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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<HEAD>
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<title>Graphics Muse Issue 20</title>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000EE" VLINK="#CC0000"
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ALINK="#FF6600">
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
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<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Mozilla/4.01b6C [en] (X11; I; Linux 1.2.13 i486) [Netscape]">
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<META NAME="Author" CONTENT="Michael J. Hammel">
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<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="The Monthly Column of Computer Graphics for Linux Systems.">
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<TITLE>Graphics Muse</TITLE>
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</HEAD>
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<!-- =============================================================
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These pages are designed by Michael J. Hammel. Permission to
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use all graphics and other content is granted provided you give
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me (or the original authors/artists) credit for the work and this
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copyright notice is not removed.
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(c)1997, 1998 Michael J. Hammel (mjhammel@graphics-muse.org)
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============================================================= !--><!-- The Button box as a client side imagemap --><MAP NAME="nav-main"><AREA SHAPE="rect" HREF="#mews" coords="20,18 185,40"><AREA SHAPE="rect" HREF="#webwonderings" coords="10,60 185,83"><AREA SHAPE="rect" HREF="#musings" coords="90,102 185,130"><AREA SHAPE="rect" HREF="#resources" coords="70,152 185,180"></MAP>
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<!-- The Button box as a client side imagemap --><MAP NAME="nav-main"><AREA SHAPE="rect" HREF="#mews" coords="3,10 158,56"><AREA SHAPE="rect" HREF="#musings" coords="5,85 142,116"><AREA SHAPE="rect" HREF="#resources" coords="5,152 177,182"></MAP>
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<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" >
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<TR>
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<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/gm3.gif" ALT="Welcome to the Graphics Muse" NOSAVE HEIGHT=216 WIDTH=441 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
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<TD VALIGN=BOTTOM>
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<CENTER><FONT SIZE=-1>Set your browser as wide as you'd like now.
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I've fixed the Muse to expand to fill the available space!</FONT></CENTER>
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<CENTER><FONT SIZE=-2>© 1997 by <A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@csn.net">mjh</A> </FONT></CENTER>
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</TD>
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</TR>
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</TABLE>
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<HR WIDTH="100%">
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<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" >
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<TR>
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<TD WIDTH="185"><IMG USEMAP="#nav-main" SRC="../gx/hammel/buttons3.gif" ALT="Button Bar" HEIGHT=185 WIDTH=177 ALIGN=LEFT BORDER=0></TD>
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<TD VALIGN=TOP><B><FONT SIZE=+1>muse:</FONT></B>
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<OL>
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<LI>
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<I>v;</I> to become absorbed in thought </LI>
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<LI>
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<I>n;</I> [ fr. Any of the nine sister goddesses of learning and the arts
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in Greek Mythology ]: a source of inspiration </LI>
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</OL>
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<IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/w.gif" ALT="W" HEIGHT=28 WIDTH=36 ALIGN=BOTTOM>elcome
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to the Graphics Muse! Why a "muse"? Well, except for the sisters aspect,
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the above definitions are pretty much the way I'd describe my own interest
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in computer graphics: it keeps me deep in thought and it is a daily source
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of inspiration.
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<CENTER><FONT SIZE=-1>[<A HREF="#mews">Graphics Mews</A>] [<A HREF="#musings">Musings</A>]
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[<A HREF="#resources">Resources</A>] </FONT></CENTER>
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</TD>
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</TR>
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</TABLE>
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<BR><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/t.gif" ALT="T" HEIGHT=28 WIDTH=26 ALIGN=LEFT>his column
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is dedicated to the use, creation, distribution, and discussion of computer
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graphics tools for Linux systems.
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<BR>
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<BR> The format of this month's column has changed just a tad.
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I rebuilt my template for the column using Netscape's Page Composer, part
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of the Communicator 4.01 Preview Release 6. There are lots of little
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things I don't like about Communicator but the Page Composer is quite nice.
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It's the first WYSIWYG HTML editor I've used on Linux that I've really liked.
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I intend to do many of my pages using it from now on. To be fair
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to Communicator, it is a preview release (once known as Beta, but I guess
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that has bad connotations now). I've always been pleased with Netscape's
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products. If I could just get them to publicly support Linux I'd
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be happier. Anyway, once the little annoying aspects are cleared
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up the 4.x release should be quite a boost to Netscape's product line. <IMG SRC="./gx/hammel/gfx-masses-2.jpg" HSPACE=15 VSPACE=15 HEIGHT=400 WIDTH=299 ALIGN=RIGHT>
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<BR> During the month of July I was finishing up a major X
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application for my employer (EMASS, Inc, a division of Raytheon/E-Systems/TI/and
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who knows what else). One of the last things I had to do was port
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the application to a slew of Unix platforms. Well, the ports were
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pretty easy - it was just a matter of getting the build environment set
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up right - but I had lots of free time to burn while some compiles were
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running. Fortunately I was able to log in from home to do these,
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so I started to look at a few graphics applications that I've been meaning
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to get to for some time. The first is Image Alchemy, a commercial
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product from Handmade Software that provides extensive image conversion
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capabilities. I'd long ago promised Hap Nesbitt of Handmade Software
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that I would do the review. My apologies to him and Handmade for
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taking so long to get around to it.
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<BR> The next package is ImageMagick. I've seen the posts
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for this package on comp.os.linux.announce many times and have heard lots
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of good things about the package. I decided it was time to take a
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closer look.
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<BR> Finally, I decided to take a look at a tool that's been
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around for awhile but that hasn't really been discussed much in the forums
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that I frequent: Geomview. A quick glance at the pre-built
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binary really caught my eye. This is a tool with a lot of potential.
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<BR>
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<P> In this month's column I'll also be covering:
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<UL>
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<LI>
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Is VRML ready for Prime Time?</LI>
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<LI>
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In Q and A: how do you turn TGA files from POV-Ray into an animation?</LI>
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</UL>
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Oh, and the image on the right, <B>Graphics for the Masses</B>, was created
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as a demonstration of what can be done with the GIMP. It was enough
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to convinve the Linux Journal that I could do the cover for their November
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Graphics issue using this handy Photoshop clone. The final cover
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art doesn't look anything like this one, however. It was just a way
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of showing off what is possible. If anyone else needs a cover done,
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feel free to drop me a line!
