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┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ANSIrez (tm) - Documentation Release 1.0 │ └──────────────────────────────────────────┘ "320x200x256 Graphics to ANSI code" - Operation Manual - Copyright 1992 ∙ Fred Bertagnolli ∙ All Rights Reserved ------------ PLEASE READ ALL THE DOCUMENTATION! You will not understand the program if you do not read this information. This program can ONLY be installed ONCE and will run for 50 times. It will not run on a floppy drive or RAM drive. ------------ CD-ROM manufacturers/distributors and commercial shareware distributors must contact the author before permission is granted for distribution of ANSIrez on any media for a fee. Use without permission violates the copyright held by Fred Bertagnolli. ------------ BBS Sysops may distribute ANSIrez as long as NO FEE is charged for distribution of the ANSIrez ZIP archive. ------------ To register this program send $25 U.S. or $35 U.S. if overseas to: Fred Bertagnolli 745 Maple St. Ogden, Utah 84403 Registration will be mailed to you within 3 working days. Registration removes all protection schemes from ANSIrez. This document contains extended ASCII chars and may not print correctly on all printers. -1- ┌────────────────────┐ │ What is ANSIrez? │ └────────────────────┘ The program SCANS a 320x200x256 screen and creates an ANSI file. This program is intended for those who enjoy making ANSI color text screens. ANSIrez is a tool for ANSI artists and for those who like creating unusual bulletin board screens. I recommend you use TheDraw(tm) to edit the AREZ.ANS output file. The program reduces up to 256 colors to 16 ANSI colors and uses a limited pattern matching set. Don't expect miracles with ANSIrez. ANSIrez does not replace talent. Most ANSI screens created with ANSIrez can be improved by editting with TheDraw. ANSIrez can also create some terrible messes. It depends on how you use the program and the type of image you are scanning. The best scans are made by scaling a portion of a GIF file. -2- ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Introduction and Technical Overview of ANSIrez │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ANSIrez attempts to convert 320x200x256 images to ANSI code format. It uses pattern recognition techniques, color palette reduction, and a variety of image processing techniques. ANSIrez outputs a single file: AREZ.ANS ( a 79 x 25 character ANSI color text file. ) By using █ ▀ ▐ ▌ ▄ ■ as pattern matching characters, many GIF or PCX graphics files can be converted to ANSI format with good results. This particular pattern/color recognition technique may not work well on all GIF images. It is important you understand this. Use of the program requires a good "eye", and a bit of skill. It requires experimentation on your part, for best results. ANSIrez output is completely different that ANSICVxx, a program which inputs GIF files and outputs ANSI files using color blends of the ▒ character. ANSIrez reduces the 256 color palette to the 16 available colors for ANSI screens using a best-fit method. A "Level" option lets you boost the original RGB (Red/Green/Blue mixes) colors against the ANSI colors, for pseudo coloring effects. A monochrome coloring option is also available. You are presented with a variety of tools for scaling, filtering, color filling, lines, and block fills in an ordered menu sequence. Mouse pointing and graphic pushbuttons make for easy operation. When ANSIrez scans an image, it tries to match color patterns with what it "thinks" is the best available matching character, from the pattern matching set. I settled on this particular set by trial and error methods. This method generally works better on images if they have been scaled. -3- AREZCAP.EXE ( a TSR ) is use to capture raw screens used by ANSIrez. This TSR saves raw screen data and color palette data from any program capable of displaying GIF or PCX files in 320x200x256 mode. It will not work with any other graphic resolutions. You will need a program to view GIF or PCX files in 320x200x256 mode, so AREZCAP can "capture" the image. I recommend CSHOW or an image processor called IMPROCES. The TSR method was chosen over direct translation of GIF or PCX files because it was easier to write, and should support grabbing image data in VGA 320x200x256 video mode, regardless of the original image file format. A future version of ANSIrez may support direct translation of GIF and PCX files. For now, I like the TSR method. ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Required IBM PC compatible equipment │ └────────────────────────────────────────┘ 1. Microsoft Compatible Mouse. 2. VGA Graphics Card. (VGA register compatible) 3. Hard drive. 4. Some interesting GIF or PCX files and a program that can display them in 320x200x256 VGA mode. (a viewer, like CSHOW ) 5. DOS 3.0 or higher. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ IMPORTANT: Do not change the name of any ANSIrez files. The │ │ program is hard coded to recognize only the original │ │ file names contained in the ANSIrez ZIP archive │ │ package. Do not re-zip the files. They are modified │ │ when you run the program and will not run on other │ │ computers after installation. │ │ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ -4- - Release History - 12-25-92 ANSIREZ1.ZIP Posted on Salt Air BBS. -------------------------------------------------------------------- ANSIrez1.ZIP ARCHIVE should contain the following files: ANSIrez.EXE The main program ANSIrez.DOC This document AREZCAP.EXE The TSR screen image capture utility. Read all the documentation before using AREZCAP.EXE VGA256.BGI The Borland Graphics Driver ANSIrez.SCR A sample 64000 byte raw screen image ANSIrez.PAL A sample 768 byte raw color palette FILE_ID.DIZ Description for BBS file listing. AREZ.ANS The file ANSIREZ makes. Several converted ANSI files created with ANSIrez. -------------------------------------------------------------------- - Table of Contents - Distribution Policy .................... 1-7 What is ANSIrez? ...................... 2 Technical Overview ..................... 3-4 Required Equipment ..................... 4 Table of Contents ...................... 5 Included Files ......................... 5 Software License Agreement ............. 6 Disclaimer ............................. 7 ANSIrez 50 run limit ................... 8 Installation ........................... 9 Mouse Buttons .......................... 9 Color Menu ............................. 10-11 Boost Menu ............................. 10 Scale Menu ............................. 12 Filter Menu ............................ 13 Paint Menu ............................. 14-15 Scan Menu .............................. 16 ANSIrez Pattern Recognition ............ 17 AREZCAP TSR Screen Capture Utility ..... 18-19 By using this software, you agree to and acknowledge all terms of software license agreement, distribution policy, and disclaimer. -5- ┌────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ANSIrez Software License Agreement │ └────────────────────────────────────┘ By using ANSIrez for evaluation purposes or by making it available on a Bulletin Board System, you agree to and acknowledge all of the following terms, conditions and restrictions, including the distribution policies and disclaimer clauses. ANSIrez is not a Public Domain program and as such is NOT "Freeware." ANSIrez is not a Public Domain program and as such is NOT "Shareware." This version of ANSIrez is a limited, 50 run version of the full ANSIrez program. It may be distributed for evaluation purposes by BBS Sysops only, without a fee. It is fully functional and is not demo-ware or cripple-ware. I prefer the term "EVALUATION-WARE." ANSIrez(tm) is Copyright 1992 by Fred Bertagnolli, the sole author and owner of the program, accompanying documentation, and scanning methods/algorithms used by this program. Non-registered users of ANSIrez are granted limited use of the program. You are granted a limited software license to run the program 50 times. The program will currently run only 50 times, for evaluation purposes only. After 50 times, you must pay for the program by registration. You are granted permission to install this program on only one machine, and you may install it only once. Commercial users must register. ANSIrez may NOT be modified in any respect, for any reason, including but not limited to, de-compiling, disassembling, reverse engineering, or changing text in the ANSIrez.EXE program, program files or any accompanying documentation. Use of this software is just like a book, in that the software may be used only by one person at a time, provided there is no possibility of two people using the software at the same time. Registered