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IMPROCES(C). Copyright John Wagner 1991. All rights reserved. ┌┐ ┌┐ └┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼┘ │ │ │ IMPROCES(C). John Wagner 1991. All rights reserved │ │ │ │ J.W. Software Proudly Presents: │ │ │ │ IMPROCES(C) │ │ │ │ SVGA IMAGE PROCESSOR │ │ │ │ FOR IBM PC's and COMPATIBLES │ │ │ │ 320x200x256 THROUGH 1024x768x256 │ │ │ │ Very Powerful Software at a Very Reasonable Price │ │ │ │ Version 3.0 │ │ │ ┌┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼┐ └┘ └┘ Introduction.....................................................1 Shareware Information............................................1 Registered Users.................................................1 Unregistered Users...............................................1 Why Register.....................................................2 Business Users...................................................2 How to register..................................................2 Authors Mailing Address..........................................2 Warning Notices..................................................3 Video Memory/Modes...............................................3 Do not compress!.................................................3 System Requirements..............................................4 Use a Hard Disk!.................................................4 Quick Start......................................................5 Swapfiles........................................................5 DOS Environment Variables........................................5 TEMP, TMP and a RAMDISK..........................................6 IMPROCES uses overlays...........................................6 For Your Protection..............................................6 UNDO feature.....................................................6 Screen Startup Mode..............................................6 Highest Video Mode...............................................6 Use EMS, XMS or both.............................................7 GUI Menuing and Conventions......................................7 Filepicker.......................................................8 Color Bar........................................................9 Button Types.....................................................10 Running the program..............................................10 Saving Images to a file (GIF, PCX, PRF)..........................11 Opening Images (GIF, PCX, TGA, PRF)..............................12 Scaling the image while loading..................................12 Loading image into Virtual Screen................................12 Overlaying or Averaging when loading.............................12 Options when loading.............................................13 Displaying available memory......................................14 Setting Preferences..............................................14 The Virtual Screen...............................................14 Move/Create a Virtual Screen.....................................14 Keys to move the Virtual Screen..................................15 Virtual Screen sizes / Disk Space................................15 Viewing the Virtual Screen.......................................16 Clearing the Virtual Screen......................................16 The Clipboard....................................................16 Cutting to the clipboard.........................................16 Pasting from the clipboard.......................................16 Clipboard Copy Modes.............................................16 Saving the contents of the Clipboard to disk.....................17 Restoring (OPEN) a previously saved clipboard file...............17 Viewing the contents of the clipboard............................17 Re-mapping the clipboard palette.................................17 Tool Menu........................................................18 Current Fill Pattern / Line Style................................18 Triangle.........................................................19 Rectangle........................................................19 Circle...........................................................19 Ellipse..........................................................19 Poly.............................................................20 Line.............................................................20 Point............................................................20 How to use the Paintbrushes......................................20 Paintbrush Toggles...............................................20 Adding Text......................................................21 Font Style.......................................................21 Font Size........................................................21 Fat-Bit editor...................................................21 Copy.............................................................21 Copy Paintbrush Switch...........................................22 