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1992-09-02
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| AAAA SSSS GGGG VV VV 444 bb |
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| AA AA SSS GG GG VVVV 4444444 bb bb |
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+---------------------------------------------------+
| The best on the market today - and forever! |
+---------------------------------------------------+
+--------------------------------------------+
| So what are the contents of this doc file? |
+--------------------------------------------+
1. AutoStereoGram - What is it?
2. What does ASG do?
3. How do I use the program?
4. How do I start the program?
5. How do I make one quickly?
6. What do all of the menus do?
7. What about the display - what does it show?
8. How do I actually start creating a stereogram?
9. How do I create a pattern?
10. How do I go about designing one then?
11. Have you got any hints and tips?
12. After all that - tell me what centre does?
13. Is there any keyboard shortcuts?
14. I have already loaded up the program without reading the doc file
and I can't do some of the things you told me about - Why?
+------------------------------+
| AutoStereoGram - What is it? |
+------------------------------+
AutoStereoGram (ASG) is a stereogram maker, which, if you know what a
stereogram is, then you know what the program does. It is the best
stereogram maker on the market today, since it has everything you could
want (big head - Ed). All of the other stereogram makers have some sort
of flaw. One that I saw couldn't even load the pictures it was supplied
with, others only do it randomly (no user definable pattern) and others
have to have certain sizes (so you can't make massive pictures). The
other advantage of AutoStereoGram is the price. I have just read a
review of StereoCAD Pro in the May issue of AUI which they are trying
to sell for £29.95, which I think is a bit over the top.
I will try to explain what stereograms are for the uninitiated. Everyone
in the whole world has (by now) seen those funny patterned pictures,
which some people can "see" and others can't. If you can see them then
this program may be of interest to you. If you can't "see" them then
this program may get you interested enough to have "just one more go" at
staring at them, or it may be the most useless program in the world (I
hope not).
You are welcome to spread this demo version of ASG so long as the
following files accompany the program:-
ASG_V4b_Demo \_ Program and
ASG.Doc / doc files
Box.bsh \
Colin.bsh \_ Picture
IC3D.bsh / files
IC3D_Tunnel.bsh /
Eyes.pat \
Water.pat \_ Patern
Wildlife.pat / Files
Hair.pat /
and all accompanying .info files
+-------------------+
| What does ASG do? |
+-------------------+
ASG enables you to make your own 3D pictures with any picture file and
any pattern file you wish. All you have to do is draw the picture you
want to have in 3D, get a pattern from somewhere (either drawn, stolen
or scribbled), and just a few clicks of the mouse button and, hey
presto, your very own 3D picture. Of course you can't just do it any old
how with any old picture, they have to be made within certain guidelines
which I will come onto a bit later.
+---------------------------+
| How do I use the program? |
+---------------------------+
The program is very simple to use and you will pick up the routine after
playing around with it. It has a few menus, a couple of buttons and
several information boxes for you to select, click or observe.
+-----------------------------+
| How do I start the program? |
+-----------------------------+
The program is started by double clicking it's icon on the workbench. It
can be run from anywhere, but it must have a few files for it to run.
These are called library files and they must be present in your Libs:
directory or your Libs: assign. The following are needed for the program
to run. If you have these present then you are on your way to creating
your first stereogram.
mathtrans.library
asl.library
+----------------------------+
| How do I make one quickly? |
+----------------------------+
The following sections tell you the least you need to know about
creating stereograms, and can be used as a quick guide. If you want to
learn all of the tricks and techniques then read everything in this
file. I will just show you how to make one using the ready made pictures
and patterns.
1. Load up the program as described above.
2. Select "Load..." from the Project menu. Select "IC3D_Tunnerl.bsh"
and click on OK. To find it you will have to first select this disk in
the requester, the change into the ASG directory.
3. Select "Load..." from the Pattern menu. Select "Eyes.pat" and click
on OK. You will have to change to this disk again, and then to the ASG
directory to find the pattern.
4. Select "Execute" from the Render --> menu. Confirm to the requester
that you want to proceed and just watch it happen. The message area will
tell you it is "Initialising picture" and then it will count up to 100%
eventually telling you "Rendering Finished".
