CD ROM Paradise Collection 4/CD ROM Paradise Collection 4 1995 Nov.iso/filutil/pcx2ccs.zip/HOWTO.TXT

Text File | 1995-01-12 | 25.5 KB | 512 lines

This is a "how to use this program". I have made the assumption that
you have set up a directory for the program called pcxccs

You should have the following files in the pcxccs directory:
     1) READ1ST.TXT - this file
     2) PCX2CCS.DOC - Users manual. Not required reading, but might
        clarify some things.
     3) PCX2CCS.EXE - The executable program
     4) various PCX files to get you started.
     5) REG.TXT - Registration/complaint form
     6) SETPRINT.EXE - program to create printer configuration file
     7) PRTCODE.ASC & PRTMODEL.ASC- Files required to run setprint
     8) PCXCCS.GXL - all the file and menus used by PCX2CCS to run. DO
        NOT DELETE THIS FILE.
     9) MASTER.DMC - file containing 64 DMC colors mapped to 64
        colors.
    10) ADDENDUM.TXT - This file contains the revision history and
        anything else that might have changed since the manual was
        done.
    11) HOWTO.TXT - The file you are currently reading

    Before we run any programs, I'ld like to explain about the
switches available. After version 5.0 was released I heard from LOTS
of people who have the innards of an sVGA, but a nonsVGA monitor. So,
if when you run either SETPRINT or PCX2CCS, and the screen is
unreadable, you need to run with one of the following switchs: EGA VGA
or SVGA. Simply type PCX2CCS EGA to FORCE the program to run in EGA
mode.

    The first we are going to do is to configure your printer.  To do
this run SETPRINT. You will be presented with a scrollable list of all
the manufactures that I support. You can scroll the list either with
the mouse or using page up/page down. Find the manufacturer for your
printer (or the one you plan to emulate). To select a manufacturer,use
the mouse and click once on the name and then select OK, or hit the S
key, use the up and down arrows to move the hightlight bax and hit
ENTER when you're ready. You will be presented with a list of printer
models. Select your model. You can now run a printer test, or not.
Select YES (ENTER) to run a quick test, or NO (ESC) to finish running.

    As a result of running setprint, you now have a file called
pcxccspt.cfg. PCX2CCS needs this file to control your printer. If you
want to/need to you may edit this file. YOU DON'T USE A WORD PROCESSOR
UNLESS YOU CAN SAVE THE FILE AS ASCII TEXT. When I run this, I select
a printer that has paper that is 13.6 inches wide and a continuous
strip. I edit the file to change the 13.60000 to 8.5000 and 0.00000 to
11.0. This can also be done within PCX2CCS when printing, but
you'll have to do it each  and every time.

    I have included 2 pcxs that will be used for this how-to, the
first one is called sampler.pcx

     Before we actually load one of the samplers and get to work,
I'ld like to review the various command line switches that
you can use. Switches are commands you type when starting
the program.  For example, PCX2CCS LEFTIE will switch your
mouse buttons (explained later).  You may include as many
switches as you need. You can force the program to run in a
specific graphics mode by specifying EGA VGA or sVGA as follows:
                PCX2CCS VGA
On some machines, most notably laptops, the program will
detect an sVGA chip and/or the VESA bios, but the physical
monitor is non-sVGA. Using the VGA switch will tell the
program to NOT look at the chip, but to run in VGA (640x480
16 colors) mode.

If you are using the mouse, the LEFT button is "enter", the
RIGHT button is "esc" and/or "delete". If you are left-handed
and would like to swap button functions the switch is LEFTIE.
This will make the RIGHT button "enter", the LEFT becomes "esc"
and/or "delete".

You can also tell the program which LPT port your printer is
connected to by added P# where the LPT port.

All of these switches can be shortened to just the first letter.
The order of the switches doesn't matter and you can use none,
some or none.  For example PCX2CCS V P2 will force the VGA mode
and use LPT2 as the printer port.

Ok, that aside, let's startup the program and talk about what you
see. Once the program finishes initializing, you will be
presented with an empty grid, menu names across the top, and 2
scroll bars, 1 across the bottom 1 down the right side. Not being
a mouse fan I have made sure that the program can be run without
the mouse. The menus can be pulled down via the FUNCTION keys (F1
is file, F2 is edit and so on). Selections from ANY list can be
made by using the S key and then moving the highlight bar up and
down with the arrow keys. ENTER is the same as OK, ESC is the
same as CANCEL. Other keystrokes are indicated. For Exanple (Y)
means use the Y key. We'll explore other keystrokes as we
continue.