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<BR><A NAME="mews"></A>
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<BR>
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<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
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<TR>
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<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/mews.gif" ALT="Graphics Mews" HEIGHT=53 WIDTH=242 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
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</TR>
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</TABLE>
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Disclaimer: Before I get too far into this
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I should note that any of the news items I post in this section are just
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that - news. Either I happened to run across them via some mailing list
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I was on, via some Usenet news group, or via email from someone. I'm not
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necessarily endorsing these products (some of which may be commercial),
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I'm just letting you know I'd heard about them in the past month.
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<BR>
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<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
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<TR>
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<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=10 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD>I ran across this in the <A HREF="http://www.xcf.berkeley.edu/~gimp">GIMP
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Developers mailing list</A>. Unfortunately, I forgot to save the
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attribution. My apologies to the original poster of the message.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>I've been reading some of the W3 specs recently, and I've come
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across some good stuff. I'm impressed - until recently it seemed like the
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W3 either wouldn't or couldn't get their act together, but now they seem
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to be putting out genuinely useful specifications.
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<P>Anyway, the one with perhaps the greatest relevance to GIMP users is
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the sRGB standard, which specifies how images should look when displayed
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on the Internet. If you're interested at all in gamma correction and monitor
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color spaces, take a look at:
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<CENTER><A HREF="http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Graphics/Color/sRGB.html">http://www.w3.org/pub/
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WWW/Graphics/Color/sRGB.html</A></CENTER>
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<P>If you're not familiar with the color management literature, some of
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it will be hard going, but it might be worthwhile anyway.
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<P>For people who are not intimately familiar with CIE color spaces and
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all that stuff, the bottom line of sRGB is that the default gamma value
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for Gimp should be 1.0 (as indeed it is in 0.99.10). For people that have
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calibrated monitors (most likely a tiny fraction of Gimp users), it would
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be appropriate to use some form of color management technology (I think
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some of the new X's have color management defined, but I'm not sure how
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good it is) and do a transformation from the image color space to the screen
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color space. However, in the absence of that, gamma correction is generally
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not appropriate.
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<P>In the long term, it might be a good idea to add color management to
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the Gimp, but for now I think it's fine without. Color management tends
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not to work well unless it's very carefully applied - generally, something
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that only happens in high end environments. </BLOCKQUOTE>
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</TD>
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</TR>
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</TABLE>
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<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=3 WIDTH="100%" >
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<TR>
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<TD COLSPAN="3" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" HSPACE=30 VSPACE=2 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
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<TD></TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD WIDTH="50%">
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<H2>
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<B>xfont3d</B></H2>
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This program is a graphical interface to Font3D
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<BR>(<A HREF="http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~squid/font3d.html">http://www-personal.ksu.edu/
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~squid/font3d.html</A>), and requires the XForms library (<A HREF="http://bragg.phys.uwm.edu/xforms">http://bragg.phys.uwm.edu/xforms</A>).
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<P> The interface was developed with <A HREF="http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~squid/font3d.html">Font3D
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v1.6.</A> Font3D generates geometry (model) files for 3D text
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in a variety of output formats (POV, RIB, etc.) from True Type font files.
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<P> I designed <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">xfont3d </FONT></B>to
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be used as a tool mainly for POV-Ray. The built-in POV-Ray pre viewer
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allows you to render a sample of the font generated by Font3D. However,
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xfont3d supports all the output options of Font3D - you just won't be able
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to preview it directly from xfont3d.
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<P> You can view an image of the interface and get the source
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code from
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<P> <A HREF="http://cspar.uah.edu/~mallozzir">http://cspar.uah.edu/~mallozzir</A>
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<P> I wrote the thing in about three days, so by that time
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I was sick of it, and hence it has not really undergone much testing
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Please send any bug reports or comments to <A HREF="mailto:mallozzir@cspar.uah.edu">mallozzir@cspar.uah.edu.</A>
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<P><B><FONT COLOR="#006600"><FONT SIZE=-1>Dr. Robert S. Mallozzi </FONT></FONT></B>
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<BR><I><FONT COLOR="#006600">University of Alabama in Huntsville </FONT></I></TD>
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<TD ROWSPAN="3" WIDTH="2" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
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<TD WIDTH="49%">
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<H2>
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<B>GCL</B></H2>
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<B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">GCL </FONT></B>(Graphics Command
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Language) is an interpreting language that is based on the data plotting
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library DISLIN. Version 2.2 of GCL is now released.
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<P> About 400 plotting and parameter setting routines of DISLIN
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can be called from GCL for displaying data as curves, bar graphs, pie charts,
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3D-colour plots, surfaces, contours and maps. Several output formats are
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supported such as X11, PostScript, CGM, HPGL, TIFF and Prescribe.
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<P> Some quickplots are also added to GCL that can display
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data with one command. Similar to programming languages such as Fortran
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and C, high-level language elements can be used within GCL. These are variables,
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operators, array operations, loops, if and switch statements, user-defined
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subroutines and functions, and file I/O routines.
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<P> GCL is free available for the operating systems MS-DOS,
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Windows 95, VMS, Linux, AIX, Digital UNIX, HP-UX and SunOS.
