1148 lines
67 KiB
HTML
1148 lines
67 KiB
HTML
<!--startcut ==========================================================-->
|
|
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
|
|
<HTML>
|
|
<HEAD>
|
|
<title>Graphics Musc LG #43</title>
|
|
</HEAD>
|
|
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#660000" vlink="#666666" alink="#FF6600">
|
|
<!-- BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#0000AF"
|
|
ALINK="#FF0000" -->
|
|
<!--endcut ============================================================-->
|
|
|
|
<H4>
|
|
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
|
|
</H4>
|
|
|
|
<P> <HR> <P>
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
|
|
<!--
|
|
<center>
|
|
<H1><font color="maroon">Graphics Muse</font></H1>
|
|
<H4>By <a href="mailto:mjhammel@graphics-muse.org">Michael Hammel</a></H4>
|
|
</center>
|
|
<P> <HR> <P>
|
|
-->
|
|
|
|
<!--
|
|
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
|
|
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Mozilla/4.51 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.36 i586) [Netscape]">
|
|
<meta name="Author" content="Michael J. Hammel">
|
|
<meta name="Description" content="The Monthly Column of Computer Graphics for Linux Systems.">
|
|
<title>Graphics Muse</title>
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#660000" vlink="#666666" alink="#FF6600">
|
|
-->
|
|
|
|
<!-- =============================================================
|
|
These pages are designed by Michael J. Hammel. Permission to
|
|
use all graphics and other content is granted provided you give
|
|
me (or the original authors/artists) credit for the work and this
|
|
copyright notice is not removed.
|
|
|
|
(c)1997, 1998 Michael J. Hammel (mjhammel@graphics-muse.org)
|
|
============================================================= !--><!-- The Button box as a client side imagemap --><map NAME="nav-main"><area SHAPE="rect" HREF="#mews" coords="10,10 170,40"><area SHAPE="rect" HREF="#webwonderings" coords="0,55 175,85"><area SHAPE="rect" HREF="#musings" coords="75,115 170,145"><area SHAPE="rect" HREF="#resources" coords="5,170 110,195"></map>
|
|
<table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 COLS=2 NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE><img SRC="images/gm-logo-3.jpg" height=169 width=400></td>
|
|
|
|
<td ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=CENTER NOSAVE>
|
|
<br><b><font size=+1>muse:</font></b>
|
|
<ol>
|
|
<li>
|
|
<i><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>v; to become absorbed in
|
|
thought </font></font></i></li>
|
|
|
|
<li>
|
|
<i><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>n; [ fr. Any of the nine
|
|
sister goddesses of learning and the arts in Greek Mythology ]: a source
|
|
of inspiration</font></font></i></li>
|
|
</ol>
|
|
|
|
<center><font size=-2>© 1999 by <a href="mailto:mjhammel@graphics-muse.org">mjh</a></font></center>
|
|
</td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
<hr SIZE=1 NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td WIDTH="187" NOSAVE><img SRC="images/muse-image-map.jpg" ALT="Button Bar" USEMAP="#nav-main" height=200 width=185 align=LEFT></td>
|
|
|
|
<td VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="65%" NOSAVE>
|
|
<br><img SRC="images/w.gif" ALT="W" height=28 width=36 align=BOTTOM><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>elcome
|
|
to the Graphics Muse! Why a "muse"? Well, except for the sisters aspect,
|
|
the above definitions are pretty much the way I'd describe my own interest
|
|
in computer graphics: it keeps me deep in thought and it is a daily source
|
|
of inspiration. </font></font>
|
|
<center>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>[<a href="#mews">Graphics
|
|
Mews</a>][<a href="#webwonderings">WebWonderings</a>][<a href="#musings">Musings</a>][<a href="#rsrc">Resources</a>]</font></font>
|
|
<p><a href="http://www.clbooks.com/home.html?from=CJK692"><img SRC="images/cla_small.gif" VSPACE=5 BORDER=0 height=60 width=234 align=CENTER></a></center>
|
|
<img SRC="images/t.gif" ALT="T" height=28 width=26><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>his
|
|
column is dedicated to the use, creation, distribution, and discussion
|
|
of computer graphics tools for Linux systems.</font></font></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
<table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>I've
|
|
actually had a fun time putting this months column together. In the
|
|
past I had been trying to find technical issues to talk about from a layman's
|
|
point of view - graphics for the masses. This month, I just sat down
|
|
and thought about it the way I do things. I play. I find something
|
|
new and fiddle with it. If it's easy to learn and I can do something
|
|
useful with it in a few minutes, I keep fiddling. If not, I lose
|
|
interest and come back some other time, hopefully when the application
|
|
has evolved a bit more. </font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>This month I started out
|
|
by looking for video editing software for Linux. Now, don't get your
|
|
hopes up. As with many good ideas, it started in one direction and
|
|
headed slightly off center - I didn't do a write up on video editing software.
|
|
Instead, I looked at video viewing software. This is something I
|
|
thought the average user might have real use for. But if you're still
|
|
hoping to find out what's in store for the video editing world, don't lose
|
|
hope. I plan on visiting that arena soon. We just need the
|
|
tools that are currently available to mature a little more, and we also
|
|
need a few more options to choose from for our video editing needs.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>So, in this months column
|
|
you'll find:</font></font>
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Interactive Management of Image
|
|
Maps</font></font></li>
|
|
|
|
<li>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Linux Video Choices: A review
|
|
of Xanim, MainView, MpegTV and RealVideo.</font></font></li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
<center><table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=5 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td ALIGN=CENTER NOSAVE><a href="http://www.thegimp.com"><img SRC="images/gc-ad.gif" BORDER=0 height=46 width=221></a>
|
|
<center><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>The companion site to</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><font color="#408AB4">The
|
|
Artists' Guide To The Gimp</font>.</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>edited by</font></font></center>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>The Graphics Muse - <b><font color="#993300">Michael
|
|
J. Hammel</font></b>.</font></font></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table></center>
|
|
</td>
|
|
|
|
<td ALIGN=CENTER VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="220" NOSAVE>
|
|
<table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=4 COLS=1 NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td ALIGN=CENTER VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="219" NOSAVE><img SRC="images/artistsguide.jpg" height=140 width=110></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE><b><i><font face="Arial,Helvetica">The Artists' Guide to the
|
|
Gimp</font></i></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Available online from <a href="http://www.clbooks.com/home.html?from=CJK692">Fatbrain</a>,
|
|
<a href="http://www.softpro.com/softpro/1-57831-011-3.html">SoftPro
|
|
Books</a> and <a href="http://search.borders.com/fcgi-bin/db2www/search/search.d2w/Details?&mediaType=Book&prodID=51315727">Borders
|
|
Books</a>. In Denver, try the <a href="http://www.tatteredcover.com/cgi-bin/bookfind.pl?lit_ttl=Gimp&Id=733947.13300&refer=list&page=book&isbn=1-57831-011-3&str=1">Tattered
|
|
Cover Book Store.</a></font></font></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
</td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
<hr SIZE=1 NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<br><a NAME="mews"></a><img SRC="images/mews.jpg" height=50 width=245>
|
|
<table BORDER=0 COLS=3 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="140" NOSAVE>
|
|
<table BORDER CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=2 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" HEIGHT="100%" BGCOLOR="#FE992B" NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Other Announcements:</font></font></b></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="mews.html#Recent Blender News from June 6 1999">Recent
|
|
Blender News from June 6 1999</a></font></font></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="mews.html#MpegTV Player (mtv) 1.0.9.8">MpegTV
|
|
Player (mtv) 1.0.9.8</a></font></font></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="mews.html#gPhoto 0.3.3">gPhoto
|
|
