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FullView
Version 1.0
May 8, 1992
Copyright (C) 1992 Soloca, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
written by Rick Coupland
Users Manual
Soloca, Inc.
P. O. Box 31208
Flagstaff, AZ 86003-1208
Internet: rick@anasazi.COM
USENET: asuvax!anasazi!rick
FEATURES
FullView is an image viewer program for 80286, 80386 or 80486 based
systems with a VGA or Super VGA display adapter. FullView features
fast decompression and display of all supported image formats. The
16 bit (32,768 color) modes of Super VGA cards using the Tseng 4000
and the Siera HiColor DAC are supported. Images of any size may be
displayed but will be truncated to the total size of display memory.
Images whose size exceeds the screen size, in the current display mode,
may be scrolled horizontally and/or vertically. The following types of
image files may be displayed:
JPEG (.JPG) files, JFIF format; 24 bit full color or 8 bit
monochrome.
Targa (.TGA) files; all formats.
Graphics Interchange Format (.GIF) files; both the 87a and 89a
standards are supported.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This software is based in part on the work of the "Independent JPEG Group".
The "Independent JPEG Group" assumes no responsibility for any claims
arising from the use of FullView.
The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of CompuServe
Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of CompuServe Incorporated.
SHAREWARE NOTICE
FullView is distributed as shareware. You are welcome to use FullView
without charge for an evaluation period of 15 days. If you continue
to use FullView after the evaluation period, you are obligated to
register by paying a $25 license fee to Soloca, Inc. Please use the
included registration form (file REGISTER.TXT) when registering.
Registered users will receive a diskette containing the current
version of FullView, a set of high quality full color JPEG images
and the JPEG conversion utilities from the "Independent JPEG Group".
Registered users of version 1.0 will also be entitled to a free
upgrade to version 1.1 when it becomes available. As additional
new versions become available notices will be mailed to registered
users who may upgrade for a small fee.
You are encouraged to share FullView with others and to post it
on bulletin boards. If you do so, please pass along the complete
unmodified archive. BBS SysOps and shareware disk distributers
may contact Soloca, Inc. for a free copy of the latest version of
FullView.
Comments, suggestions or bug reports can be sent to me (Rick Coupland)
by electronic mail.
Internet: rick@anasazi.COM USENET: asuvax!anasazi!rick
Please contact Soloca, Inc. regarding site license agreements,
redistribution of FullView, or other special licensing needs.
SOFTWARE/HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
Hardware: IBM PC AT or compatible with Intel 80286 or later CPU
VGA or Super VGA display adapter
Software: MS-DOS or PC-DOS version 2.0 or later
Extended Super VGA display modes are available only if the VGA board
uses one of the supported chip sets or if a VESA interface is provided
by the video BIOS. If your VGA board is not based on a supported
chip set and VESA is not available, FullView will be limited to those
display modes available on a standard IBM VGA. The following Super VGA
chip sets are currently supported:
Chips & Technology 82C451, 82C452 and 82C453
Paradise (Western Digital) PVGA1A, WD90C00, WD90C10 and WD90C11
Tseng Labs ET3000, ET4000 & ET4000 with Siera HiColor DAC
Oak Technologies OTI-037C and OTI-067
VESA stands for "Video Electronics Standards Association". VESA has
defined a set of extensions to the video BIOS which provide method of
accessing Super VGA capabilities. Some Super VGA boards provide the
VESA extensions in the video ROM BIOS. Other vendors provide loadable
drivers which provide the VESA BIOS extensions. Drivers for several
types Super VGA boards are available directly from VESA. Their address
and phone numbers are given below:
Video Electronics Standards Association
2150 North First Street Suite 360
San Jose CA 95131-2020
Voice: 408-435-0333 FAX: 408-435-8225
CONFIGURATION
When FullView starts up, it performs tests to identify the type of display
adapter(s) which are installed. Normally, configuration is automatic.
You can use the -a option find out the type display adapter which
FullView has found and the display modes it thinks are available. In
some cases, not all of the listed display modes will function properly.
This could be the case if your monitor is not able to sync properly
in all display modes. If this occurs, you can use the -x option to
disable the display modes which do not work properly on your system.