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<P>FTP sites:
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<P> <A HREF="ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/grafik/dislin">ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/grafik/dislin</A>
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<BR> <A HREF="ftp://linhmi.mpae.gwdg.de/pub/dislin">ftp://linhmi.mpae.gwdg.de/pub/dislin</A>
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<P>Home Page:
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<P> <A HREF="http://www.mpae.gwdg.de/dislin/dislin.htm">http://www.mpae.gwdg.de/dislin/dislin.htm</A></TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
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<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD>
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<H2>
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ImageMagick 3.8.8</H2>
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The newest version of the binary distribution of <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">ImageMagick</FONT></B>,
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version 3.8.8, has been uploaded to Sunsite.. You can also get it
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from its primary site at <A HREF="ftp://ftp.wizards.dupont.com/pub/ImageMagick/linux">ftp.wizards.dupont.com
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/pub/ImageMagick/linux.</A>
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<P>ImageMagick (TM), version 3.8.8, is a package for display and interactive
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manipulation of images for the X Window System. ImageMagick performs,
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also as command line programs, among others these functions:
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<UL>
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<LI>
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Describe the format and characteristics of an image </LI>
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<LI>
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Convert an image from one format to another </LI>
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<LI>
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Transform an image or sequence of images </LI>
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<LI>
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Read an image from an X server and output it as an image file </LI>
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<LI>
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Animate a sequence of images </LI>
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<LI>
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Combine one or more images to create new images </LI>
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<LI>
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Create a composite image by combining several separate images </LI>
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<LI>
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Segment an image based on the color histogram </LI>
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<BR>Retrieve, list, or print files from a remote network site </UL>
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The major changes in ImageMagick 3.8.8 are:
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<UL>
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<LI>
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PerlMagick now can interactively display an image or animate an image sequence. </LI>
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<LI>
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Subimages can now be specified in any order. For example, image.miff[3,2],
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image.miff[11-1], or image.miff[1,2,2,3].</LI>
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<LI>
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Added <B>-remote</B> to display and animate. It allows you to send a load
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image command to an already running executable.</LI>
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<LI>
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Duplicate entries in an image colormap are now automatically eliminated. </LI>
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<LI>
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Display and animate now support embedded characters for the -title option
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(e.g. -title "%f[%s]", for filename and scene). </LI>
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</UL>
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ImageMagick supports also the Drag-and-Drop protocol form the OffiX package
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and many of the more popular image formats including JPEG, MPEG, PNG, TIFF,
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Photo CD, etc.
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<BR> </TD>
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<TD VALIGN=TOP>
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<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
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<TR>
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<TD>
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<H2>
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Freedom VR - Java Virtual Reality Applet</H2>
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<B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Freedom VR </FONT></B>is a photographic
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VR applet that was developed with Linux but also works on other flavors
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of Unix, the Macintosh and even Windows. It beats Quicktime VR in
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compression performance -- because Freedom VR uses Internet standards such
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as .gif and .jpeg, Freedom VR content can be produced on any platform.
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The developers are interested in working with other programmers to develop
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software for converting other VR formats such as VRML and Quicktime VR
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to Freedom VR. We've also written up a tutorial for taking VR photographs.
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<P>Freedom VR applet:
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<BR><A HREF="http://www.msc.cornell.edu/~houle/vr/freedom/">http://www.msc.cornell.edu/
|
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~houle/vr/freedom/</A>
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<P>Paul and Olivia's VR Garden (produced with Freedom VR):
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<BR><A HREF="http://www.msc.cornell.edu/~houle/vr/garden/">http://www.msc.cornell.edu/
|
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~houle/vr/garden/</A>
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<P>An introduction to VR photography:
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<BR><A HREF="http://www.msc.cornell.edu/~houle/vr/howto/">http://www.msc.cornell.edu/
|
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~houle/vr/howto/</A></TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=4 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD VALIGN=CENTER>
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<H2>
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Jaw3DLib</H2>
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<B> <FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Jaw3DLib</FONT></B>, a 3d programming
|
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library has been released for several platforms: linux, ms-dos, and sunos.
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I'd like a few alpha testers to take a look at this. An example app is
|
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included that can be easily modified. Go to: <A HREF="http://umn.edu/~jawed/jaw3d/">http://umn.edu/~jawed/jaw3d/</A>
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<P><B><FONT COLOR="#006600"><FONT SIZE=-1>Jawed Karim</FONT></FONT></B>
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<BR><FONT COLOR="#000000"><A HREF="mailto:jawed@tc.umn.edu">jawed@tc.umn.edu</A></FONT>
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<BR><A HREF="http://umn.edu/~jawed">http://umn.edu/~jawed </A></TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=5 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD>
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<CENTER>Looking for NetPBM archives? Try </CENTER>
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<CENTER><A HREF="http://www.arc.umn.edu/GVL/Software/pbmplus-ftp.html">http://www.arc.umn.edu/
|
|
GVL/Software/pbmplus-ftp.html</A></CENTER>
|
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<CENTER>for a list of archive sites.</CENTER>
|
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</TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=10 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD>For those of you owning or otherwise interested in <FONT COLOR="#CC6600"><B><I>Connectix
|
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QuickCams</I></B>:</FONT>
|
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<P> There is now a campaign attempting to convince Connectix
|
|
to make the specifications for their VIDEC compression algorithm available
|
|
publicly. Without the spec, it is not possible for any third-party
|
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projects (such as SANE) to support 16 bit color mode. If you want
|
|
to join or learn more about the campaign, please visit:
|
|
<CENTER><A HREF="http://www.kabel.de/~hmueller/qc/freevidec.shtml">http://www.kabel.de/
|
|
~hmueller/qc/freevidec.shtml</A></CENTER>
|
|
</TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
</TABLE>
|
|
</TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD VALIGN=TOP COLSPAN="3" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
</TABLE>
|
|
|
|
<H2>
|
|
IKM Interactive announces the release of axis 1.0alpha, a 3D rendering
|
|
engine for Linux/SGI/Sun/Win95/WinNT.</H2>
|
|
A 3Dfx accelerated version is also available for Win95 (and
|
|
possibly Linux soon). A Power Mac version is currently in development.
|
|
You can download the current version from <A HREF="http://www.ikm.com">http://www.ikm.com</A>
|
|
This is an alpha release, mostly of interest to 3D hackers.
|
|
|
|
<P> <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Axis </FONT></B>uses OpenGL on
|
|
SGI and Win 95/NT, and <A HREF="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~brianp/Mesa.html">Mesa
|
|
</A>on the remaining platforms. The 3dfx accelerated version utilizes
|
|
the <A HREF="http://www-hmw.caribel.pisa.it/fxmesa/index.shtml">Mesa Voodoo
|
|
libraries</A>. The Linux version currently has the best coloring/shading;
|
|
the different OpenGL implementations have quirks that we haven't sorted
|
|
out yet.