owners of the software license may make one backup copy of ANSIrez for archival purposes only, and to protect your investment from loss. Registered owners of the ANSIrez software license are forbidden from sharing information or passwords which allow non-registered users to upgrade the software. Release of your registered password shall be interpreted as a violation of U.S Copyright Laws, intent to defraud the author of his copyright to the ANSIrez program, and cancels your software license agreement. The software license is non-transferable. The limited software license is non-transferable. You may not sell the software license after registration. -6- ┌─────────────────────┐ │ Distribution Policy │ └─────────────────────┘ BBS SYSOPS: BBS Sysops may distribute only the limited run version of ANSIrez, provided NO DISTRIBUTION FEES of any kind are charged and also provided the ANSIrez ZIP archive and files it contains have not been altered in any way. You may only distribute the original ANSIrez ZIP archive. Thank you for making it available to your users. BBS subscription fees are exempt from this clause. CD-ROM manufacturers/distributors: A T T E N T I O N Distribution of ANSIrez on CD-ROM media is forbidden, without a written agreement between the distributor, CD-ROM maker and Fred Bertagnolli. The selling or distribution of CD-ROM media containing this program violates the copyright of Fred Bertagnolli. Shareware distributors for profit: A T T E N T I O N "Shareware" distribution firms or other commercial firms who distribute programs for profit are expressly forbidden from distributing ANSIrez on any media without a written agreement between the shareware distributor and Fred Bertagnolli. The selling of any media containing this program violates the copyright of Fred Bertagnolli. Reason: CD-ROMs and Shareware are being distributed at a profit. They are selling the work of shareware authors, but do not compensate the authors who are the source of the material they gather and sell. ┌──────────────┐ │ Disclaimer │ └──────────────┘ No warranties or guarantees of any kind are implied or given for use of the ANSIrez program or the accuracy of this document. *** Use this program at your own risk. *** Fred Bertagnolli disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied. In no event will Fred Bertagnolli be liable for any loss of profit or other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages. -7- I can not guarantee ANSIREZ will work on with your equipment, since this program uses a Graphic User Interface and because some VGA cards may not be compatible with the VGA256.BGI Borland graphics driver. If you have a problem with ANSIrez, please contact the author via mail and describe the situation. Please read all the documentation first. Honest criticism and suggestions are welcomed. Requests for changes or feature enhancements from registered users will be given first priority. -------------------------------------------- ┌─────────────────────────────────┐ │ ANSIrez 50 Run Limit │ └─────────────────────────────────┘ Shareware policies are generally ignored by almost everyone. I have written dozens of shareware/freeware programs. To those honest people who support shareware authors, you have my thanks and respect. Unfortunately, the only way to protect my investment in time and hard work is to limit how many times ANSIrez will run. 50 times should be enough. Thank you very much for evaluating the program. I hope you have some fun with the program. Copyright issues: If you use a GIF someone else created, you may be in violation of their copyright. Use only PUBLIC DOMAIN GIF/PCX files with ANSIrez. The author disclaims all responsibility for copyright violations of ANSI pictures made with ANSIrez. -8- ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐ │ INSTALLATION and Beginning Operation │ └──────────────────────────────────────┘ Read these instructions CAREFULLY before you install ANSIrez! You may only install ANSIrez ONCE. Unzip the ANSIREZ1.ZIP archive to its own directory. The directory name is not important. i.e. MD ANSIREZ CD ANSIREZ PKUNZIP ANSIREZ1.ZIP \ANSIREZ You will need about 200K of free disk space. Always run ANSIrez.EXE from its own directory. The program will not run correctly if you are not in the ANSIREZ.EXE directoy. The VGA256.BGI graphics driver must be in the ANSIREZ.EXE directory. Run ANSIrez.EXE