Eraser...........................................................22 Floodfill and Floodfill options..................................22 Curve............................................................23 Scale............................................................23 Zoom X 2.........................................................23 Measuring Distance...............................................23 Calibrating the distance.........................................23 Twirls...........................................................23 Mirror...........................................................23 Flip.............................................................23 SPIN.............................................................23 Rotate...........................................................24 Terrrain Fractal.................................................24 Plasma Fractal...................................................24 Controlling the palette..........................................24 Setting color values.............................................24 Color Blender....................................................24 Cycling the palette while editing it.............................25 Increasing the overall Red, Green or Blue (BLOCK)................25 Color Cycling....................................................25 Re-aligning the palette..........................................25 Sorting the palette..............................................25 Adjust Menu (Fixing Black and White Dots!).......................26 Reducing the amount of colors in the palette.....................26 Converting a color palette to greyscale..........................26 Halftoning an image..............................................26 Built in palettes................................................26 Saving and Restoring palettes to/from disk.......................26 Image Processing.................................................26 Setting the work area............................................27 Area Histogram...................................................27 Point Histogram..................................................27 Adjusting the clip values........................................27 Contrast Stretching..............................................27 Filters..........................................................28 Sharpening.......................................................28 Laplacian........................................................28 Horizontal.......................................................28 Average..........................................................28 Median...........................................................28 Creating a custom filter.........................................28 Controlling the filter boost.....................................28 Effects (Transforms).............................................28 Relief...........................................................28 Reverse..........................................................28 Solarize.........................................................28 Melt.............................................................28 Bentley..........................................................28 Oil..............................................................29 The Jiggler!.....................................................29 Replicate........................................................29 Setting the video mode (Screen Resolution).......................29 Quiting..........................................................29 Known problems and answers to common questions...................30 Examples and Tutorial............................................32 Image Processing References......................................32 Product Support..................................................33 bug Reports......................................................33 Black and White dots.............................................33 Virtual Video, what is it?.......................................33 Best Fitting the palette (Re-mapping)............................34 Color Averaging..................................................34 How to contact the author........................................34 Getting Upgrades.................................................35 Upgrade Notes....................................................35 Distribution Policy..............................................35 Shareware Vendors, please read...................................35 Image file formats...............................................36 How was IMPROCES written?........................................37 The IMPROCES Team................................................38 Special Thanks...................................................38 Legal Stuff......................................................39 Disclaimer.......................................................39 Users License....................................................40 INTRODUCTION IMPORTANT NOTE: if you are upgrading to version 