|
|
|
|
<P> The rendering engine uses a simple stack machine interpreter,
|
|
and processes a language that has similarities to Lisp, Forth, and Adobe's
|
|
PostScript. The interpreter is multi-threaded, so objects in the 3D environment
|
|
can have private namespaces. We are working on a programming manual
|
|
for the language.
|
|
|
|
<P> It is also network-ready; you can talk directly to the
|
|
rendering engine with a TCP/IP connection. The distribution includes
|
|
source code for an example TclTk program which utilizes the network connection
|
|
(this is the tool we used to position models within the 3D environment).
|
|
We will be releasing more complex modelers shortly.
|
|
|
|
<P> The rendering engine and language interpreter will be the
|
|
base for our multi-user shared environment application, which we plan to
|
|
release near the end of July. Environments, and information about
|
|
positions of other users, will be downloaded via TCP/IP; if you choose
|
|
to customize your avatar, code for that can be uploaded.
|
|
|
|
<P>Enjoy, and let me know if you have questions.
|
|
|
|
<P><B><FONT COLOR="#006600"><FONT SIZE=-1>Patrick H. Madden</FONT></FONT></B>
|
|
<BR><A HREF="mailto:phm@webvision.com">phm@webvision.com</A>
|
|
<BR><A HREF="mailto:pickle@cs.ucla.edu">pickle@cs.ucla.edu</A>
|
|
<BR>or
|
|
<BR><A HREF="mailto:phm@ikm.com">phm@ikm.com</A> when we get our mail server
|
|
sorted out.....
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=3 WIDTH="100%" >
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD COLSPAN="3" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" HSPACE=30 VSPACE=2 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD WIDTH="50%">
|
|
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD>
|
|
<H2>
|
|
WSCG '98 International Conference and Exhibition</H2>
|
|
Call for Papers and Participation
|
|
<BR> Deadline for papers September 30,1998
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<BR> The Sixth International Conference in Central
|
|
Europe on Computer Graphics and Visualization 98 in cooperation with IFIP
|
|
working group 5.10 on Computer Graphics and Virtual Worlds will be held
|
|
in February 9 - 13, 1998 in Plzen at the University of West Bohemia close
|
|
to PRAGUE, the capital of Czech Republic
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<BR><B><U><FONT SIZE=-1>Conference Chairs </FONT></U></B>
|
|
<CENTER>Nadia Magnenat Thalmann, MIRALab-CUI, Univ. of Geneva, Switzerland </CENTER>
|
|
|
|
<CENTER>Vaclav Skala, Univ. of West Bohemia, Czech Republic </CENTER>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<P>The latest information is available at:
|
|
<CENTER><A HREF="http://wscg.zcu.cz">http://wscg.zcu.cz</A></CENTER>
|
|
|
|
<CENTER>or</CENTER>
|
|
|
|
<CENTER><A HREF="http://herakles.zcu.cz">http://herakles.zcu.cz</A></CENTER>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<P><A HREF="wscg.txt">Full announcement </A>in plain text is available.</TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=20></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD>
|
|
<H2>
|
|
POV Texture Library</H2>
|
|
This texture library has been updated and the URL has changed. This
|
|
site is done by a non-Unix user, but the textures are platform inspecific.If
|
|
you're looking for some interesting textures for your POV-Ray scenes take
|
|
a look at
|
|
<BR><A HREF="http://www.informatik.tu-cottbus.de/~rs/povray/texlib/">http://www.informatik.tu-cottbus.de/
|
|
~rs/povray/texlib/</A>
|
|
<BR> </TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=20></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD>
|
|
<H2>
|
|
IRTC CD-ROM Due out soon!</H2>
|
|
Chris Cason, who manages the server which supports the <A HREF="http://www.irtc.org">IRTC
|
|
</A>and <A HREF="http://www.povray.org">POV-Ray</A> Web sites. is
|
|
getting ready to publish the IRTC CD-ROM. This CD contains the collection
|
|
of images submitted to the IRTC over that last year, the IRTC's first year
|
|
of existance (in its reincarnation that is).
|
|
|
|
<P>If you're interested in getting a copy of this CD, please check out
|
|
the <A HREF="http://www.irtc.org">IRTC Web site </A>for more information.
|
|
All proceeds from the CD go to the maintenence and expansion of the Web
|
|
server.</TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
</TABLE>
|
|
</TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD WIDTH="2" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD WIDTH="49%">
|
|
<H2>
|
|
<B>EPSON Scanner Driver</B></H2>
|
|
<B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">EPSCAN </FONT></B>is a scanner driver for EPSON
|
|
ES-1200C/GT-9000 scanners. It includes a driver and a nice X frontend.
|
|
It allows previewing, and selecting a region of an image to be scanned,
|
|
as well as changing scanner settings. It only supports scanners attached
|
|
to a SCSI port, not to the parallel port. The driver should
|
|
support any of the ES-{300-800}C / GT-{1000-6500}.
|
|
|
|
<P>EPSCAN is available from:
|
|
<BR> <A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/Incoming/epscan-0.1.tar.gz">ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/
|
|
Linux/Incoming/epscan-0.1.tar.gz</A>
|
|
<BR>and an rpm version to
|
|
<BR> <A HREF="ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/Incoming/epscan-0.1-1.src.rpm">ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/
|
|
Incoming/epscan-0.1-1.src.rpm</A>
|
|
<BR> <A HREF="ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/Incoming/epscan-0.1-1.i386.rpm">ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/
|
|
Incoming/epscan-0.1-1.i386.rpm</A>
|
|
|
|
<P>The rpm version will probably be moved, if it hasn't already, to
|
|
<BR> <A HREF="ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/epscan-0.1-1.src.rpm">ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/
|
|
contrib/epscan-0.1-1.src.rpm</A>
|
|
<BR> <A HREF="ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/epscan-0.1-1.i386.rpm">ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/
|
|
contrib/epscan-0.1-1.i386.rpm</A>
|
|
|
|
<P>The sunsite version will probably be moved to
|
|
<BR><A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/scanners/epscan-0.1.tar.gz">
|
|
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/</A> <A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/scanners/epscan-0.1.tar.gz">Linux/apps/graphics/scanners/epscan-0.1.tar.gz</A>
|
|
|
|
<P><B><FONT COLOR="#009900"><FONT SIZE=-1>Adam P. Jenkins</FONT></FONT></B>
|
|
<BR><A HREF="mailto:ajenkins@cs.umass.edu">ajenkins@cs.umass.edu </A>
|
|
|
|
<P><B><U><FONT SIZE=-1>Requirements</FONT></U></B>:
|
|
<OL>
|
|
<LI>
|
|
Linux 2.x </LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI>
|
|
XFree3.x </LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI>
|
|
Qt library version >= 1.1 </LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI>
|
|
libtiff version >= 3.4 </LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI>
|
|
g++ version >= 2.7.2 </LI>
|
|
</OL>
|
|
You can get the <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Qt </FONT></B>library from <A HREF="http://www.troll.no">http://www.troll.no</A>.