This can most conveniently be done using a configuration file. See the
"Options" and "Configuration File" sections of this document for detailed
information these subjects.
USAGE
FullView utilizes a simple command line interface to specify files and
options. The general form of the command line is shown below.
fv [-options] file1 file2 ...
For normal viewing, you will only need to specify the names of the
files containing the images you wish to view. Fullview will display
the images in the files in the same order as the file names appear
on the command line. FullView will automatically select the most
appropriate display mode for each image. When you are finished looking
at an image, press the Enter key or space bar to advance to the next
image. Wildcard characters ("*" and "?") may also be used in the file
names given on the command line. A file name containing wildcard
characters represents a pattern which may be matched by one or more
actual files. Refer to the DOS User's Guide for further information on
the use of wildcards. To view all of the files in the current directory,
enter the following command:
fv *.*
When this command is entered, all of the image files in the current
directory will be processed in alphabetical order. All image files
whose type is recognized by FullView will be displayed. Files which
are not image files or are of a type not supported by FullView cause
an error message to be displayed. After displaying an error message,
FullView will pause until a key is depressed before proceding to the
next file.
To view files in other directories, you may give complete path names
rather than simple file names. For example, to view all .JPG files
in the "\pub\pics" directory on the "C" drive, you would use the
following command:
fv C:\PUB\PICS\*.JPG
Both backward slash (\) and forward slash (/) characters are recognized
as directory separator characters. Thus, the preceding command could
also be given as shown below:
fv C:/PUB/PICS/*.JPG
Files are normally expected to have a file name extension corresponding
to the type of the file. If a file does have a file name extension,
the extension is used to determine the file type. If a file name has
no extension, the first few bytes of the file are read to determine the
type.
Options
Options are used to alter the default behavior of FullView. Options
may be specified on the command line and may also be specified in a
configuration file. Options are distinguished from file names by a "-"
prefix character. Some options require a parameter value. When these
options are used, the associated parameter value must immediately follow
the option, with or without in intervening space. For example, "-m 13"
and "-m13" are both valid. Options which do not require a parameter
are used to enable or disable a feature or mode of operation and are
referred to (in this document) as binary options. Each instance of a
binary option in the configuration file or command line toggles the
option to the opposite of its prior state. Binary options are processed
in this way in order to allow the default settings to be changed using
the configuration file while preserving the ability to override the
defaults on the command line. Multiple binary options may either be
specified as separate words (eg. "-c -i") or may be concatenated into
a single word (eg. "-ci").
The follow is a complete list of the FullView options:
-a Causes the video adapter configuration information to be
written to standard out. This information consists of the
adapter type, the amount of display memory and a list of
available graphic display modes. By default this information
is not displayed.
-b Disables the generation of a tone after each image has been
decompressed and displayed. This tone signals that FullView
has finished reading an image file and is ready to accept
keyboard commands.
-c Sets continuous mode. Continuous mode causes FullView to
repeatedly display the list of files specified on the command
line until aborted. By default, FullView exits when finished
displaying the last file.
-d Disables Floyd Steinberg dithering for monochrome images and
images displayed in non-paletted display modes. In the
current version, dithering is always used when full color
images are displayed in paletted display modes. Refer to
the section on "Color Quantization and Dithering" for more
information.
-e By default, FullView will display an error message complaining
about files which are not in a recognizable image file format.
This option suppresses these error messages.
-i Causes information to be displayed about each image. This
information is displayed in window at the bottom of the
screen when FullView finishes reading the image file. The
information window is removed from the screen when any key
is depressed. If the -i option was also specified, the window
will be removed when the specified period of time has elapsed.
The image information window can also be displayed by pressing
the "I" key while image is on the screen.
-m nn Causes all images to be displayed using the specified display
mode. The parameter (nn) is hex number giving the ID of the
display mode to be used. A list of usable graphic display
modes can be obtained by using the -a option.