3.0 of IMPROCES from a prior version, you should read the UPGRADE NOTES section near the end of this manual. Also, now included in the package is PRIMER.DOC, an Image Processing and VGA primer. Why is IMPROCES: Do you have a SVGA video card? Tired of software that won't use your SVGA modes? I am, I have an Ahead SVGA card with 1 meg of RAM and I couldn't find any software that would do 1024x768x256. With the help of a SVGA BGI driver for Borland languages written by Jordan Hargrave, I wrote some! The following video cards are supported: Ahead, ATI, Chips & Tech, Everex, Paradise, Trident, Tseng (both 3000 and 4000 chipsets) and Video7, any card w/ VESA capability. Modes from 320x200x256 through 1024x768x256 are supported. If you run into a mode that you know your card supports but the program is having trouble with, let me know and I'll relay the info to the author of the Video Driver and try to get it fixed. I need to know: Video card make and model, chipset the card is based on and how much RAM is installed on the video card and what mode is giving you trouble. If your card is not one of the ones mentioned above and is not based on one of the above chipsets, it will be treated as a generic VGA and modes over 320x200x256 probably will not work. I will not be able to do anything about these generic cards. NOTE: Virtual modes up to 2048x2048 will work on any VGA card. IMPROCES has many features: Image contrast enhancement, Histograms, Sharpening by convolution, Custom filters, Full control of the VGA palette, Clipboard, Five Fonts in five sizes, FAT BIT editor, many drawing tools, flips, mirror, Color Cycling, Plasma and terrain fractals, SVGA modes, UNDO, XMS/EMS support, on and on and on. This is a feature packed program. Take the time to master it and you be producing images that you never dreamed of! The best thing about IMPROCES is that it is easy to use and it is fun to play with! SHAREWARE INFORMATION REGISTERED USERS: THANK YOU!!! Place your IMREG.KEY in the same directory as the IMPROCES.EXE file. The IMREG.KEY file contains your name and registration number. Please do not modify IMREG.KEY in any way. The program checks this file each time it runs and disables the registration screens so the program will run without delay. Also, if you are going to let others have a copy of IMPROCES, please do not give them a copy of your IMREG.KEY file. UNREGISTERED USERS, PLEASE PAY FOR THIS SOFTWARE: Regardless of how you acquired this program, if you are not a registered user of IMPROCES, you did not pay for it and you should if you want to continue to use it. Please read on... 1 IMPROCES is a very powerful program. It took a long time to write and there are still many enhancements planned for the future of it. A registration of $25 ($35 outside of North America) is required if you wish to continue to use IMPROCES after you try it. A single registration is all it takes, you will be registered for life. For a minimal fee to cover postage, you can receive upgrades by mail or you can wait to get upgrades from your favorite BBS. Why register? There are no differences between the registered version of IMPROCES and the unregistered version. Registration disables the opening and the ending screen so the program will start running without delay and you will not be required to press a key to exit. In addition to the opening and closing screen, when you save an image file, the program will put up a "nag window" prompting you to click a mouse button. Registration disables this "feature" as well. I added these "features" as reminders to unregistered users, not to harass them. The unregistered version and the registered version are identical, with the exception of the aforementioned "features". BUSINESS USERS PLEASE NOTE: If this program is to be used by a BUSINESS, it MUST BE registered prior to its use. You may not evaluate it for the purpose of making a profit. Registrations are given on a SINGLE USE ONLY license, meaning the program may be used on a single machine (CPU) at one time. Although, it can reside on as many machines as you want, it must not be used on more then one at one time. A site license is negotiable, contact the author for more information. HOW TO REGISTER Mail your registration to: ($25, $35 outside of North America) John Wagner 6161 El Cajon Blvd Suite B-246 San Diego, CA 92115 California residents, please add the appropriate sales tax. Outside of the United States and Canada, registration is $35. There is an ASCII file that is distributed with this package called: INVOICE.DOC, you may print out this file on your printer and mail it in, or you can just send the following information: Name (First & Last) Street Address City, State, ZIP Amount of $ enclosed Version of program you currently have 2 Specify floppy disk format, 5 1/4" 360K or 3 1/2" 1.44 meg. Checks and Money orders only please. PLEASE, DO NOT send greenbacks! If your registration is received within two weeks of the planned release of a major upgrade, I will hold your registered version until the upgraded version is