5. Select "Save..." from the project menu and save the file as
"Starter.asg" in "Ram:".
6. Load up your favourite paint package (DPaint, PPaint, Brilliance) and
load in the picture to view in its full glory. You have just made your
first stereogram.
The above bit can be used for any of the pictures supplied with any of
the patterns. So you should also be able to render the other pictures. I
recommend these patterns for each of these pictures:-
IC3D.bsh with Water.pat
IC3D_Tunnel.bsh with Eyes.pat
Box.bsh with Wildlife.pat
Colin.bsh with Hair.pat
+------------------------------+
| What do all of the menus do? |
+------------------------------+
1. Project menu
Load... - this loads up the original picture. If it is of the wrong
dimensions then the program will tell you about it.
Save... - this saves out the rendered picture.
Free... - this frees the memory taken by the picture and the pattern.
You will have to confirm this action. Do this with care otherwise you
may have to re-render your picture. I usually do this after saving my
picture and am a bit low on memory, so I do this before loading my
picture into my paint package.
About... - this will bring up a little window saying all of the usual
stuff you find in an About window.
Quit - do this when you want to quit - it will have to be
confirmed.
2. Pattern menu
Load... - this will load up your pattern for use on the picture. It
will tell you if any of the dimensions are wrong.
Free... - this will only free the pattern. I don't usually use this
but it is there for convenience. It might well be you are so low on
memory that you can't save the picture to Ram: after rendering the
picture, then you could free the pattern and see if there is enough room
to be able to be saved.
3. Render Method menu
This is for deciding how to Fill-in parts of the picture. These
techniques all have their advantages and disadvantages so an experiment
of the four different types is usually recommended.
X-Flip - this method is the one that is most used (especially for
big pictures).
X+Y-Flip - this method is usually used if the X-Flip doesn't look that
good. We usually want a method which doesn't make the picture broken up.
We want it to look like it is all one pattern all of the way through.
Stretch - this method is usually used for small pictures or pictures
which have few layers. It may also be used for patterns which have few
colours. Again experimentation is the key.
Random - this method doesn't just make the filled in bits of the
picture random, it makes the whole picture random. It uses the width of
the pattern for the picture and the patterns colour palette, but it uses
no data from the actual pattern. This was included in V4 since it was
left out of V2 and V3 and due to (little) popular demand has been
included in V4. This method usually works best for intricate pictures or
pictures with letters or writing on them. It actually makes the picture
clearer than the other methods but remember that you don't always want
that - you sometimes want the picture the blend in more to make it more
realistic. This method is especially suited to rendering stereogram
games since the levels are clearer.
4. Render --> menu
This menu only has one option which is "Execute". This is when you have
loaded your picture and pattern and selected your render method. You
will not be able to render if no picture and/or pattern is loaded.
+---------------------------------------------+
| What about the display - what does it show? |
+---------------------------------------------+
The display is split into several parts. From the top and working down
we have:-
Message area - this area is just a line of text which tells you want
is going on, what you (or it) have just done or what is wrong with
something. Some example messages are:-
1. Method of rendering is now X - Flip
2. Picture is of odd width - it must be even
3. Nothing to free
1. Project area - this tells you the width, height and no. of colours
the original picture has.
2. Pattern area - this tells you the width, height and no. of colours
the pattern has.
3. Centre area - this tells you how many pixels are going to be added
to the picture width to form the final picture. This is necessary for
the picture to come out properly. You will notice that the supplied
pictures have a picture width of 570, the patterns have a width of 80
and the final picture will have a width of 640. This has been previously
calculated so that the final picture will fit onto one Hires screen. The
Centre Width can be worked out from the equation
(Width of pattern) - (no. of colours in picture)/2 - 2
This may not be of interest to you now but it will come in handy later.
There are also 4 buttons in this box - I will also come onto them later.
4. Method area - this tells you the method that will be used during
the rendering of the picture as described above.
5. Output area - this will tell you the output dimensions of the
picture.
Width - can be found by adding the pictures width to the amount
shown in Centre.
Height - this is exactly the same as the pictures height.
#Cols - this is the number of colours of whichever is the
greater between the pictures colours or the patterns colours.