-p rgb Specifies the number of red, green and blue levels for a
uniform palette to be used with Floyd Steinberg dithering
when displaying an image which contains more colors than
are available in the current display mode. The parameter
(rgb) consists of three decimal digits giving the number of
red, green and blue levels respectively. The product of
these three values must be less than or equal to the number
of colors available in the current display mode (normally
256 or 16). Color quantization and dithering are discussed
in greater detail in a later section.
-s This option disables scrolling and restricts the image data
written to display memory to the visible area of the screen.
-t n Causes FullView to advance to the next image after an image
has been displayed for the specified period of time. The
parameter (n) is a decimal integer giving the number of
seconds to display each image. By default, FullView does not
advance to the next image until the Enter key or space bar
is pressed.
-v This option restricts FullView to using only those display
modes and capabilities available on a standard IBM VGA.
-V This option forces usage of the VESA BIOS interface even if
the display adapter is based on a supported Super VGA chip set.
If the VESA BIOS extensions are not available, this option has
the same effect as the "-v" option. By default, the VESA BIOS
interface will be used only if the display adapter is not based
on a supported Super VGA chip set.
-x nn This option inhibits the use of the specified display mode.
The parameter (nn) is a hex integer giving the ID of a display
mode. The -x may occur multiple times on the command line
or in the config file in order to inhibit the usage of multiple
display modes. This option is intended to handle situations
in which one or more of the display modes provided by the
display adapter do not function correctly on a particular
system. A list of the available graphic display modes may be
obtained by using the -a option.
-z Inhibits use of an overflow buffer for images whose size exceeds
the total size of the memory on the display adapter. By default,
on some display adapters, FullView uses an overflow buffer in
order to allow more of the bottom part of the image to be viewed.
The portion of the image stored in the overflow buffer will not
be visible when the image is initially displayed but can be viewed
by scrolling down. On some display adapters this does not work
correctly. In most cases FullView can determine this during
auto-configuration and will disable use of the overflow buffer
without the -z option. However, in some cases, this may not
be successful and the -z option will be required to fix the
problem. If you see garbage at the bottom of the screen after
scrolling to the bottom of large image, the problem can most
likely be solved by adding the -z option to your config file.
Examples
To obtain a usage statement describing command line format and options,
enter the following command:
fv
To display information about the display adapter type and available
display modes, enter the following command:
fv -a
To display a GIF file called "XYZ.GIF", enter the following command:
fv xyz.gif
To display all JPEG files in the current directory, enter the following:
fv *.jpg
To display all displayable image files in the current directory and ignore
all other files, enter the following:
fv -e *.*
To start a continuous display of all image files in the current directory
with a 5 second display of each image, enter the following:
fv -ce -t 5 *.*
Config File
The FullView config file provides a method of changing the default settings
for any of the options. The config file has a file name of "FULLVIEW.CNF"
and should be located in the same directory as the "FV.EXE" file. The
contents of the file consists of one or more lines of ASCII text. Each
line contains one or more option specifications in the same format as
they would appear on the command line. Blank lines are ignored.
A ";" character is used to introduce comments. All characters following
a ";" character on any line are ignored.
When FullView first starts up it searches for a config file first in
the current directory. If the config file is not found in the current
directory, the directory from which FullView was run (the directory
containing FV.EXE) is searched next. If a config file is found, the
file is read and the options contained in the file are processed.
If you find that you are frequently using the same set of command line
options when you run FullView, you may wish to create a config file
containing these options. Any of the option settings contained in the
config file, with the exception of -x, can be overridden from the command
line.
Keyboard Commands
Keyboard commands are used to control the operation of FullView. All
keyboard commands consist of a single keystroke. Most of the commands
can only be processed after FullView has finished reading and decoding
an image file, while the image is on the screen. However, three of
commands (Esc, Enter and Space) can be entered at any time.
In the current release of FullView, most of the keyboard commands are
concerned with scrolling the image on the screen. If sufficient display
memory is available, horizontal and vertical scrolling are enabled
whenever an image is displayed which is larger than the visible screen
area in the current display mode. If the display memory is large
enough, the entire image will be written to display memory and it will
be possible to scroll to the boundaries of the image. Otherwise, the
image will be truncated to fit within the available display memory.