released. Please make all checks and money orders payable to John Wagner. WARNING NOTICES If you read nothing else, please read this: Run IMPROCES from a sub-directory on a Hard Disk. Make sure you have at least 1.5 meg free on the hard disk that IMPROCES is installed and run from. If you plan to use the Virtual Video modes, make sure you have at least 5.5 meg of free hard disk space. Don't try to switch your video hardware into a mode you know it doesn't support. There is no checking for the proper video hardware with the exception that the program checks for a VGA card. Use the Set Preferences option to lock out the higher video modes if your card doesn't support them. Use the version of the SVGA256.BGI file that it is provided with this package. I modified the BGI driver slightly and the "stock" version of it won't work properly with the program. Here is a list showing what modes your VGA card should support: VIDEO MEMORY: HIGHEST MODE: 64K (is there such a thing?) 320x200x256 256K (on chipsets mentioned) 640x400x256<─┐ Note: Some cards don't support this mode.──┘ 512K (SVGA Cards) 640x480x256 512K (SVGA Cards) 800x600x256 1024K (1 meg) 1024x768x256 DO NOT EXPERIMENT WITH VIDEO MODES YOUR CARD CAN'T SUPPORT!!!! DO NOT TRY TO SWITCH TO A HIGHER MODE TO "JUST SEE" IF IT WILL WORK!!! I've never seen it happen, but supposedly you CAN DAMAGE your hardware. Care to take a chance with your VGA hardware? Don't do it! I will not be liable in any way for any damages, real or otherwise that this program may cause! Do not change the name of the program! You may place IMPROCES in a directory specified by your path and run IMPROCES from any drive (hard drive STRONGLY recommended) or directory. The program will find the IMPROCES.CFG, IMREG.KEY, SVGA256.BGI and font files (*.CHR) ONLY if you haven't changed the name of the program. Do not compress the IMPROCES.EXE file with an executable file compressor. IMPROCES uses overlays and if compress the IMPROCES.EXE file it will not run properly. 3 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Memory: You need: At least 512K RAM free after loading DOS and TSR's etc. The more memory you have over 512K before starting the program, the better. The same goes for EMS and XMS. What can I say, graphics programs are memory HOGS! Especially ones that support 256 colors. I tried as much as possible to streamline IMPROCES. NOTE: The presence of XMS on your machine is not enough, you need to have a extended memory driver such as the widely used HIMEM.SYS. Processor: IMPROCES will run on any MS-DOS machine, from a 8088 to a 80486 or greater. I've seen IMPROCES run on a 4.77 mhz 8088 and lets just say that the speed wasn't impressive, but it did run! A math chip will be utilized if one is available, but the only functions that use floating point numbers are the curve, scale and filters that use convolution and the circular gradient floodfill. I use integer math as much as possible throughout those functions by pre- computing floating point values and saving them in look up tables of integers if the computation is going to be made more then once. Video: IMPROCES supports SVGA's up to 1024x768x256. If your card supports a resolution that your monitor doesn't, DON'T TRY IT!!! A VGA card and monitor is a requirement to run the program. NOTE: Make sure your monitor as well as your video card supports the modes you try to use. In this manual, all video modes refer to 256 color video modes. Mouse: A Microsoft compatible mouse and mouse driver is required. IMPROCES will not run if there is not a mouse installed. DOS 3.0: IMPROCES requires that you are running DOS 3.0 or greater. It has been tested and runs fine under DOS 5.0. Hard Disk: A hard disk is pretty much a requirement with at least 1.5 meg of free space at run time. 5.5 meg should be available if the Virtual Screen Modes are used. Remember, if are using True Color Targa files, Virtual Screen Modes, the IMPROCES clipboard and large GIF files, hard disk space fills up in a BIG HURRY! If you use the 2048x2048 Virtual Screen modes, that alone will use 4 MEG of hard disk space! IMPROCES uses swapfiles for some operations. Provided the program terminates normally, all the swapfiles will be erased. The swapfile is placed in the same directory that IMPROCES is stored in, or on the drive and in the directory that is specified by a TMP or TEMP variable SET in your environment. If something happens and the program terminates abnormally, you can delete the swapfiles manually. See the section entitled "SWAPFILES" for more 4 information. NOTE: The clipboard and scale functions use swapfiles regardless of the presence of EMS or XMS. The clipboard always, and the scale depending on the size of that the image is being scaled to. The UNDO BEFORE PAINT option will use EMS, XMS or a swapfile. QUICK START If you are the type of user who likes to jump right in (I am!), follow these instructions to start up the program. Don't forget to come back and read the rest of the manual though! There is a lot more to IMPROCES then meets the eye. 1. Change