and answer the questions. Be sure to remember your PASSWORD. If you forget your password, there is no way to retrieve it. The questions are not repeated so type carefully, and please use your real NAME. You will have to see this NAME again. You will not be able to change this information. Type in your PASSWORD. Check the run counter. It starts at 50. I have included a sample ANSIrez.SCR and ANSIrez.PAL file to get you started. You create your own ANSIrez.SCR and ANSIrez.PAL using the TSR AREZCAP program and your GIF viewing program. ANSIrez.SCR, 64000 bytes and ANSIrez.PAL, 768 bytes are the captured screen image and palette in raw form. ┌──────────────────────────┐ │ USE of the MOUSE BUTTONS │ └──────────────────────────┘ Press the LEFT MOUSE BUTTON to activate a graphic pushbutton. Press the RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON to CANCEL or RETURN to a menu, in ALL cases requiring the mouse arrow. The LEFT BUTTON is always used for selecting a graphic pushbutton or for pointing and dragging. -9- ┌──────────────────┐ │ THE COLOR MENU │ └──────────────────┘ On startup, the screen is drawn and you see: ┌─────────┬───────┬────────┬──────┬──────┐ │ COLOR │ Level │ Thresh │ Mono │ Next │ └─────────┴───────┴────────┴──────┴──────┘ Press the LEVEL BUTTON first. THE LEVEL BUTTON: Push the LEVEL BUTTON and the color BOOST menu appears. Here you may adjust the color level of ANSI colors. You are adjusting the original colors remapped to 16 ANSI colors. You should ALWAYS check the color Level before moving on. ┌──────────────────┐ │ THE BOOST MENU │ └──────────────────┘ The following menu appears briefly, to remind you which keys to press. This portion of the program requires key pressing and does not use the mouse. Pushbutton colors would conflict with the on-screen color mapping. As soon as you push A a R r G g or B b the menu disappears. Any other key returns to the COLOR menu. ┌───────────┬────────────────────────────┐ │ Boost +- │ Aa Rr Gg Bb │ └───────────┴────────────────────────────┘ A key boosts intensity of ALL RGB colors in 5% increments a key lowers intensity of aLL RGB colors in 5% decrements R boosts only the Red portion of the RGB colors in 5% increments r lowers only the red portion of the RGB colors in 5% decrements G boosts only the Green portion of the RGB colors in 5% increments g lowers only the green portion of the RGB colors in 5% decrements B boosts only the Blue portion of the RGB colors in 5% increments b lowers only the blue portion of the RGB colors in 5% decrements You may have to press these keys many times to see any changes. -10- Experiment with BOOSTing by pressing the 'A' or 'a' key, many times. You can saturate the screen to almost all white or remove colors until the screen is black. You are looking for the best "BREAK" point, that is appealing to you. "PSEUDO COLORING" (false coloring) is possible. Do not over saturate the image with color. Scans are improved by using low intensity ANSI colors. BOOSTING is an ADDITIVE and SUBTRACTIVE process. Trying adding a lot of Blue with 'B' and subtracting rED with 'r'. You can come back to the original colors by pressing the 'a' to remove all the color, then press the 'A' key to bring the color levels back up. All BOOSTING is based on the RGB color model, by remapping the original 256 GIF palette to the 16 available ANSI colors. After you have adjusted the colors, press any other key to return to the COLORS menu. You can come back again to check the level. REMEMBER: The colors on screen will not appear as TRUE ANSI colors, until you have pressed Aa Rr Gg or Bb, because menu buttons temporarily reset some of the colors. THE THRESH BUTTON: You may only press this button once. It stands for THRESHOLD. Thresholding makes bright colors brighter and dark colors darker. It can improve the ANSI color contrast of an image. Press the THRESH button, then the LEVEL button followed by Aa Rr Gg Bb to see the results of THRESHOLDING and adjust the colors some more. Thresholding seems to bring out FLESH tones a little better on images I tried. After thresholding, the range of possible color adjustment is considerably lessened. THE MONO BUTTON: You may only press this button once. It converts the palette to MONOCHROME shades of ANSI colors... Press the LEVEL BUTTON followed by Aa Rr Gg Bb to see the results. You can still boost the colors to be more red, green, or