6. Picture file and Pattern file - these boxes show the path and name of
the input picture and pattern - just for reference.
+------------------------------------------------+
| How do I actually start creating a stereogram? |
+------------------------------------------------+
First of all you must draw your picture. This must have the following
features:-
1. The width must be an even number of pixels
2. The height can be any number of pixels you wish
3. The number of colours can be from 4-256
Remember, the "deeper" you want your picture, the more colours your
picture must have. E.g. a 32 colour picture will be deeper than an 8
colour picture. An 8 colour picture could also be simulated by using any
adjacent 8 colours of a 16 colour picture.
After you have drawn the picture, grab it as a brush and save it out
with a name like Picture.bsh or House.bsh, it must have a ".bsh"
extension (without ""). Instead of grabbing it as a brush, I usually
make the size of my screen the required size for the original bruch, but
save the picture with a .bsh extension.
+--------------------------+
| I do I create a pattern? |
+--------------------------+
The pattern can be any picture you wish but this too must have certain
features:-
1. The width must be an even number of pixels
2. The height can be any number of pixels
3. The number of colours must be from 4-256
4. The width must be greater than the number of colours in the original
picture.
After you have drawn the pattern, grab it as a brush and save it out
with the extension ".pat".
+---------------------------------------+
| How do I go about designing one then? |
+---------------------------------------+
1. What you should do first is to work out how big you want the final
picture. Lets say you want it to be 640 x 512 x 8 colours but with 16
levels. This picture will eventually be viewed on a 14" monitor at
640x512 resolution.
2. Work out the width of the pattern. The pattern, I say, should never
be bigger than about 2 inches when being viewed so a pattern width of
less than this should be used (but not less than about ¼ - this is just
a guideline that may be broken"). Lets use a pattern width of 80 pixels
which will give a pattern width of roughly between ¾" - 1¼" (minimum and
maximum).
3. Work out how much will be added onto the final picture. We have said
we want a 16 colour/level picture, with a pattern width of 80 - so we
are now able to work out the number to be added onto the picture using
ADD ON = (width of pattern) - (levels/2) - 2
= (80) - (16/2) - 2
= 70
So if we want the output picture to be 640, then we must start off with
a picture of 640-70 = 570.
If all of the above is too tricky (or you don't understand it just yet)
then use a width of 570 for your pictures with 16 levels. Use a pattern
width of 80 to make the picture up to 640.
4. Draw your 16 colour, 570x512 picture. Remember that colour 0 will be
the furthest away and colour 15 will be the closest to you. It doesn't
matter what the actual colours are, it only matters about the colour
number. Have a look at some of the pictures already supplied and try to
work out which parts of the picture are furthest away and which are
closest to. It is sometimes easier to give pure Black to colour 0 and
pure White to colour 15 and spread between them to give increasing
intensity shades of black through greys to white. This might be
easier because when you see the actual pictures in books and papers,
they usually give you the solution in shades of grey so it may be easier
to understand.
5. Draw your pattern of 80 pixels width and get that as a brush. It
doesn't matter how many colours it has since it is independent of
anything else. Nor does it matter how high it is since it has been put
into V4 that you can have any height pattern. If the pattern height is
too big, then ASG will ignore the excess at the bottom, if it is too
short, then ASG will wrap around to the top of the pattern again.
6. Proceed as described earlier about Loading the program, the picture,
the pattern, choosing the render and executing.
7. Save the picture out and load it up into your paint package and view.
If it didn't turn out as you thought it would, go back to re-draw some
of your picture (and possibly the pattern as well). Hope you like it.
That is what you have to do for making your own 3D pictures, I hope your
first effort is worth it.
+----------------------------------+
| Have you got any hints and tips? |
+----------------------------------+
I have got a few hints and tips from using the program since I have been
using a version of it for about 6 months now.
1. If you have the memory, have your paint package running alongside
with ASG. It is much easier for drawing, rendering and changing. I
usually have the rendered picture on one page and the starting picture
on the other (spare) page. The pattern is usually not in the paint
package since they are usually drawn until you are happy and never
changed after that. I then flick from page to spare looking at how the
picture came out and how it could be changed.