0.3.3</a></font></font></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="mews.html#GIMP Imagemap plug-in 1.1.1">GIMP
|
|
Imagemap plug-in 1.1.1</a></font></font></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td ALIGN=CENTER NOSAVE><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><
|
|
<a href="mews.html">More
|
|
Mews</a> ></font></font></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
</td>
|
|
|
|
<td WIDTH="1" NOSAVE></td>
|
|
|
|
<td ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>
|
|
<table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=3 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><b>Disclaimer</b>:
|
|
Before I get too far into this I should note that any of the news items
|
|
I post in this section are just that - news. Either I happened to run across
|
|
them via some mailing list I was on, via some Usenet newsgroup, or via
|
|
email from someone. I'm not necessarily endorsing these products (some
|
|
of which may be commercial), I'm just letting you know I'd heard about
|
|
them in the past month.</font></font>
|
|
<center><a href="http://www.graphics-muse.org/xnotes/xnotes.html"><img SRC="images/xnotesplus-logo.jpg" BORDER=0 height=50 width=306></a></center>
|
|
</td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td>
|
|
<hr NOSHADE WIDTH="100%"></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
<b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=+1>NY Times: Linux Takes Prize
|
|
- In an Art Competition</font></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>"One of the top prizes in
|
|
a prestigious electronic art competition has been given to a deliberately
|
|
unusual choice: the Linux computer operating system." (free
|
|
registration required)</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/mo/cyber/articles/01linux.html">http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/mo/cyber/articles/01linux.html</a></font></font></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
<hr SIZE=1 NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=+1>ACIS First 3D Modeling
|
|
Engine To Offer LINUX Port</font></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1> LinuxPR</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Spatial Inc. a developer
|
|
of open, component 3D modeling technology and product data access, exchange,
|
|
and sharing solutions, today announced the availability of ACIS® 3D
|
|
Toolkit[tm] on Red Hat® Software, Inc.'s LINUX[tm] operating system.
|
|
This port will arrive in conjunction with Spatial's scheduled release of
|
|
ACIS 3D Toolkit 5.2 in mid June.</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://linuxpr.com/releases/32.html">http://linuxpr.com/releases/32.html</a></font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<hr SIZE=1 NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=+1>XScreenSaver 3.16</font></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1> jwz - June 20th 1999,
|
|
20:49 EST</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>XScreenSaver is a modular
|
|
screen saver and locker for the X Window System. It is highly customizable
|
|
and allows the use of any program that can draw on the root window as a
|
|
display mode. More than 100 display modes are included in this package.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Changes: Added new
|
|
demos <i>webcollage</i> and <i>petri</i>, and made it possible to use the
|
|
<i>vidwhacker</i>
|
|
demo in a pipeline.</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>New version of <i>shadebobs</i>,
|
|
improved image selection in <i>webcollage</i>, and sped it up slightly,
|
|
made configure find the right version of perl, `make clean' was deleting
|
|
some things it shouldn't and fixed a typo in the default programs list.</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/">http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/</a></font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<hr SIZE=1 NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=+1>Swift Generator 0.9</font></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1> Olivier Debon - June
|
|
20th 1999, 20:40 EST</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Swift-Generator is a utility
|
|
'ala' Macromedia Generator. It aims at dynamically replacing texts, fonts,
|
|
sounds, images and movie clips in either Template Generator files or standard
|
|
Flash files. This allows Webmasters to create dynamic content such as stock
|
|
tickers, news tickers, weather forecasts and the like.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Changes: Text alignment support
|
|
has been added.</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.swift-tools.com/">http://www.swift-tools.com/</a></font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<hr SIZE=1 NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=+1>gd 1.4</font></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1> NevaLabs (Claudio
|
|
Neves) - June 20th 1999, 20:31 EST</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>gd is a library used to create
|
|
.GIF images. It has many nice features and can be used in scripts (e.g.
|
|
PHP) for dynamic image generation.</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.boutell.com/gd/">http://www.boutell.com/gd/</a></font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<hr SIZE=1 NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=+1>HP Introduces Linux based
|
|
HP VISUALIZE Personal Workstations</font></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1> From NewsAlert</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>The HP VISUALIZE PL450 and
|
|
XL550 Personal Workstations will ship with Linux and deliver leading application
|
|
performance for popular Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software solutions
|
|
from Avant!, Mentor Graphics and Synopsys, as well as for other technical
|
|
applications.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.newsalert.com/bin/story?StoryId=Cn224WbKbytaYmtu&FQ=Linux&SymHdl=1&Nav=na-search-&StoryTitle=Linux">Full
|
|
Story</a></font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<hr SIZE=1 NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=+1>tkxanim .43</font></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1> AaronA - June 23rd
|
|
1999, 16:36 EST</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>tkxanim is a Tcl/Tk front
|
|
end to xanim which aims to provide a graphical interface that allows the
|
|
user to configure most, if not all, of xanim's options available from the
|
|
command line. Since the program is in early alpha development, only a handful
|
|
of xanim's options are present for configuration. However, more will
|
|
be added with each new release. Despite the lack of options at the time
|
|
being, the program is still very usable and visually appealing.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Changes: Added a couple minor
|
|
features (Debug Level and Animation Loops entry fields). Also cleaned up
|
|
the options box a bit.</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://members.yourlink.net/aaron/tkxanim.html">http://members.yourlink.net/aaron/tkxanim.html</a></font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<hr SIZE=1 NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=+1>Wacom Driver for XFree86
|
|
alpha 7</font></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1> Fred - June 22nd
|
|
1999, 17:01 EST</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>This is an XFree86 XInput
|
|
driver for Wacom tablets. It handles wacom IV and V protocols.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Changes: Corrected the init
|
|
problem on PenPartner models.</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.lepied.com/xfree86/">http://www.lepied.com/xfree86/</a></font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<hr SIZE=1 NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<p><!--
|
|
-- Did You Know Section
|
|
-->
|
|
<h2>
|
|
Did You Know?</h2>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>...you can create
|
|
maps using an online tool? Check out <a href="http://www.aquarius.geomar.de/omc/">Online
|
|
Map Creation</a> (http://www.aquarius.geomar.de/omc/). You can generate
|
|
a map, download it's Postscript version and/or view and download it's GIF
|
|
version in your browser. Equidistant Cylindrical Projections are
|
|
reported to, after a little trimming, map very well to spheres.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>...more information on map
|
|
projections can be found at <a href="http://www.ahand.unicamp.br/~furuti/ST/Cart/CartIndex/cartIndex.html">http://www.ahand.unicamp.br/~furuti/ST/Cart/CartIndex/cartIndex.html.</a></font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>...you can use the Iomega
|
|
Buz with Linux? Take a look at <a href="http://www.lysator.liu.se/~gz/buz/">http://www.lysator.liu.se/~gz/buz/</a>.