to the drive IMPROCES is on: Assuming IMPROCES is stored on your C: drive, type: C: and tap your Enter key 2. Change to the directory IMPROCES is stored in: Assuming IMPROCES is stored in your C:\IMPROCES directory, type: CD \IMPROCES and tap your Enter key 3. Run the program, type: IMPROCES and tap your Enter key 4. Have fun! Be sure to come back and read the rest of the manual! SWAPFILES IMPROCES uses swapfiles. You can control where these swapfiles (and Virtual Video Screens) are placed... DOS keeps a set of environment variables that programs can use. Of these variables, one of them is usually called TMP or TEMP. To see what variables you have set, from the DOS command line type SET and hit ENTER. The current environment variables will be listed. You can set these variables from the command line or from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file (autoexec.bat is a more popular and a better approach). To set the TEMP variable so that IMPROCES will place all of its swapfiles in the C:\TEMP directory, type the following at the DOS command line or place it in you AUTOEXEC.BAT file and re- boot your machine: 5 SET TEMP=C:\TEMP - or for TMP - SET TMP=C:\TEMP If you do not have a TEMP or TMP variable set, IMPROCES will place its swapfiles in the directory where the IMPROCES.EXE file resides on your hard disk. In either case, IMPROCES will erase the swapfiles when it no longer needs them or when the program ends. TEMP, TMP and a RAMDISK: If you set the TEMP or TMP environment variables to point to a RAMDISK make sure there is sufficient space on the RAMDISK for the swapfiles prior to running IMPROCES. Keep at least 1.5 meg free at a minimum. Here is why: The clipboard can use up to 768K of space for a swapfile (up to a 1024x768 clipfile), if you set UNDO on or scale to 1024x768, that can use 768K of disk space. Of course this is a worst case scenario, if you don't use the 1024x768 mode, the required amount of free disk space will drop. Also, if you never load anything into the clipboard, that will drop the requirement. Be safe, keep 1.5 meg free! If you get error messages complaining about insufficient drive space, check the TEMP or TMP variables and the drive/directory that it specifies, if you don't have a TEMP or TMP variable then check the directory IMPROCES is in when it is run. IMPROCES uses overlays. In order to allow for as much free RAM below 640K while the program is running, IMPROCES uses Borlands VROOM technology to overlay portions of itself in its .EXE file. For this reason, DO NOT COMPRESS the IMPROCES.EXE file with an executable file compressor such as PKLITE or LZEXE. FOR YOUR PROTECTION In the FILE menu, there is an option called "Set Pref" (Set Preferences). In this dialog box, you can custom configure IMPROCES for your system and control the UNDO feature for the paint menu. The five options are: UNDO BEFORE PAINT: When this is set to ON, the on-screen image is saved to a EMS, XMS or a swapfile before you enter the PAINT menu. When you exit the PAINT menu, IMPROCES will ask if you want to keep the changes you made. SCREEN STARTUP MODE: This controls the video mode that the program starts up in. It must be lower then or equal to the highest video mode. HIGHEST VIDEO MODE: This controls the highest video mode the program will let you access. This is a safety feature for people whos video card does not support all of the modes that IMPROCES is capable of. 6 USE EMS, XMS OR BOTH: Click on the appropriate radio button to toggle the use of either type of memory on or off. You can keep then both on and IMPROCES will attempt to use EMS first and then XMS. Clicking on SAVE will save the parameters you setup in a file called IMPROCES.CFG. Please do not distribute your IMPROCES.CFG file with the program, as other users preferences/machines may be different from yours. GUI, MENUING and CONVENTIONS: The following conventions are used in this manual: Video: All video modes refer to 256 color video modes. Mouse: LMB = Left Mouse Button RMB = Right Mouse Button Click on = Press a mouse button and release it (usually implies LMB) The mouse hot spot is: ┌O┐_______Right Here! │ └┐ │ └─┐ │ └┐ │ └┐ │ └┐ │ └┐ │ └┐ │ ┌─┐ └┐ │ ┌┘ └┐ └┐ │ ┌┘ └─┐ │ └─┘ └──┘ When the program starts you will see the menu bar at the top of the screen. (See Diagram 1.0) Diagram 1.0 Menu Bar Current Palette ───────┬─────── │ ┌───────────┼──────────────────────────────────┐ │ ------------------------------ │ ├─────┬─────┬─────┬──────┬────────┬─────┬──────┤ │ File│ Clip│ Tool│ Color│ Enhance│ Mode│ Quit │ └─────┴─────┴─────┴──────┴────────┴─────┴──────┘ 7 Click on the option you want and a sub-menu will drop down. To close a sub-menu, choose another item from the top-menu or press the RMB. Some sub-menus have sub-menus within them, when a sub- menus option is another sub-menu, the option will be annotated with three periods after the option (See Diagram 1.1). To get out the sub-menus sub-menu, choose an option from the top-menu or press the RMB. If you are anywhere in the pull-down menu system and press the