|
|
EPSCAN may work with older versions of Linux, XFree, and g++; this is just
|
|
what it was developed with.
|
|
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=10></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD><I>Has anyone tried out ELECTRO-GIG's product, 3DGO? The Graphics
|
|
Muse wants to know!</I>
|
|
|
|
<P>It's 37M, and downloading across a 36.6 modem is painful at best.
|
|
I'd love to try it, but I don't have the cash on hand for ordering it and
|
|
having it shipped (I don't mind paying for it, but next month's trip to
|
|
SIGGRAPH plus some vacation time sort of sucked me dry for the time being).
|
|
If you've used it let me know your thoughts. I'll be happy to pass
|
|
any review on to my readers, with full credit to you of course! </TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
</TABLE>
|
|
</TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD COLSPAN="3" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD VALIGN=TOP COLSPAN="3">
|
|
<H2>
|
|
Iv2Pov/IV2Ray</H2>
|
|
Cow House Productions is pleased to
|
|
announce the release of <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Iv2POV</FONT></B>. Iv2POV
|
|
is a translator / converter for Inventor 2.0 / VRML 1.0 files to POVRAY,
|
|
the popular raytracing program. Both source code and an Irix 5.3 executable
|
|
are available (free!) at
|
|
<CENTER><A HREF="http://www.cowhouse.com/Home/Converters/converters.html">http://www.cowhouse.com/</A>
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.cowhouse.com/Home/Converters/converters.html">Home/Converters/converters.html.</A> </CENTER>
|
|
Cow House is also pleased to
|
|
present a new release of <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Iv2Ray</FONT></B>, the
|
|
Inventor (VRML 1.0) to Rayshade (a different popular raytracing program)
|
|
converter / translator. Iv2Ray is also available as an Irix 5.3 binary
|
|
and as C++ source code.
|
|
<BR> While you are at <A HREF="http://www.cowhouse.com">www.cowhouse.com</A>
|
|
- feel free to take a look around, download some samples, and otherwise
|
|
exerciseyour browser. </TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD VALIGN=TOP COLSPAN="3" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
</TABLE>
|
|
|
|
<BR><!--
|
|
-- Did You Know Section
|
|
-->
|
|
<H4>
|
|
Did You Know?</H4>
|
|
...the growth of 3D modellers continues at a frightening pace. Another
|
|
modeller was recently announced: <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">GL-SPACE</FONT>.</B>
|
|
You can find information on this new modeller at <A HREF="http://tularosa.eece.unm.edu/staff/greywolf/glspace/">http://tularosa.eece.unm.edu/staff/greywolf/glspace/.
|
|
</A>It requires Tcl7.5/Tk4.1 and Mesa 1.2.8 or OpenGL. The interface
|
|
is quite cool - one of the best I've seen yet. The cameras location
|
|
is represented by - a camera! Really. Take a look at it.
|
|
|
|
<P>...there is a very nifty morphing tool, called <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">xmrm</FONT></B>,
|
|
available at <A HREF="http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/ca/mrm/index.html">http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/ca/mrm/index.html.
|
|
</A>I played with this a little and it has one of the most professional
|
|
looking interfaces I've seen in awhile. It's relatively easy to use,
|
|
at least if you follow the one example morph it provides.
|
|
|
|
<P>...there is a Web site devoted to explaining how to make MPEG movies?
|
|
Take a look at <A HREF="http://www.arc.umn.edu/GVL/Software/mpeg.html">http://www.arc.umn.edu/
|
|
GVL/Software/mpeg.html </A> to find out more.
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<BR>
|
|
|
|
<P><!--
|
|
-- Q and A Section
|
|
-->
|
|
<H4>
|
|
<B><FONT SIZE=+0>Q and A</FONT></B></H4>
|
|
<I><B>Q</B>:</I> <I>I am quite new to POVRAY and would like to know
|
|
where I can get an application which plays a series of *.tga files as an
|
|
animation. I have created all the TGA files using POV. What
|
|
can I use to play these files in sequence?</I>
|
|
<BR><B><FONT COLOR="#006600"><FONT SIZE=-1>Merv Young.</FONT></FONT></B>
|
|
<BR><I><FONT COLOR="#006600">AUSTRALIA.</FONT></I>
|
|
|
|
<P><B>A</B>: Well, I don't know of any tools that can take a set
|
|
of TGA files and directly turn them into an animation on Linux systems.
|
|
I'm not that familiar with animations yet, but here is what I do know.
|
|
|
|
<P>First, you have two types of animations you can create (with freely
|
|
available tools) from a set of raster images: MPEG or an animated
|
|
GIF. The latter requires the images to be in GIF format (GIF89a,
|
|
actually). There are two tools for taking the GIF files and turning
|
|
them into an animation: <A HREF="http://www.msg.net/utility/whirlgif/">WhilrGIF
|
|
</A>and <A HREF="http://www.peritas.com/~abw/code/multigif.html">MultiGIF</A>.
|
|
Both are command line tools and both are fairly easy to use. I like
|
|
MultiGIF a little more simply because it can create smaller animation using
|
|
sprites (small images that can overlay the previous image). Understanding
|
|
how to do this is a little tricky, but not that tough. WhirlGIF simply
|
|
concatenates the set of GIFs together into an animated sequence.