The default graphics resolution for sVGA is 640x480.  The default
largest image is 640x480.  This means that the LARGEST possible
image that you can load into PCX2CCS is 640 pixels wide and 480
pixels high. In terms of  the chart, this meands that the LARGEST
chart you can create is 640 STITCHS wide by 480 STITCHS high.
Regardless of the graphics resolution (EGA, VGA or sVGA) you can
load any image up to the maximum size. You can also load 256
colored images using an EGA monitor. I do the "best" I can to
find the first 16 unique colors to use, but you still have 256
different SYMBOLS available to you.

The default directories are based on the current directory.  All
of these defaults can be changed, so let's start with configuring
the program the way YOU would like it to run. This can only be
done with an EMPTY grid, so before loading anything, select the
FILE MENU (F1) and from there the CONFIGURATION FILE option
(ALT-F is the single keystroke to get to this option).

At the bottom section of the screen are the various graphics
modes that are supported by the program. the X'd box is the
current mode. Select a new mode by placing the arrow in the
box and hitting the left button, or by hitting the designated
key. HEED THE WARNING!!!

It is here that you can set the size of the largest image you
will load. The largest possible size is limited by the amount of
free memory you have available. You don't have to compute this
yourself, when you change the size, I verify that you have enough
free memeory and issue a warning if you don't. You can a lso
change the frequency of the dashed lines (0 means NO dashed
lines). You can also change the default directories. You can
still change directories when reading or writing, this simply
sets the "look here first" directory. The system startup defaults
are the directory where you are running from, and 2 directories
below this directory.

Ok, lets load a sampler, look at it and then print it. To
load a pcx, pull down the FILE menu, and select LOAD PCX FILE
(or use ALT-L).  You will be presented with a window showing
you the PCX files in the default directory. Select the pcx you
want and select OK. To change directories you can select the  ..
to go up one level, select the [_] to change to the specified
drive or select the sub directory name.  The name of the current
directory is displayed in the box above the file listing and will
change as you change directories and drives. If you change
directories, it will be "remembered" the next time you read or
write a PCX (or CCS file).

After few messages about decoding the pcx, assigning the color
palette, and assigning DMC colors, some of the squares will have
a symbol in them.  This is a SECTION of the pcx.  To see the
whole thing, pull down the VIEW menu and select VIEW IMAGE
(ALT-V).  You will be put into an image viewer mode. The box that
you see in the image is showing you the section of the pcx that
you were seeing in "grid" mode. Acknowledge the message. Hit
enter (left mouse) to get the menu. The menu options allow you to
move the box and return to the grid showing the NEW area defined
by the box. You can also return to the grid where you left, and
go to other functions that use the image viewer mode.

When you return to the grid, the other option on the VIEW
menu was VIEW SYMBOLS/DMC COLORS (ALT-1) Select this to see
the current DMC color name and number assigned to the
symbols (in this case to the single symbol) You can select
the symbol(s) and change the DMC number and/or name. You can also
MERGE identical DMC colors to 1 symbol. Since there are so many
different Red Green and Blue combinations, and only 64 DMC colors
provided with the non-registered version, it is possible that the
same DMC color could be assigned to 2 different symbols. MERGE
will clean this up. You can also PRINT ONLY the symbols. Read on,
the printing procedure is identical.

Ok, lets print the entire image. Pull down the DO_CHART menu
(F4) and select FULL CHART (ALT-W). Since there should be a
printer configuration file, the TO PRINTER should be X'd.
Select OK. The next window shows the height and width of the
paper, a place for an optional title and the various dots per
inch supported by the printer. Minimally, you HAVE to select
a dpi to be used. If the paper size is wrong (ie it reads
continuous but your printer is single sheet feed) change it
now. You have 25 characters for the title. The title will be
printed on every page next to the page number. If you have a
continuous paper feed, you will get the page number and title
at the top of each "strip". Select OK and the printing will
start. The wait box will give you some idea as to how much
of the image HAS been done and how much NEEDS to be done.

The samplers aren't big enough to print just a section, but
you can. From the DO_CHART menu select SELECT SECTION TO
CHART. (or from the view mode, select CHANGE TO PRINT
FUNCTION).  Using the menu, adjust the box to define the area
you want to print. Then continue as above.

Now we're going to  change the SIZE of the sampler pcx.
Ultimately we'll be putting a border around the edge of the
sampler and centering the text.

There are 3 different ways to change the size of a chart
withing PCX2CCS. You can scale it, re-size it or add blank
columns and rows.