blue. THE NEXT BUTTON: This is your only option to continue. It brings up the SCALE menu. You will see a line drawn from top to bottom. ANSIrez is remapping the screen colors to be ANSI colors. You will see a NEXT button in all the menus. Pressing NEXT always skips to the next operation. -11- ┌─────────────────┐ │ THE SCALE MENU │ └─────────────────┘ ┌────────┬────┬────┬────┬─────┬──────┐ │ SCALE │ 2x │ 3x │ 4x │ Box │ Next │ └────────┴────┴────┴────┴─────┴──────┘ 2x 3x and 4x BUTTONS: These bring up a single box that can be dragged to the area you want to scale by 2 times, 3 times or 4 times. Drag the box and push the LEFT mouse button to scale the enclosed area or push the RIGHT mouse button to abort/cancel. 4x makes big fat pixels, (4x4 to be exact) The scanner does a good job of converting exact 4x images, and will then only use ▄ ▀ in the scan. The scanner has a little more trouble converting exact 3x and 2x scaling. Some images can be converted without any scaling. It is best to make the area of interest as large as possible. BOX BUTTON: This is a dynamic scaling command. Pick two opposite box corners, then pick two more opposite box corners. The first box will be scaled into the second box. Experiment with this. You may press the RIGHT mouse button to abort. BOX scaling can distort the image, so it is a good idea to keep both pick boxes relatively rectangular. (same proportions as the screen) BOX scaling can also be used to make the area of interest wider, which may improve the scan. Example: Draw the first box around a portion of the image, then draw the second box at full screen size, for zooming. SCANNER HINT: "THINK BIG" Always make the area of interest as large as possible for better scans. SCANNER HINT: Exact 4x scaling works the BEST when scanned, giving a near perfect scan, but at the expense of horizontal resolution. The FILTERS (next operation) will not do anything if the image is exactly scaled to 2x or 4x. THE NEXT BUTTON: takes you to the FILTER menu. -12- ┌───────────────┐ │ FILTER MENU │ └───────────────┘ Filtering is optional. Using it effectively requires some experimenting. Filtering can remove noise or enhance thin lines. Only ONE type of filtering option can be applied to the image, because it sets the pixels in 2x2 blocks or 4x4 blocks of color. A "KEEP CHANGES" menu appears after applying a filter. Tech note: The term FILTER here, is not a typical image processing 3x3 KERNEL, if you are familiar with that term. It is similar but works on a 2x2 block of pixels. This filtering was determined by experimentation to give the best results when scanned and to help the pattern recognition routines. SCANNER HINT: Filtering will NOT change an image already scaled exactly to 2x or 4x, since the pixels are already grouped as 2x2 blocks. SCANNER HINT: Filtering may help on unscaled screens, 3x screens, and BOX scaled screens. I recommend using a filter after using an exact 3x scale or after using BOX scaling. ┌────────┬─────────┬───────┬───────┬─────┬──────┐ │ FILTER │ Median │ Blend │ Brite │ 4x4 │ Next │ └────────┴─────────┴───────┴───────┴─────┴──────┘ MEDIAN FILTER BUTTON: Averages 2x2 blocks. Tends to remove spot noise from the image. Useful for REMOVING thin lines lines from the image. BLEND FILTER BUTTON: Blends or Mixes the pixels into 2x2 blocks, like an artist mixes paint. This filter can add shading on some images. BRITE FILTER BUTTON: Uses the highest intensity pixel in a 2x2 area and sets the 2x2 block. Tends to remove noise but also fills in. Very useful for ENLARGING thin lines on dark backgrounds. 4x4 FILTER BUTTON: Not really a filter. It scales the image to be fat 4x4 pixels. If you are viewing an exact 4x scale, nothing happens. The NEXT BUTTON brings up the PAINT menu. -13- ┌────────────────┐ │ THE PAINT MENU │ └────────────────┘ ┌─────────┬───────┬────────┬─────┬──────┐ ┌──────┐ │ PAINT │ Color │ Fill │ Box │ Line │ ██ │ Next │ └─────────┴───────┴────────┴─────┴──────┘ └──────┘ THE COLOR BUTTON: Allows you to select the current painting color. The current painting color is shown in the ██ box and is used by Fill, Box, and Line commands. Press COLOR and 16 color buttons are drawn. LOW shows the low intensity ANSI colors. HIGH shows the high intensity ANSI colors. Press the LEFT mouse button to select the color. The current color is shown as a "pressed-in" button. NOTE: HIGH and LOW color