|
|
The Buz is a multimedia box that allows you to connect video and audio
|
|
inputs directly into your computer. At about $200, this is a pretty
|
|
inexpensive way to get into video editing. The bad news is that getting
|
|
it working on Linux requires some fairly technical understanding and willingness
|
|
to use command line tools (no graphical editing tools yet). This
|
|
is not for the faint of heart, the drivers required for this are somewhat
|
|
bleeding edge. You'll need to know how to compile kernels and install
|
|
drivers modules.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>...there is a <a href="http://linuxpower.org/display_item.phtml?id=120">good
|
|
article on producing movies on LinuxPower.org.</a> This article is
|
|
apparently going to be the start of a series of articles on producing movies
|
|
on Linux. I'll be interested to see what they say about transferring
|
|
the images to film/video (something I haven't figured out how to do on
|
|
Linux yet). This first article is fairly introductory and regular
|
|
readers of the Muse should be able to follow it quite easily. The
|
|
good news: it talks about all the tools we've talked about here in
|
|
the past - so you should already have the tools you need to get started!</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>...3D Life is a site devoted
|
|
to 3D character design and animation, linking many sites of artists who
|
|
deal in 3D characters. Very good gallery! <a href="http://www.danbbs.dk/~thomcold/3dlife/3dlife.htm">http://www.danbbs.dk/~thomcold/3dlife/3dlife.htm</a></font></font></blockquote>
|
|
<!--
|
|
-- Q and A Section
|
|
-->
|
|
<h2>
|
|
Q and A</h2>
|
|
<i><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Q: Anyway, I've been
|
|
experimenting with BMRT and it seems much slower than POVRay, even without
|
|
using radiosity. Using BMRT's area lights are really slow (but probably
|
|
more accurate) compared to POV's, although the difference doesn't seem
|
|
noticeable.</font></font></i>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>A: BMRT renders with
|
|
2x2 forced oversampling by default, the adaptive oversampling it uses is
|
|
not very useful except for very high numbers of samples, because it uses
|
|
stochastic sampling. 2x2 oversampling is usually sufficient, but
|
|
slows it down a lot. As to radiosity, you can start out by setting
|
|
rsamples to 1, and most of the times the 20 or less iterations are more
|
|
than enough. So try</font></font>
|
|
<blockquote><tt><font size=-1>rendrib -samples 1 1 -radio 10 -rsamples
|
|
1 -res 640 480</font></tt></blockquote>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>for a test image. Or use
|
|
the non-standard Options</font></font>
|
|
<blockquote><tt><font size=-1>Option "radiosity" "steps" [10]</font></tt></blockquote>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>and</font></font>
|
|
<blockquote><tt><font size=-1>Option "radiosity" "minpatchsamples" [1]</font></tt></blockquote>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>If you notice radiosity artifacts
|
|
(heavy banding) on large uniformly colored areas, increase the rsamples
|
|
value (this chops each face into at least this number squared patches).
|
|
If your modeller supports this you may also set the subdivision on a per
|
|
object basis using the non-standard attribute</font></font>
|
|
<blockquote><tt><font size=-1>Attribute "radiosity" "patchsize" ps "elemsize"
|
|
es "minsize" ms</font></tt></blockquote>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>For details see the BMRT documentation.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Bernd Sieker <<a href="mailto:bsieker@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de">bsieker@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de</a>></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>From the IRTC-L mailing
|
|
list</font></font>
|
|
<p><i><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Q. I have a simple
|
|
image I made with BMRT and would like to see how it would look illuminated
|
|
with radiosity. Does anyone have any tips on using the radiosity
|
|
settings with BMRT?</font></font></i>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>For simple scenes radiosity
|
|
is quite quick, and remember that it's not dependent on the image size.
|
|
If it takes too long you can exclude certain objects from the radiosity
|
|
calculations using the non-standard attribute</font></font>
|
|
<blockquote><tt><font size=-1>Attribute "radiosity" "zonal" zonalval</font></tt></blockquote>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Bernd Sieker <<a href="mailto:bsieker@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de">bsieker@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de</a>></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>From the IRTC-L mailing
|
|
list</font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<hr SIZE=1 NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<h2>
|
|
Reader Mail</h2>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Seth Burgess wrote:</font></font>
|
|
<blockquote><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Regarding the user
|
|
question [in last months <a href="http://www.thegimp.com">TheGimp.com</a>],
|
|
there was one:</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>2. can the space [that Gimp
|
|
Swap files] consume be limited?</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>You answered:</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>2. Reduce the number of
|
|
levels of undo. I'm not sure if they can be turned off or not - check
|
|
the Preferences dialog.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>However, if the user has
|
|
plenty of RAM, upping the tile cache size from 10MB to something larger
|
|
(say 64) should drastically reduce the swap file size as well.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>And there's the obvious -
|
|
work on smaller images.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Seth</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="mailto:sjburges@gimp.org">sjburges@gimp.org</a></font></font></blockquote>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><b><font color="#993300">'Muse</font></b>:
|
|
Thanks Seth. I'm not sure why I didn't include that, but that's exactly
|
|
what I've done on my system. It's certainly faster working in memory
|
|
that with disk swap files.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Regarding the GRiNS port
|
|
to Linux (GRiNS is a Graphical SMIL editor - see Did You know in the June
|
|
1999 Muse), I asked Jack Jansen: are there any plans for a Linux
|
|
port at this time? I'd like to point my readers to resources on SMIL
|
|
for which they could make some use, and this would be an interesting start.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Jack replied:</font></font>
|
|
<blockquote><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>There are definitely
|
|
plans for a Linux port, but no firm dates yet. The basic functionality
|
|
is indeed reasonably easy to port, but handling of audio and video is something
|
|
that still needs some investigation. And given that we have only
|
|
limited resources we have to prioritize the things we take on.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Jack Jansen</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="mailto:Jack.Jansen@oratrix.com">Jack.Jansen@oratrix.com</a></font></font></blockquote>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="mailto:30018675@snetme.cpg.com.au">Paul
|
|
Took</a> wrote</font></font>
|
|
<blockquote><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>My name is paul
|
|
took, in Melbourne Australia. I recently started a course with interim
|
|
technology (formerly computer power) and came across Graphics Muse. I'm
|
|
considering doing a second course at another college which involves web
|
|
page design (HTML/Javascript etc.) and graphic design/animation (use of
|
|
Adobe, Photoshop etc.)</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>In your expert opinion: is
|
|
it worth doing a structured course like this or buying a couple of web
|
|
design books and learning at home??</font></font></blockquote>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><b><font color="#993300">'Muse</font></b>:
|
|
This is highly dependent on your own motivation and learning habits.