First scaling. When you scale an image, you can either expand
each pixel into multiple pixels, or combine multiple pixesl
into 1. This option is on the edit menu, or use ALT-S.  You
will be presented with a window giving you 4 checkboxes and
in the lower left corner, the size of the image in stitchs
and inches. You can scale an image height Up or Down and the
width In or Out.  After you select the direction, you can
specify how MUCH you want to scale. The dimensions in the
lower right corner will change as you adjust the scaling
factors.  Thus to scale a 100x100 image up to 400x400 you
would select Up and Out and specify 4 as "expand 1 row into"
and the "expand 1 column into". No actual change takes place
until you select OK. THEN you will put into the image viewer
mode, so you can see how the image will look when the scale
factor is applied. The new image will NOT be saved until and
unless you select SAVE THIS SIZE from the menu.

One other way to change the size of an image is via the
INFORMATION window. Here you are presented with the current
image size,in stitchs and inches and the current evenweave
count. Changing the evenweave count will change the size in
inches, but will NOT affect the image itself. If you change
either the size in stitch or the size in inches, after
selectin OK will be out into viewer mode to show you how the
image will look with new size. The new image will NOT be
saveed until and unless you select SAVE THIS SIZE from the
menu.

Both of these approaches work by duplicating (or deleting)
entire rows and/or columns. I perform some calculations to
determine how often to perform the duplication (or deletion).
To experiement with either of these areas, I suggest you
loiad either the OWL.PCX or DUCKBOP.PCX. These manipulations
work best on pictures, as opposed to single pixel wide
letters. We will use the third method and add BLANK rows and
columns to the image.

The third method uses the EDIT ROWS/COLUMNS (ALT-2) from the
edit menu. We will be adding a border around the edge of the
image, so decide how big you want the border to be. If you're
not sure then add LOTS. Select the ADD TO EDGE, then select
TOP, BOTTOM. LEFT, RIGHT and then specify the number of rows
and column to add. Very quickly the additional rows will be
added around the edge of the image.

Now take a look at the spacing between lines of text. Is
there enough? Are you going to add anything between the text?
Again using the EDIT ROWS/COLUMNS, you can insert or delete
rows.  (Adding or deleting COLUMNS is tricky with text
because you might add a column down the middle of a letter.
We will adjust the spacing between words using cut & paste)
Everytime you insert or delete, you will have to specify the
direction, ie TOP or BOTTOM, LEFT or RIGHT. If you are
deleting or inserting multiple rows, you can delete or insert
them above or below the cursor by specifing TOP or BOTTOM.
You also get the identify the row to start deleting or
inserting at BEFORE the operation is performed.

Ok, Now that you have some extra space it's time to add a
border.

SIMPLE BORDER: First you need to select the symbol you want
to use.  Select CURRENT SYMBOL (F8) & you will be presented
with ALL 256 different symbols.  Each symbol has beside it a
checkbox.  The X'd box indicates the current symbol. Select a
new symbol by selecting the box associated with the symbol.
You can use either the mouse or the arrow keys. When you've
selected the symbol you want, hit ENTER or select OK. THe
symbol beside the CURRENT SYMBOL will now show the new
symbol.

Since we are doing a border, you need to position yourself at
one of the edges. Do this my sliding the thumb on one of the
scroll bars. The thick dark line indicates the
edge of the image.  To ADD symbols, position the arrow on a
square and hit the left mouse button (or hit ENTER). If you
hold down the mouse button and move the mouse every square
the arrow passes over will have the symbol added to it. To
DELETE symbol, use the right mouse button (or the DEL key).

To view the image with the border, select VIEW and VIEW
IMAGE.

COMPLEX BORDER: The easiest way to add a complex border is to
create a library element that you can then incorporate into
the sampler. If you added spaces to this sampler, you might
want to save it first. Use the FILE menu, SAVE AS PCX or SAVE
AS CCS. Now use the EDIT MENU INITIALIZE GRID option. Go
ahead and do the pattern, selecting the symbols you want to
use. When you are done, you will need to clip the size of the
image down to the just the size of the pattern. To do this,
use the EDIT ROWS/COLUMNS from the EDIT menu. This time,
select CLIP and TOP, BOTTOM, LEFT and RIGHT. You will be
prompted to position the cursor at what will become the new
edge.  Now use the LIBRARY menu and select SAVE LIBRARY
ELEMENT. After specifying a name, this will save the pattern
in the lib directory.