One some VGA boards, only the first 64K of display memory is usable in
mode 13 (320x200, 256 colors). In this case, FullView will truncate
the image to fit within the first 64K of display memory when displaying
an image using mode 13.
The follow is a description of the keyboard commands:
Esc Terminate execution.
Enter Advance to next image. If the last image is being
displayed, terminate execution unless the -c option
is set.
Space This key has the same effect as the Enter key.
F1 Display a help screen containing a brief description of
the keyboard commands. The help screen will be removed
when any key is pressed.
h This key has the same effect as the F1 key.
i Display a window at the bottom of the screen giving
information about the current image and display mode.
This window will be removed when any key is pressed.
Down Arrow Scroll towards the bottom of the image.
Up Arrow Scroll towards the top of the image.
Left Arrow Scroll towards the left edge of the image.
Right Arrow Scroll towards the right edge of the image.
+ Increase the scroll rate.
- Decrease the scroll rate.
Scrolling is initiated when an arrow key is depressed and stopped when
the key is released. Diagonal scrolling may performed by holding down
the up or down arrow keys and the left or right arrow keys simultaneously.
If an arrow key is pressed while a Control key is held down, the image
will be scrolled 1 pixel in the indicated direction.
Using Fullview From Microsoft Windows
FullView is a DOS application which was designed to be compatible with
Microsoft Windows. The Windows file manager can be configured to associate
".JPG", ".GIF" and ".TGA" files with FullView. Once a file type has
been associated with FullView, you only need to "double click" or press
the Enter key to display the file. The following procedure may be used
associate a file type with FullView:
1. Using the mouse or arrow keys, select a file of the desired type.
The selected file will be displayed in reverse video.
2. Select the "Associate" item from the File Manager's "File" menu.
3. Type in the full path name of the FV.EXE file in the space
provided and press Enter. For example, if FV.EXE is in the
\BIN directory of the C: disk, you would type "C:\BIN\FV.EXE".
Of course, FullView can also be run from a DOS window in the same manner
as it would be run directly under DOS.
COLOR QUANTIZATION AND DITHERING
Color quantization refers to the process of reducing the resolution of
the color values in an image. This is required when the number of colors
in an image exceeds the number of colors which may displayed at the same
time. Color quantization is also required when the color resolution of
the image exceeds the color resolution of the display device.
The most straightforward representation of a color image is a format
which gives the color of each pixel as a value for each of three
color components (usually red, green and blue). In this document I
will refer to this type of format as a full-color format. In most
cases 8 bits are used to represent the value of each color component,
giving a total of 24 bits per pixel. This gives sufficient color
resolution to approach the limits of the ability of the human eye to
discriminate color.
Display devices such as the VGA utilize a set of registers for storing
the colors which may be displayed. The set of colors in the color
registers is called the palette. The colors in the palette are numbered
so that an index is associated with each color. Each pixel of the image
data contains the index of the palette color which is to be displayed for
that pixel. This method of representing an image is referred to as a
paletted format. The primary advantage of paletted formats is that the
amount of memory required to store the image is significantly reduced.
Another advantage is that the colors in the image can be manipulated
by changing only the palette colors. The disadvantage is that total
number of colors which may appear in any one image is quite limited
(usually 256 colors or less). This limits the accuracy to which a
full color image can be represented.
In order to display a full color image on a VGA, it must be converted
to a paletted format. The first step in this conversion is to select
a palette. Ideally, the palette should be chosen in such a way as to
allow all of the colors in the image to be approximated as closely as
possible. This is a non-trivial problem and several algorithms have
been developed for doing this. Most of these tend to be rather slow
and take large amounts of memory. Once a palette has been selected,
all of the pixels in the image must be assigned to one of the palette
colors. This can be done by assigning the palette color to each pixel
which most closely matches the original pixel color.
Another technique which can used for assigning the pixels to palette
colors is called dithering. Dithering makes use of the fact that the
eye averages the colors of neighboring pixels in a high resolution
image. Dithering adjusts the color of each pixel in such a way that
the average color of small areas more closely matches the color of
that area in the original image. In effect, dithering trades off
spatial resolution for improved color accuracy. In high resolution
modes, this results in a display which looks more like the original
image. At lower resolutions, individual pixels are more visible and
the image appears fuzzy. Dithering can be quite effective at reducing
the "banding" which occurs when smoothly shaded regions of an image
are quantized.