|
|
I, personally, learn much more on my own than in a class, but often take
|
|
a class when just starting a new topic to get me pointed in the right direction
|
|
(like photography, which I just got into recently).</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>HTML is easy enough to learn
|
|
on your own - there really isn't that much too it. If you need to
|
|
learn a slew of specific applications it often helps to take a class (it's
|
|
often harder to learn to use the applications than just writing the HTML
|
|
yourself). Java is a language unto itself and I'm certain a structured
|
|
course would help. Design animation as a class covers a very broad
|
|
range of topics - colors, structures, paint and animation techniques, procedural
|
|
animation, etc. That's not a class, really - it's a whole degree.
|
|
Using Photoshop or some other specific tool is like what I said previously,
|
|
it helps to take a class if the tool is sufficiently complex. I don't
|
|
think Photoshop is hard to learn (the Gimp is easier - you could always
|
|
buy my book on how to use it, of course). But learning what buttons
|
|
do what functions in only a small part of the job. The bigger part
|
|
is how to use those buttons creatively to produce interesting effects,
|
|
sometimes to the point of being able to reproduce the effect quickly (like
|
|
drop shadows for logos, which is a very common requirement from clients)
|
|
and in the same manner each time.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>If you're just learning web
|
|
design for fun, or even for your business, and are confident in your own
|
|
ability to teach yourself new topics, then skip the class. But if,
|
|
like me, you find a little push in the right direction helps, then take
|
|
the structured class.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Of course, if it makes any
|
|
difference, I've never taken any classes on HTML or computer graphics.
|
|
It's all self taught (except for some minor OpenGL experience, but I never
|
|
really used what I learned).</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Hope that helps.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Now, on the subject of image
|
|
resolution and printing, I found this post from Brian Reynolds on one of
|
|
the Gimp mailing lists:</font></font>
|
|
<blockquote><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>David Fokos has
|
|
written a very good paper on creating half-tone digital negatives for contact
|
|
printing. You can find it at Bostick & Sullivan's web site at:</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.bostick-sullivan.com/Technical%20papers/Digital%20Info/Dave_Fokos/davetech.htm">http://www.bostick-sullivan.com/Technical%20papers/Digital%20Info/Dave_Fokos/davetech.htm</a></font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Besides discussing all the
|
|
details about making negatives for contact printing, this paper has a very
|
|
good explanation of the resolution metrics (dpi, ppi, lpi) for the various
|
|
types of equipment used for digital input and output and how they relate
|
|
to each other. The paper assumes you are using Photoshop, but gives
|
|
general enough descriptions that you aren't tied to it (as opposed to another
|
|
book on digital negatives that assumes Photoshop is the only software available).</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Brian Reynolds</font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="mailto:reynolds@panix.com">reynolds@panix.com</a></font></font></blockquote>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>I read the paper and Brian is
|
|
right - you can apply the digital techniques David discusses to the Gimp
|
|
just fine. You might need a bit of background on photography for
|
|
this paper, but it's well worth the read.</font></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<hr NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<br><a NAME="webwonderings"></a><img SRC="images/webwonderings.jpg" height=57 width=246>
|
|
<h2>
|
|
Interactive Management of Image Maps</h2>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>One of the tools lacking from
|
|
the Linux arsenal these days is a really good interactive Web page builder.
|
|
I use Netscape Composer for all my pages, but this lacks any sort of integrated
|
|
graphics editor. You can configure it to launch an external editor,
|
|
however, and this is where the ever popular <a href="http://www.gimp.org">Gimp</a>
|
|
comes in.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>The Gimp is, of course, the
|
|
best raster image editor on Linux. Not only does it have support
|
|
for many different effects and filters, it also has a dynamically extendable
|
|
interface through the use of plug-ins. One of the latest plug-ins
|
|
to gain popular attention is the <a href="http://home-2.consunet.nl/~cb007736/imagemap.html">Image
|
|
Map</a> plug-in from <a href="mailto:lpeek.mrijk@consunet.nl">Maurits Rijk</a>.</font></font>
|
|
<table ALIGN=LEFT BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=8 NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE><img SRC="images/imagemap-1.gif" height=508 width=395></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td>
|
|
<center><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">The Image Map plug-in, shown with
|
|
a sample image and the</font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">Areas List (the list of URL links)
|
|
window disabled.</font></b></center>
|
|
</td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Image Maps, for those unfamiliar
|
|
with their use, are an HTML construct that allows an Web page author to
|
|
specify regions within a single image to be used as links to different
|
|
URLs. Regions can be specified using rectangular, oval and polygonal
|
|
coordinates. Both server and client side maps are possible, although
|
|
client-side image maps are the more popular of the two types. This
|
|
column uses a client-side image map for navigation at the top of the page
|
|
(upper left corner of the page, just below the Graphics Muse logo).
|
|
By providing a method of mapping the single image into multiple links,
|
|
image maps reduce the overhead that multiple images positioned using tables
|
|
would require.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font size=-1><font face="Arial,Helvetica">The current version of the
|
|
Image Map plug-in is 1.1.1. This version includes recent support
|
|
for HTML <i>onBlur</i> and <i>onFocus</i> tags. Although the interface
|
|
is fairly well designed, the program currently provides no documentation.
|
|
Building from source (which is how this plug-in is distributed) is simple
|
|
enough: just unpack it and type <i>make</i>. There shouldn't
|
|
be any editing of Makefiles or other configuration files necessary.
|
|
After compiling you can either do a <i>make install</i> or simply copy
|
|
the binary (named <b><font color="#CC6600">imagemap</font></b>) to your
|
|
</font><tt>$HOME/.gimp/plug-ins
|
|
</tt><font face="Arial,Helvetica">directory
|
|
and restart Gimp. Once installed, the plug-in can be accessed via
|
|
the <i>Filters->Misc</i> submenu of the Image Window menu.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>The interface consists of
|
|
a scrollable window on the left and the set of URL links on the right.
|
|
The scrolled window is a full size copy of the original image. Two
|
|
menu bars are provided - one using traditional pull down text menus and
|
|
the other an icon based version of the same features. An additional
|
|
icon based menu of region shapes (rectangular, oval, polygonal and so forth)
|
|
runs along the left side. The icon menus are all detachable - you
|
|
can click on the rough edged left side of each and drag it out of the main
|
|
window, although what advantage this might provide I don't know.</font></font>
|
|
<table ALIGN=RIGHT BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=6 NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE>
|
|
<center><img SRC="images/imagemap-2.jpg" height=35 width=34></center>
|
|
</td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td>
|
|
<center><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">Grid</font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">Icon</font></b></center>
|
|
</td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>In order to start specifying
|
|
regions for the image map, you might first consider turning on the grid
|
|
lines. This can be done quickly using the Grid icon in the icon menu
|
|
bar, but you'll probably also want to adjust the granularity of the grid.
