|
<LI>Scanner Info
|
|
<LI>Height Fields with HF-Lab
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|
<LI>Review: TkPOV - a POV-Ray scene file editor
|
|
<LI>Book Review: OpenGL Programming for the X Window System
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|
</UL>
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<BR>
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<A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@csn.net">
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Let me know what you'd like to hear about!</A>
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H4>Previous ``Graphics Muse'' Columns</H4></center>
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<p>
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<A HREF="../issue11/gm.html">Graphics Muse #1, November 1996</A><br>
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|
<A HREF="../issue12/gm.html">Graphics Muse #2, December 1996</A><br>
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|
<A HREF="../issue13/gm.html">Graphics Muse #3, January 1997</A>
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<P><HR><P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1997, Michael J. Hammel <BR>
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Published in Issue 14 of the Linux Gazette</H5></center>
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