Now re-load the sampler pcx. From the LIBRARY menu select
INCORPORATE ELEMENT, and select the library element you just
made.  You will be put in image viewer mode.  The box indicates
the size of the library element. Using the menu, select MOVE
BOX and position the box where you want the element to be
places. Hit ENTER (twice) and then select PUT HERE. THe
library element will be incorporated into the image. Continue
to MOVE BOX and PUT HERE to finish the border.

If you are feeling daring, you can change the size of the
library element by selecting to move any edge of the box.
This will do a proprotional scaling of the element.

Regardless of how you added the border, don't forget to SAVE
the image when you are done. You can save it as either a PCX
or an CCS file. There "only" difference between these to
options is that the CCS file contains information about the
pattern that the PCX doesn't have. The CCS file has the DMC
numbers and names assigned and the palette colors assigned to
each symbol. At this point, since we haven't done either of
those things, you can safely save the image as a PCX image.

Now its's time to adjust the position of the text, change the
symbols used for each letter, check and, if necessary change,
the DMC color assignments.

To move the text around, you need to select Cut & Paste from
the Edit menu. This will put you into the image viewer mode.
The menu selections for this type of editing include moving
any 1 side of the box, moving the entire box, moving or
copying the contents of the box. Please note that the portion
of the image that you are going to move or copy is the
section INSIDE the box. Any portion UNDER the lines of the
box is NOT included. When I loaded the sampler and got ready
to adjust the test, I realized that the text was a little
small. (a Zoom function will be available in version 6). So
from the Cut & Paste function menu, I select GO TO SCALE.
From the Scale function menu, I selected SCALE MENU. I then
scaled the image Up and Out by 2. That is I selected UP,
expanding 1 row into 2 to double the height, and Out,
expanding 1 column into 2 to double the width. Since I was
working in 640x480 mode, this was a high as I could go. If
you have the graphics resolution set higher, then you can
probably increase the image size even more.

After looking at the scaled image I was ready to start moving
the text around. First I had to get back to the Cut & Paste
function. BUT before I can do this, I need to save the scaled
image to the symbol table. You see, you can't manipulate the
image until you have the one you're looking at saved. So I
selected SAVE THIS SIZE, and on the next menu, SAVE TO SYMBOL
TABLE. I could, at the same time, SAVE TO FILE. This way I
could save various sizes of the image without changing the
original.

Ok, I've save the scaled image, so I select GO TO CUT & PASTE
to return to the cut & paste function. If I had attempted to
do this WITHOUT saving the image, A message would have
appeared reminding me to save it, or restore the original
image size.  Now I'm ready to select sections of the image
and move or copy. The procedure is really very simple: Adjust
the size and location of the box to define the area you want
to move or copy. Use the mouse for gross adjustments. Use the
arrow keys for finer movements. Once you have define the
area, select from the menu either COPY CONTENTS or MOVE
CONTENTS. Although nothing on the screen will change you can
now move the box to the new location. Once the box is where
you want the section of the image to be placed, hit
enter/left mouse button. After the contents have been moved
or copied, hitting enter/left mouse button will bring up the
cut & paste function menu.

Ok, now that you have the text where you want it, let's
change the symbols used. (you might want to save the image at
this point, just in case).

There are 2 ways to change symbols. Using the EDIT menu,
select MASS SYMBOL UPDATE. From here you can change EVERY
OCCURRENCE of any symbol. That's no going to help us here,
because we only have 1 symbol. So we will change the symbols
individually. Select the CURRENT SYMBOL (F8) from the menu
bar and from the list of 256 symbols, select the symbol you
want to use. Notice how the symbol shown beside the words
CURRENT SYMBOL has changed to reflect your choice. Position
the mouse arrow in the square containing the symbol you wish
to replace and depress the left mouse button (or hit enter).
You can replace the symbols in each letter using this method.

After you have changed the symbols to the ones you want to
use, it's time to check the DMC color numbers and names
assigned to the symbols. From the VIEW menu, select VIEW
SYMBOLS. You will be presented with a list of all the symbols
used, the DMC numbers and the color names assigned to that
color. If you select PRINT, you can get a hard copy of JUST
the symbols and DMC number and color name. If you want to
change DMC color number, or the name, select the symbol you
want to change. The DMC information will appear in the
appropriately labeled boxes. Select the name or number and
change it. To save the new information, select SAVE, to
CANCEL use CANCEL. When you are done viewing and/or changing
this information, select DONE.  (I'll do MERGE under SYMBOL
REDUCTION)

If you change the DMC information make sure you save the
image as an CCS file. The new DMC information will be save as
part of the file. If you don't save the image as an CCS file,
when you re-load the image the DMC information found in
master.dmc will be used.