|
|
This can only be done by selecting Goodies->Grid Settings from the text
|
|
menus. This will open a dialog box where you can specify the width
|
|
and height of the grid boxes, the method for displaying the grids (lines,
|
|
crosses or hidden), an offset from the upper left corner in which to begin
|
|
the grid and, most importantly, whether region shapes are snapped to grid
|
|
intersections. This last item is what will make creating your image
|
|
maps rather quick and painless.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>[ <a href="webwonderings.html">More
|
|
Web Wonderings</a> ]</font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<hr NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<p><a NAME="musings"></a>
|
|
<table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=3 COLS=2 NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="245" NOSAVE><img SRC="images/musings.jpg" height=50 width=245></td>
|
|
|
|
<td NOSAVE>
|
|
<center><table BORDER CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=3 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#FE992B" NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="musings.html#Impress Followup">Impress
|
|
Follow-up</a></font></font></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table></center>
|
|
</td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
<h2>
|
|
<b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=+1>Linux Video Choices: A review
|
|
of Xanim, MainView, MpegTV and RealVideo.</font></font></b></h2>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>I don't do much video work on
|
|
Linux yet. I have a sufficiently fast box for it, I just haven't
|
|
had much more than a passing interest in it since there aren't many video
|
|
editing tools available yet. Still, viewing animation's (in something
|
|
other than GIF format on a browser) or streaming video has become an important
|
|
part of the Internet in the past few months. So I thought I should
|
|
at least take a look at what tools are available from a viewers perspective.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Now, there are a probably
|
|
a couple dozen projects underway for viewing video and animations on Linux.
|
|
I can't review all of these, there just isn't enough time in the day to
|
|
do them justice. So I've chosen four viewers that I think represent
|
|
varying aspects of digital video as well as varying support for different
|
|
video formats. The four tools are <b><font color="#993300">Xanim</font></b>
|
|
by Mark Podlipec, <b><font color="#993300">MainView</font></b> by MainConcept,
|
|
<b><font color="#993300">MpegTV</font></b>
|
|
by MpegTV, and <b><font color="#993300">RealVideo</font></b> from RealNetworks.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>In order to test these I
|
|
decided to download a series of RealVideo, MPEG, and Quicktime files, both
|
|
with and without audio, and see how each tool that supports them performed.
|
|
For RealVideo and MpegTV, I used appropriate URLs. The test system
|
|
was configured with 256Mb of memory using a <a href="#truecolor">TrueColor
|
|
visual </a>under the Xi Graphics Accelerated X server with a Matrox Mystique
|
|
4Mb video card and the commercial Open Sound System drivers for a Generic
|
|
MAD16 Pro (OPTi 82C929) soundcard. For animation's or streaming video/audio
|
|
which were used in these tests and for which I know a URL, I have provided
|
|
links to the test files. I can't post the video files here since
|
|
the Linux Gazette (which is the main location for the Muse column) gets
|
|
distributed to a lot of places that wouldn't be happy downloading 2Mb+
|
|
video files.</font></font>
|
|
<p><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">A note about file types</font></b>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>If you're not familiar with
|
|
the codec types, just look for animation files with suffices like .mov
|
|
and .anim( both are versions of Quicktime, I believe), .fli (FLI/FLC),
|
|
.ram, .rm and .rv (RealVideo files), and .mpg (MPEG animation's).</font></font>
|
|
<p><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><a href="http://xanim.va.pubnix.com/home.html">Xanim</a></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Latest version: 2.80.1</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Long before the others arrived
|
|
on the scene, Mark Podlipec's xanim was serving up video files to the masses.
|
|
Supporting AVI, Quicktime, FLI/FLC, Amiga, and JFIF file formats along
|
|
with GIF and DL Animation's as well as a number of audio formats, the X
|
|
Windows System based xanim can play just about any popular animation files
|
|
you might find on the Internet.</font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<table ALIGN=LEFT BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=6 NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE><img SRC="images/xanim.gif" height=153 width=271></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td>
|
|
<center><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Xanim, playing an
|
|
E! Quicktime interview.</font></font></b></center>
|
|
</td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Xanim is provided in source
|
|
format for the main engine, with binary dynamically loadable libraries
|
|
(DLLs) provided for various codecs for which the copyright owner would
|
|
only provide information if Mark signed an NDA. In a sense, I think
|
|
Mark's solution to the proprietary vs. open problem is probably not a bad
|
|
compromise. In any case, the source is portable to many Unix (and
|
|
other) platforms. Building the source is fairly easy for Linux systems.
|
|
Unfortunately the package doesn't support autoconf based compilation,
|
|
but I'm not one to complain much about that (considering my own XNotesPlus
|
|
doesn't support it either - who has time to learn all these tools?).
|
|
Mark provides a build based around imake, which isn't too bad a substitute
|
|
for autoconf. The Imakefile only needs one modification for building
|
|
on Linux - in section IVb add this line:</font></font>
|
|
<blockquote><tt><font size=-1>EXTRA_DEFINES = -I/usr/X11R6/include/X11</font></tt></blockquote>
|
|
<font size=-1><font face="Arial,Helvetica">This is necessary, even though
|
|
the Imakefile says it shouldn't be required, because Mark doesn't prefix
|
|
his use of the X header files with "X11/<header file>" but the standard
|
|
imake templates assume that applications do so. Since Mark apparently
|
|
does his builds on Linux too, the rest of the Imakefile should probably
|
|
work just fine as it is. You then run "</font><tt>xmkmf; make xanim</tt><font face="Arial,Helvetica">"
|
|
to build the program. Then just copy it to an appropriate directory,
|
|
such as </font><tt>/usr/local/bin</tt><font face="Arial,Helvetica">.
|
|
Installation, from build to running my first animation, took about 10 minutes.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font size=-1><font face="Arial,Helvetica">The interface for xanim is
|
|
rather small, but it supports starting, stopping, rewinding and audio levels.
|
|
You can step through a video by clicking various mouse buttons in the display
|
|
window. Most of the options supported by xanim are accessible only
|
|
from the command line. You can find what options are available using
|
|
the traditional </font><tt>--help</tt><font face="Arial,Helvetica"> command
|
|
line option. There is a remote interface available that allows external
|
|
programs to control xanim and I believe there are GTK, TK and KDE based
|
|
front ends to xanim now, although I didn't specifically look for them.
|
|
Note that there is no built-in help facility to xanim. You'll need
|
|
to read the documentation or visit the Web site for details. But
|
|
for most animation's, especially on systems with TrueColor visuals (i.e.
|
|
16.7 million color displays), you simply run "</font><tt>xanim <filename></tt><font face="Arial,Helvetica">".
|
|
Pretty straight forward, really.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Xanim played all 14 of the
|
|
videos I tried with absolutely no problem. I tested Quicktime, MPEG,
|
|
FLI and IFF animation's. There was little jitter or no obviously
|
|
skipped frames and the sound was perfectly synchronized with the animation's
|
|
which came with audio (which, as it turns out, was just the Quicktime files).
|
|
Tests were run in both TrueColor and 256 color modes. Xanim had no
|
|
problems mapping the full color videos to the lower bit planes. In
|
|
fact, it did a better job of doing it than I could using various command
|
|
line color related options. By default xanim will loop through the
|
|
animation indefinitely. You can change this behavior using command
|
|
line options.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>By supporting dynamic loading
|
|
of video codecs, Mark has made it easier for end users to add support for
|
|
any new codecs that might come along. Now you can simply download
|
|
the appropriate binary codec from his site, unpack it, and restart xanim.