|
|
Playing an animated GIF can only be done by Web browsers, although I only
|
|
know for certain that both Netscape and MSIE support this format.
|
|
To my knowledge (someone correct me if I'm wrong) there are no "animated
|
|
GIF players" for Linux.
|
|
|
|
<P>MPEG is an animation format that I've just started to experiment with.
|
|
There is only one command line tool that I'm aware of for creating the
|
|
animations - <A HREF="ftp://mm-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/multimedia/mpeg">mpeg_encode</A>
|
|
- but there are quite a few tools for viewing them (<A HREF="http://xanim.va.pubnix.com/home.html">xanim</A>,
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.mpegtv.com/">MpegTV</A>, <A HREF="ftp://mm-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/multimedia/mpeg">mpeg_play,</A>
|
|
etc). Creating the animation is done by setting up a text file with
|
|
the configuration information needed by mpeg_encode. It then reads
|
|
the configuration file, determines what sort of processing is to be done
|
|
and takes the input files and creates the MPEG output file. The configuration
|
|
can be fairly sophisticated, but I found the default template worked fairly
|
|
well with only a few minor modifications. One of those modifications
|
|
was to tell mpeg_encode what other tool to use to convert the input files,
|
|
which were in TIFF format (rendered from BMRT), into a format that mpeg_encode
|
|
could handle. Fortunately, mpeg_encode handles two fairly common
|
|
formats: JPEG and PPM/PNM (it actually supports a couple of others,
|
|
but these two will be readily recognizable to most users). I used
|
|
the NetPBM tool <B><I>tifftopnm</I></B>. The TIFF files are converted
|
|
on the fly by mpeg_encode as long as you tell it what converter to use.
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<BR>There is another format called FLI which has an encoder. My understanding
|
|
is that this format is slowly dying as MPEG gains popularity.
|
|
|
|
<P>So now that you know what formats you need to put the animation in you
|
|
might wonder how to get the TGA files into the formats you need.
|
|
Thats a common question when dealing with both 2D and 3D images, in both
|
|
animated and static formats. The answer: get either the NetPBM
|
|
tools. ImageMagick, or ImageAlchemy (the latter being a more sophisticated
|
|
commercial product). Any of these are valuable tools for your arsenal
|
|
of image processing since they all perform the often needed task of converting
|
|
from one format to another. NetPBM is what I currently use, although
|
|
I don't believe it has a tool for converting JPEG images to other formats
|
|
(there is an add-on package for NetPBM that handles this, but I don't think
|
|
the NetPBM package itself has JPEG conversion tools - I could be wrong,
|
|
its been awhile since I downloaded the package).
|
|
|
|
<P>So, to summarize how to get your TGA files into an animation:
|
|
<UL>
|
|
<LI>
|
|
Deterine which animation format you want to create.</LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI>
|
|
Determine what format the input files need to be in (GIF, JPEG or PNM).</LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI>
|
|
Be sure you have a tool for converting the TGA files to the input format
|
|
- this may be a two step process and it may be possible to get the animation
|
|
creation software to handle the conversion for you (such as with mpeg_encode).</LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI>
|
|
Get the encoding tools - mpeg_encode, WhirlGIF or MultiGIF.</LI>
|
|
</UL>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<HR WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<BR><A NAME="musings"></A>
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/musings.gif" ALT="Musings" HEIGHT=52 WIDTH=247 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
</TABLE>
|
|
|
|
<H2>
|
|
Is VRML ready for PrimeTime?</H2>
|
|
Some time back I had a reader send me email asking my thoughts on VRML.
|
|
Below is the response I sent. After rereading it I have to say I
|
|
still agree with it, although I reserve the right to change my mind after
|
|
my trip to SIGGRAPH next month.
|
|
|
|
<P><FONT COLOR="#006600"><B><FONT SIZE=-1>Reagen Ward</FONT></B> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000">wrote</FONT>:
|
|
<BR><I>I come from the world of PHIGS for visualization, and thus can't
|
|
stand VRML as a supposed data format. I'd love to hear your opinions
|
|
on why it's not ready for personal use.</I>
|
|
|
|
<P>Originally I had objected to it due to bandwidth issues. I've
|
|
learned since then that this may not be as big a limitation as I once thought
|
|
since VRML provides a language which can be passed between client and server
|
|
and doesn't (to my knowledge - which admittedly is still somewhat limited)
|
|
require the actual images to be passed. PHIGS could probably be done
|
|
this way too, but PHIGS needs a "PHIGS for Dummies" layer slapped on top
|
|
to make it a little more user friendly.
|
|
|
|
<P>However, the real limitation right now is processing power. Even
|
|
if you pass only descriptions of the objects to render, the end system
|
|
still has to be fast enough to render them <B><I>from the point of view
|
|
of the user</I></B>. This is <B>very</B> CPU intensive. The
|
|
average user doesn't have this kind of processing power (have you seen
|
|
the new WebTV boxes? They are even slower and
|
|
<BR>dumber than the average 2 year old PC). This processing could
|
|
be moved off CPU into some adapter card (maybe a VRML-ready display card),
|
|
but such technology isn't available yet so its cost would still be (for
|
|
some time) out of the reach of the average home.
|
|
|
|
<P>Now it's not unlikely to see VRML in some environs: kiosks in stores
|
|
or malls (real ones, not Internet Malls) come to mind or any kind of public
|
|
facility that provides information to users to be browsed at their own
|
|
pace. These places will have limited point-of-view (like point-of-sale)
|
|
locations on a local network so bandwidth is not a problem, nor is server
|
|
capacity (it's known pretty much ahead of time how much activity they're
|
|
likely to have). The point-of-view boxes can be as powerful as the
|
|
mall can afford. VRML provides a reasonable return-on-investment
|
|
for these situations.
|
|
|
|
<P>But the big money, and money (income, that is) is what drives acceptance,
|
|
only comes when you can move the technology into the home. Thats
|
|
what WebTV's are all about - computers for the common man at toaster prices.
|
|
VRML requires too much processing for the average home, so it's not likely
|
|
to be a big technology for at least 2-5 years. It depends on if Intel/Sun/HP/etc
|
|
can find a way to make money producing VRML-toasters.
|
|
|
|
<P>Hows that?