spacebar, the icon paint menu will pop-up. You can also use the keyboard arrow keys to choice options from the menus. The ESC is the equivalent of the RMB and the ENTER will select the option with the highlight bar over it. Click the RMB to close a drop down menu. To close the top menu bar, click the RMB continuously until it goes away. When the top menu bar is hidden, the proper color 0 and 255 values are restored and the mouse may be toggled on or off with the LMB. Click the RMB again to bring the top menu bar back. If you are using IMPROCES with a capture program, you can back out of all the menus by clicking the RMB until the top menu bar goes away. If you want to hide the mouse so it won't show in your capture, click the LMB once. NOTE: Make sure your capture program can handle the SVGA modes that IMPROCES is capable of using, failure to do so may cause some very unpredictable and undesirable results. Diagram 1.1. Sub-Menu ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ------------------------------ │ ├─────┬─────┬─────┬──────┬────────┬─────┬──────┤ │ File│ Clip│ Tool│ Color│ Enhance│ Mode│ Quit │ └─────┴────┬┴─────┴─────┬┴────────┴─────┴──────┘ │ Tools... ─┼──┐Option has sub-menu │ Scale │ │ ──────┬────── │ Zoom X 2 │ ├─────────┘ │ Line Mes │ │ │ Calibrate │ │ │ Twirls... ─┼──┘ │ Terrain │ │ Plasma │ └────────────┘ Filepicker: Whenever you load an image, palette or clipfile, you will use the filepicker. In the filepicker, the sub-directories will be the first in the list and will be followed by a <DIR>. Click on a sub- directory to change to it. If there are more files then there is room in the selection box, click on the "PGDN" button to view the next page of files and click "PGUP" to go up one page. You can use the use the keyboard "Page UP" and "Page DN" instead of the mouse buttons if you want, the same goes for the keyboard arrow keys and the ENTER and ESC keys. This might be desirable if there are a lot 8 of files in the directory you are in, as you can hold down the keyboard keys to rapidly flip through the pages of files instead of clicking your mouse button repeatedly. Select a file by clicking on it with the LMB, or press the RMB to cancel the selection of a file. If you change to a sub-directory, that directory will become the active directory (if a file is selected in it) and any file not saved with a PATH before it will be saved to the current directory. If you click the RMB to cancel the file selection, the directory you started in will be restored as the current directory. NOTE: The filepicker will view a maximum of 4000 files in any directory. (See Diagram 1.2) Diagram 1.2. Filepicker ┌───────────────────┐ │ \ <DIR>─┼─── Goes to root directory │ .. <DIR>─┼─── Goes up one sub-directory │ ANIMALS <DIR>─┼─── Switches to the │ SATELITE <DIR> │ ANIMALS directory │ ASTRO <DIR> │ │ JOHN.GIF │ │ SHERRY.GIF │ │ MARTIN.GIF │ │ MOM.GIF ──────────┼─── Click here to select MOM.GIF │ DAVE.GIF │ │ FRED.GIF │ │ JOE.GIF │ │ ┌─────┐ │ │ │PG DN├─┼─── Click here to Page Down │ └─────┘ │ └───────────────────┘ Color Bar: The color bar is used to display the palette in a straight line with two re-positionable lines under it that define the two points for which you want the function that called the color bar to use. To move the lines, click on them or the two rectangles directly under the palette. Click the DONE button to perform the desired action or click the RMB to cancel to the function using the color bar. Some functions that call the color bar, will allow you to use color 0 and some will not. See diagram 1.3. 9 Diagram 1.3. Color Bar ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ┌──────┐ │ │ │ Current Palette │ │ DONE │ │ │ └──────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────┬─┘ └──────┘ │ │ │ ─── Repositinable Bars ──────────────────── │ 45 │ │ 245 │ │┌─┬───────────────────────┬─┐┌─┬──────────────────────┬─┐ │ ││<│ │>││<│ │>│ │ │└┬┴─┼─────────────────────┴┬┘└┬┴────────────────────┼─┴┬┘ │ └─┼──┼──────────────────────┼──┼─────────────────────┼──┼─────────────┘ │ └Click here to grab │ │ Click here to grab─┘ │ │ lower bar │ │ upper bar │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └───── Moves the bar one in the desired direction ────┘ Button Types: IMPROCES uses three types of buttons to get user input from the mouse. The button types are explained below: 1. The Radio Button. This is a toggle switch that will generally be an ON/OFF option or specify some kind action to be performed after a CONTINUE button has button pressed. When a Radio Button is activated (ON), it's inner area will have a filled circle in it. When it has been deactivated (OFF), it's inner area will be black. 2. The 3D Push Button. This button is a delayed reaction button in that the specified action (ie: CONTINUE, CANCEL, VIEW, Change Video Mode, etc...) doesn't take place until after the button has been released. When you push a 3D button, the button will remain depressed while the mouse is still within the boundary of the button. When the mouse button is released, if the mouse cursor is still within the boundary of the button, the desired action will take place. If the mouse button is released and the cursor is not within the boundary of the button, the program will continue as if you never pressed a button and continue to wait for input. 