|
|
Recompilation is no longer necessary. Despite it's apparent visible
|
|
simplicity, xanim is still the best all around video player for Linux.</font></font>
|
|
<p><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><a href="http://www.mainconcept.com">MainView</a></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Version 2.06</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>In trying to figure out a
|
|
topic for this month's Musings, I started to look around for video editing
|
|
software. I'd heard a few packages were available, but had never
|
|
tried any of them. One package I did run across was a new commercial
|
|
package (currently freely available as a beta distribution) from a German
|
|
company called MainConcept. This package included a video display
|
|
tool called MainView.</font></font>
|
|
<table ALIGN=LEFT BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=6 NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE><img SRC="images/mainview.jpg" HSPACE=6 VSPACE=10 height=217 width=210></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td>
|
|
<center><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">MainView, running an MTV </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">sponsored clip of a Garbage </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">video for their single "Happy".</font></b></center>
|
|
</td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>MainView is actually an external
|
|
viewer application to the larger MainActor Video Editing system.
|
|
It can, however, be run independently of MainActor. The interface
|
|
is even more sparse than xanim's, but doesn't appear as cramped.
|
|
Run time options can be accessed through a menu which you can open by right
|
|
button clicking with your mouse over the animation window. Options
|
|
include changing the speed of the animation and various audio options.
|
|
Audio, unfortunately, didn't work at all on any of the animation's I tried.
|
|
It always played very loud and completely distorted audio. I ended
|
|
up turning audio off after testing it on all the files for audio support
|
|
so I could continue testing video playback.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Video support is much better
|
|
than audio, fortunately. All 14 of the animation's I tried played
|
|
flawlessly under a TrueColor display. When I started MainView the
|
|
very first time, I noticed that it complained about requiring the XFree86
|
|
DGA (Direct Graphics Extension) extension, but still started anyway.
|
|
The extension, it turns out, is only needed if you want to run in full
|
|
screen mode. As long as you're not trying to do that, the video portion
|
|
of MainView works fairly well.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>One nice feature of MainView
|
|
is that it remembers the last directory you were in between sessions.
|
|
I like this because I can launch MainView from my FVWM2 GoodStuff bar and
|
|
have it be in a directory where I save animation files. MainView
|
|
will start by providing a file browser window from which you can select
|
|
an animation to view. It then closes the file browser and starts
|
|
the video playback window. There doesn't appear to be a way to return
|
|
to the file browser, however. That sure would make it easier to browse
|
|
through multiple video files without having to restart MainView each time.
|
|
MainView also doesn't automatically loop through videos. In fact,
|
|
I couldn't find a way from within MainView itself to get a video to loop.
|
|
MainActor does allow you to set a repeat count, but not an infinite loop.</font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<table ALIGN=LEFT BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=6 NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE><img SRC="images/compare-2.jpg" VSPACE=10 height=217 width=210></td>
|
|
|
|
<td NOSAVE><img SRC="images/compare-1.jpg" VSPACE=10 height=148 width=170>
|
|
<p><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">The test frame displayed by </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">xanim. The picture here
|
|
is</font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">a little less grainy than the</font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">MainView display.</font></b></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td COLSPAN="2" NOSAVE><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">MainView's version
|
|
of the test frame. The contrast is a little better</font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">here - you can make out more
|
|
detail, but at the expense of image</font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">quality, I'd say.</font></b></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
<font size=-1><font face="Arial,Helvetica">MainActor, the Video Editor
|
|
package for which MainView works, does attempt to provide online help which
|
|
it tries to launch in a Netscape Window. The HTML help files had
|
|
been installed with the RPM distribution, but MainActor failed to get Netscape
|
|
to open the HTML files. It simply started a new instance of Netscape
|
|
(even if you already had a version of Netscape running). I had to
|
|
give a </font><tt>file: </tt><font face="Arial,Helvetica">URL to open the
|
|
files manually.</font></font>
|
|
<p><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">Comparing MainView and Xanim under a
|
|
256 color display</font></b>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Here are screenshots of both
|
|
xanim and MainView displaying the same frame of the Garbage video under
|
|
a 256 color display. The xanim version appears to have a little better
|
|
dithering than MainView, but if you watch the entire video with both players
|
|
you can hardly tell the difference.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Although you can currently
|
|
download this product for free, MainView and MainActor are commercial products.
|
|
The price for the product listed on the company's Web site could only be
|
|
found under a Press Release - $80US for the package without documentation,
|
|
$115US with documentation plus some other extras. The current version
|
|
is distributed in binary and is available for Linux on x86 platforms only
|
|
and only in RPM format. Recently, MainConcept announced that MainActor
|
|
would be bundled with the <a href="http://www.linuxmedialabs.com">Linux
|
|
Media Labs </a> LML33 Video Capture Card. To my knowledge, this
|
|
is the first bundling of a Linux oriented hardware peripheral with a Linux
|
|
specific application. Things are looking up for off-the-shelf solutions.</font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<p><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><a href="http://www.mpegtv.com/">MpegTV</a></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Version 1.0.9.4</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>As the name implies, MpegTV
|
|
only plays MPEG animation files. However, unlike the previous two
|
|
applications, MpegTV can handle both static and streaming files, both locally
|
|
and across a network. This program actually comes in two pieces -
|
|
the command line oriented <i>mtvp</i> program and it's GUI interface, <i>mtv</i>.
|
|
The latter requires the XForms library, which is not shipped with any Linux
|
|
platforms currently but is free for private use and can be downloaded from
|
|
the XForms Web site. For certain features you may also need the SDL
|
|
library as well. Both can be found via links on the MpegTV download
|
|
page. Installation instructions are not included with the downloaded
|
|
package. You have to go to the MpegTV web site to get them.</font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<table ALIGN=LEFT BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=6 NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td COLSPAN="2" NOSAVE><img SRC="images/mpegtv-1.gif" height=121 width=499></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE><img SRC="images/mpegtv-2.gif" height=250 width=328></td>
|
|
|
|
<td><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">The MpegTV UI. The </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">control panel's volume </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">controls work well with </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">the OSS sound system I </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">have installed. The video </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">playback, however, was </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">a bit grainy. This was </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">probably the fault of the </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">recording and not the </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">player, since the other </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">MPEG files I tried didn't </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">seem to have this </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">problem.</font></b></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>MpegTV is shareware for personal
|
|
use, with a shareware price of $10. It requires a commercial license
|
|
for commercial use. The version I downloaded would pop up the usual
|
|
annoying "please register" window common for shareware applications.