intensities. HIGH and LOW are shown, since you need to be aware the program cannot make an ANSI color match with HIGH color attributes set for both foreground and background. This means, if the pattern the program finds is a ▄ and both the foreground and background colors are of HIGH intensity, that pattern cannot be created, since IBM computers do not allow this HIGH/HIGH combination in text mode. SEE SCAN for more explanation. Images with mostly low intensity colors seem to scan better. Low intensity backgrounds made with Fill improve the scan quality, and reduces reduces HIGH intensity conflicts. SEE SCAN for more explanation. THE FILL BUTTON: This button allows FLOOD FILLING of pixels with the current painting color. Pick the color you want to change on screen with the LEFT mouse button. The RIGHT mouse button cancels the fill command. Flood filling is intensive. Be careful. It is best to draw a black line around the area to filled first, to separate that area from the rest of the image. Experiment. Use the line command for small areas. Flood filling is especially useful for changing background colors to a low intensity color. A "KEEP CHANGES" menu allows you to undo the fill if you make a mistake. -14- THE BOX BUTTON: This command allows filling in a rectangle with the current painting color. Pick two box corners and the rectangular area will be filled in with the current painting color. SCANNER HINT: BOX filling is useful for erasing large areas of the screen with BLACK. THE LINE BUTTON: This button allows drawing multiple connected lines with the current painting color. The lines are thick, to help the scanner recognize them. SCANNER HINT: The thicker the line, the better chance the scanner has of recognizing it. Diagonal lines are not scanned with great quality, but LINES are useful for separating/outlining areas of interest from the background color. Press the LEFT mouse button to start and end a line. Press the RIGHT mouse button to move to a different location, then press the LEFT mouse button again to continue drawing lines. Press the RIGHT mouse button twice to cancel/abort to the paint menu. SCANNER HINT: Simple ANSI drawings can be created by first erasing the whole screen with the BOX fill command, then drawing lines, then filling the areas in with color. Try drawing a house or something simple, just for fun. You will get a better idea of how ANSIrez works. ██ Indicates the current painting color used by FILL, BOX, and LINE buttons. This is not a pushbutton. THE NEXT BUTTON brings up the SCAN menu. -15- ┌────────────────┐ │ THE SCAN MENU │ └────────────────┘ ┌─────────┬─────────┬────────┐ ┌──────┐ │ SCAN │ ▒ │ ▄▀ │ │ Quit │ └─────────┴─────────┴────────┘ └──────┘ THE ▒ BUTTON: This button starts the pattern recognition scanning and creates AREZ.ANS. This option here is for using the ▒ character when HIGH foreground and HIGH background intensity conflicts occur. (also mentioned in the painting menu) Normally, use this button for best results. If the scanner sees HIGH/HIGH colors it will replace the pattern it finds with the ▒ character as a HIGH/LOW color attribute. When finished, (about a minute, be patient) the AREZ.ANS scan is TYPED. You should have ANSI.SYS installed to see AREZ.ANS. AREZ.ANS is overwritten each time you make a scan. You may need to scan an image several times with different settings to get the best effect. THINK BIG for best results. THE ▄▀ BUTTON: This button starts the pattern recognition scanning and creates AREZ.ANS. It ignores HIGH/HIGH conflicts and sets the color to HIGH/LOW if an intensity conflict occurs. Try this command if you do not like the scan made with the ▒ button. Example... ANSIrez finds a HIGH INTENSITY YELLOW on a HIGH INTENSITY RED pattern. It will use either BROWN on HIGH INTENSITY RED or YELLOW on LOW INTENSITY RED, depending on the pattern it finds. IBM equipment will not display HIGH foreground/HIGH background character attributes. When finished, (about a minute, be patient) the AREZ.ANS scan is TYPED. You should have ANSI.SYS installed to see AREZ.ANS. THE QUIT BUTTON: Exits the scanner without making AREZ.ANS. The run counter on the unregistered 50 run version will always be reduced by one. -16- ┌─────────────────────────────┐ │ ANSIrez PATTERN RECOGNITION │ └─────────────────────────────┘ ANSIrez scans the image in 4 horizontal x 8 vertical pixel blocks. Shown: 4x8 block with ASCII patterns used by ANSIrez. 