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=3 WIDTH="100%" >
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP COLSPAN="4" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000">
|
|
<H2>
|
|
<IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1 ALIGN=LEFT></H2>
|
|
</TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="50%">
|
|
<H2>
|
|
Image Alchemy </H2>
|
|
One of the most common tasks graphic artists will face is
|
|
converting stock images from CDs and other resources from their original
|
|
format to one that can be used by their particular software or medium (such
|
|
as for use on the Web). There are actually a plethora of tools for
|
|
doing this conversion. <A HREF="ftp://ftp.cis.upenn.edu/pub/xv">xv
|
|
</A>will convert between a limited set of formats, but does handle most
|
|
of the most common formats. The NetPBM tools handle a huge number
|
|
of formats using a very large set of command-line programs. And
|
|
<A HREF="more-musings.html">ImageMagick</A>
|
|
ImageMagick
|
|
has both command line and X-based interfaces for converting images.
|
|
Each of these has advantages and users will want to play with each to find
|
|
one that suits their needs.
|
|
<BR> Another solution for image conversion and manipulation
|
|
comes from <A HREF="http://www.handmadesw.com">Handmade Software </A>in
|
|
their <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Image Alchemy </FONT></B>package.
|
|
This is a commercial package that features support for over 60 different
|
|
image file formats using a command line interface. A graphical interface
|
|
is available for Sun systems using OpenLook and there may now be a Motif
|
|
version as well, however these do not appear to be available for Linux
|
|
yet.
|
|
<BR> Getting the software requires that you simply download
|
|
the Linux binary package from the <A HREF="http://www.handmadesw.com/hsi/download.html">download
|
|
page </A>of Handmade's Web site. There is a demo package available
|
|
for free, but the retail version requires a username and password that
|
|
can be obtained from their sales department.
|
|
<BR> The package I have, which I got from Hap Nesbitt at Handmade
|
|
Software, contains two binaries: alchemy and alchfont. The
|
|
former is the graphics conversion package. The latter is a font manager,
|
|
although I'm not really clear on how to use it. The documentation,
|
|
330+ pages in a PDF file, didn't contain any references to it. Since
|
|
I wasn't expecting this tool I didn't spend any time looking for info on
|
|
it at the Handmade Software Web site.
|
|
<BR> The <A HREF="http://www.handmadesw.com/hsi/download.html">manual
|
|
</A>is available for download from their Web site. It's quite large
|
|
(something you'd expect from commercial software and something that is
|
|
seriously lacking in many freeware packages) but it covers all the versions
|
|
of the software, including 2 chapters (out of 8) and 1 appendix (out of
|
|
11) on the DOS/Windows Graphical interface. Along with the manual
|
|
you can get runtime help by using the -help command line option.
|
|
The runtime help is broken into several categories, each with its own command
|
|
line option.
|
|
<BR> The basic usage takes the following form:
|
|
<CENTER><B><FONT FACE="Times New Roman,Times"><FONT SIZE=-1>alchemy inputfile
|
|
[outputfile] [outputpath] [options] </FONT></FONT></B></CENTER>
|
|
The input file can be in any of the supported formats listed in the manual.
|
|
The output file can be any name. By default the converted file will
|
|
be written to a file with the same filename as the input file but with
|
|
the appropriate suffix. For example, newfile.tga would become newfile.gif.
|
|
<I>Outputpath </I>is useful when you want to convert a series of images.
|
|
<I>Options </I>can be any of a large number of conversion options, many
|
|
of which are file format specific. The only required option is the
|
|
one which specifies which file format the output file should be in.
|
|
Text files, what Image Alchemy refers to as <I>response files</I>, with
|
|
options can be used by specifying the file name preceeded with an '@' sign,
|
|
such as
|
|
<CENTER><B><FONT FACE="Times New Roman,Times"><FONT SIZE=-1>alchemy @scale
|
|
myimagein.tif myimagein.gif </FONT></FONT></B></CENTER>
|
|
Basically, you can convert one or more images, to files in the local directory
|
|
or some other directory, using the command line directly or through the
|
|
use of the text files.
|
|
<BR> Unlike NetPBM the images don't have to be converted to
|
|
an interim format before the final image is produced. NetPBM
|
|
used the interim format to do its image manipulation, such as scaling or
|
|
quantizing the colors in the image. Image Alchemy can do this in
|
|
one step using various options.
|
|
<BR> Speaking of options, the Image Alchemy manual breaks the
|
|
available options into 4 categories:
|
|
<OL>
|
|
<LI>
|
|
General</LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI>
|
|
Conversion</LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI>
|
|
Color and Palette</LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI>
|
|
Scaling and Filtering</LI>
|
|
</OL>
|
|
|
|
<CENTER><A HREF="#next-column">-Top of next column-</A></CENTER>
|
|
</TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=3></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD ALIGN=CENTER VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="49%">
|
|
<TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="95%" >
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD><LH><A NAME="next-column"></A><B>More Musings...</B> </LH>
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<LI>
|
|
-- <A HREF="more-musings.html">ImageMagic</A></LI>
|
|
|
|
<BR> </TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=10></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD> General options include items such as usage, statistics
|
|
and memory features. Conversion options specify the output file types
|
|
and any related options. For example, <B>-g</B> is the option
|
|
for converting to the GIF format. This option has an additional numeric
|
|
argument, 0 or 1, to specify which version of the GIF format to use - GIF87A
|
|
or GIF89A respectively.
|
|
<BR> Color and Palette options cover such things as alpha channels,
|
|
true color options, dithering and gamma correction. Scaling options
|
|
allow the resizing of the input image and along with the Filters provide
|
|
for convolution, flipping, positioning and aspect modifications.
|
|
All of the options are covered in detail by the manual and summaries are
|
|
available through the builtin help option (<B>-help</B>).