|
|
Personally, this doesn't bug me much since I don't have any problem with
|
|
people trying to sell their software. If it's worth it, I pay for
|
|
it.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Unfortunately for MpegTV,
|
|
this dialog did pose a problem. Half way through the Star Wars trailer
|
|
(which I downloaded from their site as part of my testing) the Registration
|
|
dialog popped up. At that point the sound quit and the main control
|
|
window wasn't redrawn and no longer accepted user input. The video,
|
|
however, kept playing. The only way to exit the program after this
|
|
was to use "kill -9" on the mtv and mtvp processes. Since I had to
|
|
run the program multiple times to try to get screen shots and try various
|
|
features, this bug became a real annoyance. I'm hoping that the registered
|
|
version doesn't do this (since you should never see the registration screen).</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>SDL - <a href="http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/">Simple
|
|
Direct Media Layer</a> - is the same library used by Loki for their
|
|
port of Civilization: Call To Power. It provides a layer between
|
|
X applications and various low level multimedia API's, including XFree86's
|
|
DGA extension. I suspect you'll be seeing this library being used,
|
|
and required by, quite a few applications in the future. For MpegTV,
|
|
SDL is only required to run MpegTV in full screen mode. One problem
|
|
I had with this was that the SDL installation tool installs the library
|
|
under /usr/local/lib by default (you can change this during the installation
|
|
process). MpegTV requires that the library be installed under /usr/X11R6/lib.
|
|
I installed the library under /usr/local/lib and added symbolic links under
|
|
/usr/X11R6/lib. This should have worked, but for some reason MpegTV
|
|
failed to load the libraries. As far as I can tell, there is nothing
|
|
wrong with the symbolic links so I suspect that the library
|
|
<b><u>must</u></b>
|
|
really be under /usr/X11R6/lib in order to work with MpegTV.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>the company's Web site offered
|
|
two test animation's, a short animation of bouncing boxes and an old Star
|
|
Wars trailer. Both of these played just fine. There is also
|
|
a link to a site with more links to MPEG animation's on the net.
|
|
I bounced around a few of those but couldn't find anything more interesting
|
|
than the 3 other MPEG animation's I already had. MpegTV played them
|
|
all just fine (if you ignore the Registration dialog problem). Additionally,
|
|
MpegTV can also play Video CDs, such as the video portion of music CDs.
|
|
It doesn't play DVD, however. Although my RH 5.2 system appears to
|
|
have the VCD patch applied, and xreadvcd does appear to read the video
|
|
cd contents, I couldn't get MpegTV to read the CD nor could I get xreadvcd
|
|
to write the MPEG stream to a file. There is something wrong with
|
|
my kernel configuration, apparently, so I couldn't really test the Video
|
|
CD support in MpegTV.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Interestingly enough, after
|
|
downloading the two test MPEG files from the MpegTV site and trying them
|
|
with mtv, I then went back and tried them with xanim. I couldn't
|
|
play either of them correctly with xanim. I then tried some of the
|
|
other mpg files I had used with xanim under mtv. They all played
|
|
about the same except for one - monopoly.mpg. Under xanim this played
|
|
rather slow, with distinct stoppage between frames. Under mtv this
|
|
played just fine. The frames flowed by seamlessly. So, mtv
|
|
appears to deal with MPEG files better than xanim, although mtv appears
|
|
to have some nasty bugs, at least in the unregistered version.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font size=-1><font face="Arial,Helvetica">MpegTV will play MPEG streams
|
|
direct from the Internet if you supply a URL on the command line or through
|
|
the </font><tt>Play From URL </tt><font face="Arial,Helvetica">option from
|
|
the File menu in the control window. I tried this with one site but
|
|
found the stream to be too slow to play interactively. After the
|
|
20 minute download, which did play while it was being downloaded even though
|
|
it looked like only one frame every so often was playing, I tried to replay
|
|
it and save it. I could do neither. I don't know if this is
|
|
a limitation in the unregistered version or not, however.</font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<p><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><a href="http://www.real.com">RealVideo</a></font></b>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.real.com/products/player/linux.html">Linux
|
|
G2 Beta version</a></font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>One of my favorite tools
|
|
to be ported to Linux is the RealVideo G2 player from RealNetworks.
|
|
While working for Samsung in Dallas, and forced to use an NT box for email,
|
|
I got hooked watching and listening to Bloomberg TV financial reports.
|
|
I was able to do this only because I was stuck with that NT box (which
|
|
sat to one side and collected dust most of the time) and G2 didn't run
|
|
on my Solaris box. Now that I'm working from home, I'm thrilled to
|
|
be able to view this same content from my Linux box.</font></font>
|
|
<table ALIGN=LEFT BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=6 NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE><img SRC="images/g2.gif" height=442 width=515></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
|
|
<tr>
|
|
<td>
|
|
<center><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">The G2 Player, running a clip from
|
|
the Wild, Wild West. Note that the video </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">window includes links to other movies.
|
|
These are all part of the new SMIL </font></b>
|
|
<br><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">(Synchronized Multimedia Integration
|
|
Language) page design supported by the G2.</font></b></center>
|
|
</td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
<p><font size=-1><font face="Arial,Helvetica">The G2 player can play any
|
|
of the streaming video and audio formats from RealNetworks. This
|
|
includes the older .ram and .rm audio files as well as the new Synchronized
|
|
Multimedia Integration Language - SMIL, yet another of the HTML-style formatting
|
|
languages - files, suffixed with </font><b><tt>.smi</tt></b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">.
|
|
It doesn't play MPEG or any of the formats the other players support, however.
|
|
So you need to find sites that support the RealNetworks formats.
|
|
Fortunately, these sites abound on the Internet. RealNetworks was
|
|
one of the first to provide a usable streaming media format for the Internet
|
|
and it caught on very fast. Many news sites support RealVideo these
|
|
days.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>The Linux version is still
|
|
in beta, at least to my knowledge. I've had no serious problems with
|
|
it although sometimes the video window can get visual artifacts when you
|
|
switch sites. It also had a few problems with refreshing the video
|
|
window when another window had partially hidden the G2 player, and then
|
|
the other window was moved away. These problems only happened with
|
|
static parts of the video window - any animation's forced window updates
|
|
and so they appeared to work just fine.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Playing of the streams has
|
|
been pretty good. I think I have more problems with network delays
|
|
than with playing the streams. The G2 player comes with a host of
|
|
options to configure the player for best performance. It can work
|
|
behind firewalls if you're network administrator permits passing the right
|
|
port numbers.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>The player itself is made
|
|
up of a primary video display window surrounded by associated controls.
|
|
The NT version includes a scrolling icon-based playlist on the left of
|
|
the video window but the Linux version lacks this currently. I don't
|
|
think there are any serious technical reason they can't add it in the future,
|
|
though. Information about the clip currently playing can be scrolled
|
|
through the Clip Info window, or this can be disabled to help increase
|
|
performance just a bit. The audio support is very good - RealNetworks
|
|
chose to allow skipped video frames in exchange for a fluid audio performance.