4 x 8 Grid 220 223 221 254 22 32 ┌─┬─┬─┬─┐ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ▄▄▄▄ ├─┼─┼─┼─┤ ████████ ████ ├─┼─┼─┼─┤ ████████ ████ ████ ├─┼─┼─┼─┤ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ████ ████ ├─┼─┼─┼─┤ ████████ ████ ████ █████ ├─┼─┼─┼─┤ ████████ ████ █████ ├─┼─┼─┼─┤ ████████ ████ └─┴─┴─┴─┘ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀ A 320x200 image can then have 80 characters horizontally and 25 chars vertically. ANSIrez uses █ ▄ ▀ ▌▐ ■ as pattern matching characters that fit into the 4x8 pixel group. It scans each 4x8 block many times trying to find the best match by determining the number of colors that best fits the fore and background pattern. If it cannot find a pattern, it will use the space character or █ character and the most common color in the 4x8 area. Please understand this is a limited pattern set. It is too bad IBM did not include more block type characters in the extended ASCII set. They would be extremely useful in scanning. As it is, we are stuck with the current set. Yes, it is possible to use custom character sets in EGA and VGA cards, but this is not universally available. Testing showed poor results with other characters, such as the line drawing extended ASCII set. All things considered, scanning images to ANSI with this program requires a good image to start with, a good eye, some skill, and some luck. If you don't like the output, try scanning again at a different scale or with lower intensity colors. You can always edit small details with TheDraw. Some images will not scan well at all, so try to be practical. Use TheDraw 4.51 to edit the AREZ.ANS file. Most scans can be improved with a little touching up. PCBOARD BBS SYSOPs: Get TDXL-3.ZIP (by me) for converting ANSI to PCBoard @X codes. Couldn't resist the plug! -17- ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Using the AREZCAP.EXE TSR Screen Image Capture Utility │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 1. ALWAYS install AREZCAP from the DOS command line, and NEVER from a DOS shell. 2. Install AREZCAP when you want to capture a GIF or PCX from a viewer for ANSIrez processing. 3. Install AREZCAP.EXE from the ANSIrez directory. AREZCAP will save ANSIREZ.SCR and ANSIREZ.PAL to the drive and directory it was loaded from, automatically. 4. Do not have any other TSR's loaded while using AREZCAP. Other TSRs can cause problems. 5. After loading AREZCAP.EXE it will tell you to press CTRL-T, when viewing a GIF or PCX file, in 320x200x256 mode, with your GIF viewer. Press CTRL-T, after the image has been drawn, and AREZCAP will save the raw screen image and color palette to ANSIrez directory. 6. Hard disk activity (the drive light goes on) is the only indication AREZCAP is saving the information. 7. Exit your viewer and run ANSIREZ.EXE to scan the image to ANSI. 8. You may remove AREZCAP from memory by typing... AREZCAP QUIT from the DOS command line, and never from a DOS shell. I recommend a viewing program called CSHOW (CSHOW option 8) but there are many other viewing programs available. In CSHOW, select option 8 for viewing in 320x200x256 mode, let the image come up, then press CTRL-T to save it. Hold the CONTROL KEY DOWN and press the T key at the same time. If your viewing utility will not display other GIF/PCX resolutions in 320x200x256 mode, there are utilities which convert them to smaller resolutions. SQZGIF comes to mind. AREZCAP checks to see if you are viewing in VGA Video Mode 13 Hex before it will save ANSIrez.SCR and ANSIrez.PAL. If your card uses Mode 13 Hex for other purposes, be sure you are viewing at 320x200x256, before pressing CTRL-T, or you may save information that is meaningless to ANSIrez. If AREZCAP will not work with a particular viewing utility for some reason, try a different GIF viewing program. -18- The TSR method of saving screens eliminates the problem of writing GIF and PCX conversion routines. It keeps the program smaller and gives you more variety in the types of 320x200x256 graphic files you can process with ANSIrez. ANSIrez and AREZCAP are not compatible with Windows, DesqView, and networked machines. Brands and product names mentioned in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The author is not affiliated with any of these companies. End of Document ANSIrez(tm) Copyright 1992 Fred Bertagnolli All Rights Reserved -19-