2. If you are usually going to make many of your pictures all of the
same width (after rendering) then always use the same original width and
hence the same pattern width so that you can get a collection of
patterns which can be used with any picture (like the pictures and
patterns supplied - the patterns can all be used with any picture).
3. When you are rendering a picture, flick to your paint package and
have another look at the previously rendered version of your picture.
This will give you a moment to study the picture and decide what should
be done to it. I usually have to do about 5 renders (or more) of a
picture before I am satisfied with the result.
4. After entering a picture and saving it out, do not load it into a
picture viewer first (like PPshow, Viewtek), I recommend that you load
it into your paint package and save it out again. This has two
advantages - the picture will then have an icon and it will also be in a
more stable ILBM format (I think Blitz sometimes saves it a bit funny).
5. If your paint package says that your picture has a bigger width than
what you thought it should be, then don't worry. If you thought you had
a width of 360 then (I think) Blitz will save it as 368 width (with
nothing in the final 8 pixels). I think Blitz can only handle bitmaps
which have a horizontal width as a multiple of 16.
6. If your pattern has 8 colours and your input picture has 16 colours,
then the final picture will be a 16 colour picture - but it will only
contain 8 colours (since the pattern only has 8). I would load it into
your paint package and reduce the number of colours on screen to 8. It
might save a bit of disk space.
+------------------------------------------------+
| After all that - now tell me what Centre does? |
+------------------------------------------------+
Centre is a bit of code I put in there from the start since I thought it
was important. It can be useful sometimes but 99% of the time I just
leave it as it is. It can be changed using the buttons on either side
(down 20, down 2, up 2, up 20) in that order but what I recommend is to
just leave it and ignore it. It is only important that you know what the
value will be when you have loaded your picture and pattern - just so
you know how much is being added on to your picture for the output.
These buttons can also be used from the keyboard by pressing "{", "<",
">" or "}" for the required button.
If you want to know what it does, then read this paragraph, otherwise,
just skip to the next section - now! Sometimes (especially with small
pictures), the final picture, when viewed, will look slighly distorted
in the horizontal. It will either look lengthened or shortened. If the
colours around the centre of the picture where around the middle of the
palette, then this problem would not happen. If the colours around the
centre where towards the lower end of the palette, then the picture
would look as though it had been lengthened. This could be rectified by
making this value "Centre" a little less than what it would be as
default. If the colours around the centre where towards the upper end
of the palette, then the picture would look shortened. This could be
rectified by making the value a little more than what the default would
be. After changing the value of Centre this may introduce the problem
of the final picture width not being what you want it to be. This can
be rectified by changing the width of the original picture, or changing
the width of the pattern. If you do not understand this part, do not
worry and say "Oh, it's all too complicated for me", you do not need to
know how this works really. Even I don't use this feature, but it's a
nice one to have if you do need it. It also makes for interesting
reading (I'm sure).
+----------------------------------+
| Is there any keyboard shortcuts? |
+----------------------------------+
Any decent program nowadays has comprehensive shortcuts and this is no
exception - in fact the whole program can be used from the keyboard
(which is great if your mouse is broken).
The menus can be used by using the shortcut Right Amiga and the letter
next to the option.
Load picture - L
Save picture - S
Free all - F
About - A
Quit - Q
Load pattern - P
Free pattern - R
X-Flip - 1
X+Y-Flip - 2
Stretch - 3
Random - 4
Execute - X
The asl requester can also be used from the keyboard.
Up/Down for selecting the file/directory and pressing return for
selecting the directory or for OKing the file.
Right Amiga and O can be used for OK
Right Amiga and V can be used for Volume
Right Amiga and P can be used for Parent
Right Amiga and C can be used for Cancel
Finally, the requester that pops up every so often can be controlled by
the keys 1 or 2 to select your desired option.
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| I have already loaded up the program without reading the |
| doc file and I can't do some of the things you told me |
| about - Why? |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
The version of ASG you have is the demo version of the full program. Now
don't go away snorting saying "I bet the program doesn't let me do
anything" because it lets you do a lot of things. The program is the
full thing with a couple of restrictions. I put a limit on the size of
the picture you can create. The output width must be 640 or less, the
height 512 or less and the colours 16 or less. The only other thing is
that the method of rendering has been limited to X-Flip only since this
is the most used one (the other three have been disabled). As you will
be able to tell, you can still do a lot with this version, since all of
the pictures and the patterns on this disk can be used with this version
and you can see the results yourself.