|
|
I find that appealing as I often just listen to the streams while doing
|
|
other work.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Streaming video is still
|
|
a jumpy affair. You don't get the smooth frame-by-frame animation's
|
|
you get when playing an MPEG or Quicktime file directly from your hard
|
|
disk. But the format does support moving anywhere within the stream
|
|
at any time. I can jump to the middle and pick up playing from that
|
|
point if I choose. Or I can rewind or start over at any point within
|
|
the currently playing stream. And I don't have to wait for the entire
|
|
file to download in order to do this. I still think streaming audio
|
|
is a better media for this technology due to general limitations in bandwidth
|
|
to the user, but once we all have higher speed connections, streaming video
|
|
will offer choices that TV and cable never could.</font></font>
|
|
<p><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">Other tools</font></b>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>One other player I tried
|
|
was <a href="http://www.freeyellow.com/members4/heroine/">XMovie</a>.
|
|
This is a program that runs off of a library built to run Quicktime movies.
|
|
It's part of a series of tools that include another video editor called
|
|
BCast2000. However, there are licensing limitations with Quicktime
|
|
that XMovie can't get around. I don't know if that was the reason
|
|
or not, but XMovie couldn't play any of the animation's I tried.
|
|
Whatever codecs it supports, it's not the ones being used in the video
|
|
files I found on the Internet.</font></font>
|
|
<p><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica">Places to find video files online</font></b>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>You can always check many
|
|
of the entertainment sites online, such as <a href="http://www.eonline.com">E!
|
|
Online</a>, and <a href="http://www.comcentral.com/download/index.shtml">Comedy
|
|
Central's</a> download site. Additionally, you can find clips and
|
|
links to other online sources of video files at <a href="http://www.uslink.net/~edgerton/index.html">Jesse's
|
|
Movies</a>, and <a href="http://dir.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Movies_and_Film/Multimedia/Video_Clips/">Yahoo!'s
|
|
set of movie clip links.</a> Streaming MPEG and MPEG files sites
|
|
can be found at <a href="http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/bitstreams.html">MPEG.org's
|
|
MPEG Bitstreams page</a>. RealVideo clips can be found at the
|
|
<a href="http://www.real.com/showcase/realplayer/index.html">RealVideo
|
|
Showcase</a> site and a their <a href="http://realguide.real.com/">Real
|
|
Guide</a> site.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Keep in mind that playing
|
|
movies like this doesn't require huge amounts of hardware - a 32Mb Pentium
|
|
133 should work just fine, although some animation's may play a little
|
|
slow and audio might not sync all that well. But you certainly don't
|
|
need the 256Mb of memory I used, nor do you need the latest CPU.
|
|
And you certainly don't need a 3D accelerated video card. These animation's
|
|
are basically all just a series of individual raster images played very
|
|
fast. It's like using a flip book of pictures - the faster you can
|
|
flip through the pages, the faster the animation appears to work.
|
|
Except on computers and with the right player, you have more control over
|
|
the speed.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>I have to admit, I'm still
|
|
a big fan of xanim over any of the other players I've tried. For
|
|
95% of the animation's out there it's just the right tool for the job.
|
|
But it doesn't, to my knowledge, support streaming video/audio. Since
|
|
I don't have cable television anymore (what a waste of money that is),
|
|
I get my news and information online. I find myself listening and
|
|
even watching streaming audio and video with RealVideo quite often these
|
|
days. Since the information streams, I can leave it running while
|
|
I work and just listen to the bits and pieces of what ever interests me.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Like whether or not my shares
|
|
of Disney are ever going to go back into positive territory. Maybe
|
|
if they released all their films as streaming MPEGs....</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Since I've always been a
|
|
fan of visual media, I find the opportunity to build my own webcasts rather
|
|
enticing. Streaming video and audio are the best future for online
|
|
video because they don't require the user to download the entire file to
|
|
play it. At some point in the future, I hope to be able to put together
|
|
some live interviews for webcasting, but I have to investigate what that
|
|
will cost and where it can be hosted. In the mean time, at least
|
|
I have the right tools to view other webcasts and online video.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>[ <a href="musings.html">More
|
|
Musings</a> ]</font></font>
|
|
<p><a NAME="truecolor"></a><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>A
|
|
TrueColor Visual is just the X Windows System terminology for a display
|
|
that can handle up to 16.7 million colors. Most modern video cards
|
|
can handle this, especially if you have 2Mb or more of video memory on
|
|
the card.</font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<table BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE><img SRC="apr98/images/cleardot.gif" height=2 width=2></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
<a NAME="rsrc"></a><img SRC="images/resources.jpg" height=50 width=245>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>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.</font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<table BORDER=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
|
|
<tr NOSAVE>
|
|
<td NOSAVE><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Online Magazines
|
|
and News sources </font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.news.com/">C|Net
|
|
Tech News</a></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.eklektix.com/lwn/">Linux
|
|
Weekly News</a></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.linuxtoday.com">Linux
|
|
Today</a></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://slashdot.org/">Slashdot.org</a></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://TheGimp.com">TheGimp.com</a></font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>General Web Sites </font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.graphics-muse.org/linux.html">Linux
|
|
Graphics</a></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/linux_soundapps.html">Linux
|
|
Sound/Midi Page</a></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://LinuxArtist.org">Linux
|
|
Artist.org</a></font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Some of the Mailing Lists
|
|
and Newsgroups I keep an eye on and where I get much of the information
|
|
in this column </font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.gimp.org">The
|
|
Gimp User and Gimp Developer Mailing Lists</a>. </font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.irtc.org">The
|
|
IRTC-L discussion list</a></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="news:comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing">comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing</a></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="news:comp.graphics.rendering.renderman">comp.graphics.rendering.renderman</a></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="news:comp.graphics.api.opengl">comp.graphics.api.opengl</a></font></font>
|
|
<br><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="news:comp.os.linux.announce">comp.os.linux.announce</a></font></font></td>
|
|
|
|
<td><img SRC="images/gmuse-2.jpg" HSPACE=10 BORDER=2 height=248 width=200></td>
|
|
</tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
<a NAME="future"></a>
|
|
<h2>
|
|
Future Directions</h2>
|
|
<font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>Next Month: A return to
|
|
3D Modellers.</font></font>
|
|
<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1><a href="mailto:mjhammel@graphics-muse.org">Let
|
|
me know what you'd like to hear about!</a></font></font>
|
|
<br>
|
|
<hr NOSHADE WIDTH="100%">
|
|
<div align=right><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font size=-1>© 1999
|
|
<a href="mailto:mjhammel@graphics-muse.org">Michael
|
|
J. Hammel</a></font></font></div>
|
|
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
<center><H5>Copyright © 1999, Michael Hammel <BR>
|
|
Published in Issue 43 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, July 1999</H5></center>
|
|
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
<!--startcut ==========================================================-->
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
<A HREF="../index.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM SRC="../../gx/indexnew.gif"
|
|
ALT="[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ]"></A>
|
|
<A HREF="../../index.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM SRC="../../gx/homenew.gif"
|
|
ALT="[ FRONT PAGE ]"></A>
|
|
<A HREF="../gibbs/Web_Design.html"><IMG SRC="../../gx/back2.gif"
|
|
ALT=" Back "></A>
|
|
<A HREF="../jacobowitz.esr_microsoft.html"><IMG SRC="../../gx/fwd.gif" ALT=" Next "></A>
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
</BODY>
|
|
</HTML>
|
|
<!--endcut ============================================================-->
|