The pcx I use for symbol reduction is the frog.pcx. This is a
smallish 256 color image of a tree frog. So load that pcx
into PCX2CCS and let's go.

When you are presented with the grid loaded with the frog,
you will notice LOTS of different symbols. There are, in
fact, 252 different symbols. (You might want to take a quick
VIEW of the image before we start, if the white back ground
looks funny, then from the EDIT MENU, turn the back ground
symbol ON). If you use the VIEW menu and select VIEW SYMBOLS,
you can list all the different symbols.  If you'ld like to
keep a hard copy of the list for reference, then select PRINT
SYMBOLS.  IMHO, 252 different colors, most of which are
green, is way too many.  So let's reduce the number of
symbols.

There are actually 2 ways to reduce the number of symbols, 1
way is to use the SYMBOL REDUCTION option from the edit menu,
the other is to use the MERGE button on the VIEW SYMBOLS
window. THe difference is that SYMBOL REDUCTION works with
the color palette to reduce the number of symbols, and MERGE
works with the DMC color assigned to the symbols. All symbols
that were assigned the same dmc color NUMBER, will be changed
to the first occurance of that number. First symbol
reduction.

When you reduce the number of symbols, the program will
create a new color palette with a reduced number of colors,
and then reassign each pixel in the image from the OLD
palette color to the NEW color palette. There are 2 different
ways to do this reassignment. (Note: I am NOT going to dive
into the math involved, if you are seriously interested in
the mathmatical equations, read the manual).  The new colors
can be reassigned by dithering the image or by using a
transformation matrix.

Dithering involves examining each individual pixel and
determine which color in the NEW palettes is the closest to
the OLD palette and change the pixel color. Since this is not
an exact match, the error, or how far off the match is, is
distributed to the surrounding pixels. You have a choice of 3
dithering algorithms.

Using a transformation matrix is much faster than dithering,
mostly because the matrix routines where provided with the
graphics library I use and as such have been fine tuned for
speed. The 2 palettes are set up as matrixes and the
individual pixels are used in performing the matrix
calculations. If you've ever taken a college level calculus
class, then you've been exposed to matrix manipulations.
Personally, I forgot how to do it as soon as possible.

A final alternative is to NOT adjust the individual pixels,
but to just reassign the color, ignoring any errors. This is
the fastest of all the techinques, since there is no
additional work involved.

So, lets do some symbol reductions. Call up the EDIT MENU,
and select SYMBOL REDUCTION. You will be presented with a
window from which you can choose the number of symbols and
the dithering or matrix algorithm to use. Make your
selections and select OK. Depending on how many symbols and
the algorithm this might take a while. The longest part is
the remapping of the individual pixels. A wait bar will so
you the progress.

After it finishes, you will be returned to the grid. To see
how well you did, you might want to VIEW the image and then
VIEW SYMBOLS to see what symbols are now being used. You'll
probably notice that the background is now filled with a
symbol. The background of the original image was BLACK, and
this is used in calculating the new color palette. As a
result of the calculation, the black background becomes a
black !. With the BACKGROUND SYMBOL toggled off, you will see
white "flecks" this is the current background. Turn the
background symbol ON and the white flecks disappear.

If you're not thrilled with the resulting, from the edit menu
you can RESTORE the original image and try again. You might
try printing off a copy of the symbols for each symbol
reduction, making a note of which technique you used, and how
many colors you selected. This is a true "try it and see if
you like it" process.

Now MERGE DUPLICATES. This process is fairly quick. THe list
of DMC color number is scanned and for all duplicate
occurances of a number, the symbol is changed to the first
occurance. Then the entire image is read, changing all the
symbols that need to be changed. The color palette is not
changed.

There are a couple of interesting additions to version 5.4.

First of all on the INFORMATION menu are 2 additional pieces
of information, 1 is the total number of different colors
used in the image. (Yes that's how I knew that there were 252
different colors in the frog.pcx).  Also, in addition to
setting the evenweave count, you can also set the number of
strands that you will use when threading your needle. Why?
Well, this version will compute the number of skiens of floss
the you'll need to stitch the chart you are creating. That
information is available when you print the chart and when
you VIEW SYMBOLS.

Well, I guess that's it. If you have any questions or
problems, please feel free to contact me at [e-mail]
or [e-mail]

     Chris O'Donnell