If you want the full program with no restrictions, send just £5 (or
more) payable to Andrew Chilton, (not ChiltERn),
to:-
+-------------------------+
| +---------------------+ |
| | Andrew Chilton, | |
| | 90a Claremont Ave, | |
| | Maghull, | |
| | Merseyside. | |
| | L31 8AL. | |
| +---------------------+ |
+-------------------------+
I wouldn't suggest sending cash in the post - do it at your own risk -
it may get stolen.
The registration form is at the end of this doc file so print it out
from your text processor and fill in the details. You can write your
letter on the back of the form (and please write something - I hate it
when the letter just says "Here's some money - send me the full version
- thanks"). If you haven't got a printer - don't worry too much (you are
not forced to do it) - I am only doing it out of interest.
What you will get for your money is the full version of the program,
some extra pictures and patterns and a load of other stuff. I will tell
you (and show you) how to make professional quality stereograms! I will
also show you a couple of stereogram games to play and some extra
details about how to go about making them.
Overall, what you will get for your money is quite impressive, all for
the cost of less than half as much as a budget game - and a lot more fun
into the bargain.
What the full version has is what you can't have at the moment. So with
it you can create stereograms of infinite size (memory permitting) i.e.
any size width or height. It can also have from 4 to 256 levels (whereas
you can only have 16). Finally, you can use any of the fill-in methods
i.e. X-Flip, X+Y-Flip, Stretch and Random, but at the moment you can
only have X-Flip. It really is quite a bargain.
Can I just say that if you are sending from abroad then could you add a
little bit more on to pay for the postage. After releasing V1 of ASG
into the Public Domain I had a few registrations from Canada and one
from Australia all with £3 in them (£3 the going rate of V1 but it has
gone up a bit now - but still not much). Taking into account the cost of
the disk, jiffy bag and stamp (and a bit of time) the cost came up to
about £2 so I only made little on them. It was my first shareware
release so I learnt from my mista(i)kes.
I am now at university, so I now have an e-mail number (at last). If
you want to contact me for any queries or questions then I will be
pleased to hear from you. Remember that I won't be able to try your
questions out since I do not have the Amiga at university. Remember
also, that if you e-mail me outside term time, then I won't see your
note until term comes round again (so don't e-mail me in the holidays -
unless you want to do it so I'll see it next time and you don't mind the
wait):- < mchu4apc@fs2.ee.umist.ac.uk >
Just a couple of thanks to some people before I go:-
To everyone who registered ASG V1.1 (and there weren't that many of you)
and to the (few) people who have so far registered V2. I never actually
released V3 because by the time I wanted to release it I had already
thought of most of the things I wanted to put in V4, so I waited for
that (and well worth it too).
To Commodore (whoopse) - nuff said.
To Acid Software for Blitz Basic 2 which I used to create this program.
Thanking you very much.
p.s. If anyone can tell me how to get hold of BUM 6 (if you have Blitz
you will know what I am on about). When I got Blitz I sent my
registration card off and I presumed I would be sent it in the post. I
haven't heard anything for about 6 months so I don't know what to do
(and silly me has lost the address).
p.p.s. I have learnt a bit of C since being at uni, so I may think
about writing ASG in C over the summer - it's a long shot but it might
just work.
Registration form
------------------------------------------------------------------
Send to :-
Andrew Chilton,
90a Claremont Ave,
Maghull,
Merseyside.
L31 8AL.
Hello Andy,
I would like a copy of ASG V4 and a load of other goodies.
I enclose £___ for my registration fee.
Please send my disk to:-
Name - Date __/__/__
Address -
Where did you get your current copy -
Suggestions for improvement -
Bugs found (I dare you) -
__ __ __
Version of kickstart - |__| 1.x |__| 2.x |__| 3.x
Amiga -
__ __
Memory - |__| MB Chip mem |__| MB Fast mem
__
Harddisk - |__| MB
Other hardware -