3. The Immediate Action Button. This button is identifiable as a rectangular button that is not 3D. When a mouse button is pressed with the cursor within the boundary of this button, the specified action takes place immediately without waiting for the mouse button to be released. RUNNING IMPROCES IMPROCES.EXE, IMPROCES.CFG, SVGA256.BGI file and the font (*.CHR) files may be kept in a directory accessible through your PATH statement so that the program may be run from any drive or directory (do keep all the files together in the same directory). Because of this, you may start IMPROCES from a floppy drive. Also, 10 if you have a TMP or a TEMP variable SET in your environment, IMPROCES will places its swapfiles there, otherwise it will place them on the drive and in the directory that IMPROCES is stored. For more information on your PATH statement and environment variables, consult your DOS manual. All of this aside, to start IMPROCES, change to the drive and directory the IMPROCES files are stored in and type IMPROCES and press enter. If the IMPROCES files are accessible via your PATH statement, just type IMPROCES from anywhere (somewhere near the computer will be desirable!) and press enter. SAVING IMAGES IMPROCES will save image files in three formats, GIF, PCX and PRF. The GIF and PCX formats are the most popular. The PRF format is of little use to anyone except programmers who want to include image files created by IMPROCES in programs they write that utilize the Fastgraf graphics library from Ted Gruber Software. NOTE: IMPROCES appends the proper file extension for all image formats, regardless of whether one is specified when the filename is entered. Also, IMPROCES saves the image in whatever video mode the program is in, regardless of what the resolution the image was when it was loaded. FILE...: SAVE... SAVE GIF: Enter the name to save as (path is optional) and press return (or LMB). Press Escape (or RMB) to abandon the save. If the file already exists, IMPROCES will ask if you want to overwrite it. SAVE PCX: Same as GIF, only for PCX files. The image will be saved as 256 color PCX file, regardless of whether it started out as a 2,4,16 or 256 color image to begin with. SAVE PRF: This is an option included for programmers who wish to use IMPROCES to draw images and save them for use with the Fastgraph Programmers Library from Ted Gruber Software. Only REGISTERED users may use images created by IMPROCES in their Fastgraph programs. After entering in the name of the file to save , define the area to save by rubber banding a rectangle around the region to save and then click the LMB to continue or the RMB to abandon the save. IMPROCES will then show you the dimensions of the image (Fastgraph requires you have this, so be sure to write it down) and then gives you the option of micro-adjusting the width and length. Click the "Continue" button to save the image or click "Cancel" to abort the save. 11 NOTE: As of version 1.04 of Fastgraph, you cannot have a video mode over 640x480 in a Fastgraph program, you should keep this in mind when creating your .PRF files. To load and display a PRF file using Fastgraph, use: fg_dispfile (char *filename, int width, int format); Where filename is the name you specified, width is the width you specified, and format is 0 for standard pixel run format that IMPROCES saves the image as. The 16 color, Packed Pixel Run Format is not supported by IMPROCES for saving. IMPROCES puts a short header file on the front of PRF images it saves. The header file contains the image height and width and the format mode. For some sample C code on using the header in your own program, call the DDBBS and download IMFGHEAD.ZIP. NOTE: Unregistered users of IMPROCES may not use Pixel Run Format files created with IMPROCES in their programs, whether they are registered users of Fastgraph or not. For more information on Fastgraph, see the end of this manual. OPENING IMAGES IMPROCES will load in images in four formats. GIF, PCX, TGA and PRF. GIF, PCX and TGA formats of any size may be loaded into any supported video mode. If the image is larger then the screen size, you have two options as to how to handle the oversize image. 1. Scale the image to fit the screen. Just clicking on the CONTINUE button (or hitting ENTER) will scale the image to fit the size of the screen in the current video mode. Using this Scaling option, you can use the OVERLAY and AVERAGE loading schemes. 