|
|
<BR> When evaluating image conversion utilties the artist will
|
|
want to compare the quality and sizes of the images. On my 24-bit
|
|
display the quality of the sample JPEG image provided with Image Alchemy
|
|
(a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge) didn't change perceptibly when converted
|
|
to GIF, Targa (TGA) or TIFF formats. The same image was converted
|
|
using xv and NetPBM to these same formats and also showed almost not visible
|
|
differences. The following table shows the file sizes for each:
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<CENTER><TABLE BORDER COLS=4 WIDTH="50%" >
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><B><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>GIF</FONT></FONT></B></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><B><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>TGA</FONT></FONT></B></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><B><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>TIFF</FONT></FONT></B></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD><B><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT COLOR="#CC6600"><FONT SIZE=-1>alchemy</FONT></FONT></FONT></B></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>192360</FONT></FONT></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>924059</FONT></FONT></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>769700</FONT></FONT></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD><B><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT COLOR="#CC6600"><FONT SIZE=-1>xv</FONT></FONT></FONT></B></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>142784</FONT></FONT></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>921618</FONT></FONT></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>772046</FONT></FONT></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD><B><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT COLOR="#CC6600"><FONT SIZE=-1>NetPBM</FONT></FONT></FONT></B></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>146100</FONT></FONT></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>921618</FONT></FONT></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT SIZE=-1>-</FONT></FONT></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD><B><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica"><FONT COLOR="#CC6600"><FONT SIZE=-1>ImageMagick</FONT></FONT></FONT></B></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD></TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
</TABLE></CENTER>
|
|
Note that my version of NetPBM does not include the JPEG conversion utilities
|
|
so the TIFF image converted by alchemy was used as the input image for
|
|
NetPBM's tools. As you can see, the file sizes were very similar
|
|
for TGA. Image Alchemy produced a significantly larger version for
|
|
the GIF format and a slightly smaller version of the TIFF.
|
|
<BR> Based on this a user might assume xv or NetPBM might be
|
|
better suited for their needs. In many cases this is true, especially
|
|
if you are only doing a personal web page or perhaps creating simple greeting
|
|
cards. For professional work alchemy provides a wider range of tools
|
|
and supported formats than xv and NetPBM, and does so with a single command
|
|
line program. Both xv and alchemy provide significant documentation
|
|
(you can get xv's by registering your copy and paying a little extra for
|
|
the manual). NetPBM provides man pages but these can be difficult
|
|
to print and it's not always easy to determine which tool fits which format.
|
|
Only Image Alchemy offers commercial support and with continued development
|
|
at published intervals. For commercial operations this can be of
|
|
key importance.
|
|
<BR> The moral here is to spend a little time examining your
|
|
image conversion needs before investing time in any one particular tool.
|
|
Image processing is provided by all of these, but aside from scaling and
|
|
perhaps color palette operations you may find the GIMP a better tool for
|
|
interactive editing of images. If you need the convenience of command
|
|
line oriented operation for batch processing, along with commercial support,
|
|
then Image Alchemy may be the tool for you.</TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
</TABLE>
|
|
</TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD COLSPAN="3" WIDTH="100%" HEIGHT="78%" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
</TABLE>
|
|
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/resources.gif" ALT="Resources" HEIGHT=57 WIDTH=246 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
</TABLE>
|
|
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>
|
|
<CENTER><TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" >
|
|
<TR>
|
|
<TD><A HREF="http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel/linux/lgh.html">Linux Graphics
|
|
mini-Howto</A>
|
|
<BR><A HREF="http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel/ugu/ugu.html">Unix Graphics Utilities</A>
|
|
<BR><A HREF="http://www.digiserve.com/ar/linux-snd/">Linux Multimedia Page</A>
|
|
|
|
<P>Some of the Mailing Lists and Newsgroups I keep an eye on and where
|
|
I get alot of the information in this column:
|
|
|
|
<P><A HREF="http://www.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/~gimp/">The Gimp User and Gimp
|
|
Developer Mailing Lists</A>.
|
|
<BR><A HREF="http://www.irtc.org">The IRTC-L discussion list</A>
|
|
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing">comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing</A>
|
|
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.graphics.rendering.renderman">comp.graphics.rendering.renderman</A>
|
|
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.graphics.api.opengl">comp.graphics.api.opengl</A>
|
|
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.os.linux.announce">comp.os.linux.announce</A>
|
|
<BR>
|
|
<BR> </TD>
|
|
|
|
<TD ALIGN=CENTER VALIGN=CENTER><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/gmuse.jpg" HEIGHT=270 WIDTH=190></TD>
|
|
</TR>
|
|
</TABLE></CENTER>
|
|
<A NAME="future"></A>
|
|
<H2>
|
|
Future Directions</H2>
|
|
Next month:
|
|
|
|
<P>No Muse next month (September). I'll be at SIGGRAPH and otherwise
|
|
busy throughout August and just won't have time for it. But I'll
|
|
be back in October, probably with lots of goodies from SIGGRAPH (or at
|
|
least I hope I am!).
|
|
|
|
<P><A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@csn.net">Let me know what you'd like to hear
|
|
about!</A>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
<center><H4>Previous ``Graphics Muse'' Columns</H4></center>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<A HREF="../issue11/gm.html">Graphics Muse #1, November 1996</A><br>
|
|
<A HREF="../issue12/gm.html">Graphics Muse #2, December 1996</A><br>
|
|
<A HREF="../issue13/gm.html">Graphics Muse #3, January 1997</A><br>
|
|
<A HREF="../issue14/gm.html">Graphics Muse #4, February 1997</A><br>
|
|
<A HREF="../issue15/gm.html">Graphics Muse #5, March 1997</A><br>
|
|
<A HREF="../issue16/gm.html">Graphics Muse #6, April 1997</A><br>
|
|
<A HREF="../issue17/gm.html">Graphics Muse #7, May 1997</A><br>
|
|
<A HREF="../issue18/gm.html">Graphics Muse #8, June 1997</A><br>
|
|
<A HREF="../issue19/gm.html">Graphics Muse #9, July 1997</A>
|
|
<P><HR><P>
|
|
<center><H5>Copyright © 1997, Michael J. Hammel<BR>
|
|
Published in Issue 20 of the Linux Gazette, August 1997</H5></center>
|
|
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
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|
|
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