FullView uses uses a uniform palette and Floyd Steinberg dithering.
The palette is constructed by first calculating a pre-defined number
of equally spaced levels which span the entire range for each of the red,
green and blue components. The palette then consists of all combinations
of these levels. For a palette of 256 colors, FullView uses 7 red levels,
9 green levels and 4 blue levels by default. These values are used
because the eye is not equally sensitive to all colors of light. The
ratios given in most texts are .30 red, .59 green and .11 blue. The
number of levels for each of the components may be directly specified
using the -p option. However, the default values will give the best
results for most images. This method is quite fast and gives reasonable
results in the higher resolution modes. On a 19 inch monitor in
a 1024x768, 256 color mode, the results are quite acceptable. At lower
resolutions, the image may appear somewhat fuzzy.
Most VGA and Super VGA boards provide only 6 bits or 64 levels per color
component. When 8 bit grayscale images are displayed on these boards,
the 256 shades of gray must be quantized down to 64 shades. This can
produce visible effects in some images. FullView can use dithering in
this case to reduce these effects. The test image "gray1.jpg", included
with the shareware distribution of FullView, shows an extreme example
of this. Try looking at this image both with dithering enabled and
disabled (-d option) to see the effect of dithering on monochrome images.
FullView can also use dithering when displaying full color images in the
16 bit modes provided by the Siera HiColor DAC. These are non-paletted
modes which provide 5 bits (32 levels) per color component. The effects
of color quantization when displaying 24 bit images in these modes can
be quite noticeable in some images. Dithering reduces these effects
dramatically.
About JPEG
JPEG is a standardized method of compressing full color or monochrome
images. JPEG stands for "Joint Photographic Experts Group". This is
the name of a committee which developed the JPEG standard. JPEG was
designed to be used for images of natural, real world, scenes. The
primary advantage of JPEG is that it is capable of very high compression
ratios. JPEG is a "lossy" compression method. This means that some
of the information in a digitized image is lost when the image is
compressed and decompressed using JPEG. The amount of loss can be
controlled by adjusting compression parameters. Even though information
is lost, very good compression can be obtained with little or no visible
change to the image.
The JPEG standard does not specify a concrete file format. This has
resulted in a number of incompatible implementations by several vendors.
FullView uses the JFIF (JPEG File Interchange Format) which was coordinated
by C-Cube Microsystems and agreed to by a number of major commercial
JPEG vendors. This format is likely to become a de facto standard for
image files using JPEG compression.
A group of programmers, called the "The Independent JPEG Group", have
developed portable software for JPEG compression and decompression.
They have made the source code for this software freely available
and have allowed the royalty free use of this software in commercial
products. FullView uses portions of this software for JPEG decompression.
Some portions have been recoded for improved performance on a PC.
I wish to thank Tom Lane and the other members of the members of "The
Independent JPEG Group" for the use of this high quality software
in FullView.
The distribution from the "Independent JPEG Group" contains two conversion
utilities called cjpeg and djpeg. The cjpeg utility converts image files
in a variety of different formats into JPEG JFIF files. The djpeg utility
converts from JPEG JFIF format to a variety of output formats and can
perform color quantization using Heckbert's median cut algorithm. DOS
".EXE" files and supporting documentation for these two utilities are
included on the diskette distributed to registered FullView users. The
entire source distribution from the "Independent JPEG Group" can be
obtained on the internet from ftp.uu.net in the graphics/jpeg directory
or from Compuserve in the GRAPHSUPPORT forum.
New Features planned for Version 1.1
Two pass color quantization for 24 bit images.
Faster JPEG decompression for 386/486 based systems.
Scaling of images to fit display.
Support for additional image file formats. New formats will
include Windows ".BMP", TIFF and IFF-ILBM.
Support for additional Super VGA's and other types of display adapters.
Support for the Edson CEG DAC.
Automated slide shows controled by a script file.
Add ability to "pre-load" images for faster display during
slide show.