2. Use a VIRTUAL screen. By clicking on the VIRTUAL button (or hitting the Space Bar) you can load the image into a Virtual Screen and then pan around the image to view and edit it. The Virtual Screen mode only works in video mode 320x200, so the program will switch to that mode when the VIRTUAL button is pressed. Also, you cannot use the OVERLAY and AVERAGE loading schemes when using a virtual image, although you may use these loading schemes when loading images on top the Virtual Screen. NOTE: When using OVERLAY and AVERAGE on top of a Virtual Screen, only the portion of the image that is visible will be used. If you change video modes, the Virtual Screen will be erased if the video mode is smaller then the Virtual Screen. See the section entitled "Virtual Video, what is it?" near the end of this document. Overlaying and Averaging: GIF, PCX and TGA images may Overlaid or Averaged with the current image on the screen. These options are explained below. When an image is loaded and Overlay or Average mode is selected, you will 12 have the choice of whether to use the current palette that is on- screen and the incoming palette and image will be "best fitted" to the on-screen palette or you may use the incoming palette from the file you are loading and the on-screen image will be "best fitted" to the incoming palette. You may also "Split the Palette". Splitting the palette will reduce the on-screen image to 128 colors and then reduce the incoming images palette to 128 colors. Splitting is sometimes the best solution when images have palettes that are very different. See the section entitled "Best Fitting the Palette" near the end of this file. (TGA palettes may not be split) PRF images do not have any of the above mentioned options. The screen resolution must be equal to or greater then the PRF image you want to load. PRF images cannot be Overlaid or Averaged either. OPEN... OPEN GIF: Use the filepicker to select a file to load. After you select a file to load, you will be presented with an Image Information Control Panel that will give you the: Image name, Image dimensions, Current Screen Resolution, and the Overlay and Average options. You will have four options to choose from that control how the image is loaded: (GIF, PCX and TGA only) 1. OVERLAY does not clear the image on the screen, instead any spots on the image being loaded that are color 0, are replaced with the pixels that were left by the original image. This a good option for framing selected parts of an image. 2. AVERAGE does not clear the image on the screen either, instead it takes an average of the pixel being loaded with the one on the screen as the image is loaded. See the section entitled "Color Averaging" near the end of this file. 3. CLEAR will clear the screen and load the new image fresh. NOTE: The Up and Down Arrow keys will move the load mode between the OVERLAY, AVERAGE and CLEAR options. 4. The RESOLUTION options will let you change video modes before you load the image. You may display any resolution image in any of the available resolutions (GIF,PCX and TGA only). If the image you want to display is larger then the screen size, it will be scaled to fit as it is loaded (GIF, PCX and TGA). The keyboard equivalent of the RESOLUTION buttons are: 1 = 320x200, 2 = 640x400, 3 = 640x480, 4 = 800x600, 5 = 1024x768. Click on "CONTINUE" to continue with loading the image, or click on "CANCEL" to cancel the loading of the image or click on any of the resolution options. NOTE: If you change video modes before loading an image, the screen will be cleared regardless of whether you select Average or Overlay. 13 OPEN PCX: Same as OPEN_GIF, only for PCX files. OPEN TGA: Same as OPEN_GIF, only for TGA files. TGA stands for True Color Targa file. IMPROCES only supports the Type II uncompressed Targa format such as those made with the popular Ray Tracing program DKB. See section entitled "True Color Targa" near the end of this file. OPEN PRF: Loading a PRF file is slightly different then the other formats. After the file to load is selected, a check is made if the image has a header file (was it saved by IMPROCES). If so the image dimensions will then be checked, if it is to wide or to long for the current video mode, it will not be loaded. If there is no header file found, you will be prompted for the image dimensions (only the width is actually used) and the format that the image is saved in. The image will then load from the bottom left corner of the screen of without clearing the screen first. I didn't put in the options of clearing, overlaying and averaging and scaling for PRF files because they are not intended to be used like the other formats. MEMORY: Display current memory status. Shows base memory (below 640K), number of EMS pages available and whether a XMS driver is available. The amount of free base memory will drop in modes greater then 320x200. Switching back to 320x200 will bring back this memory. This is due to the windows taking more memory to save the contents under them in the higher modes. SET PREF: (SET PREFERENCE) See the section above called FOR YOUR PROTECTION for information concerning the SET PREFERENCE options. Using this you can set up a custom configuration for IMPROCES and toggle the UNDO feature and control what type of memory IMPROCES uses. VIRTUAL..: IMPROCES will let you load images with sizes up to 2048x2048 into a Virtual Screen. You must be in Video Mode 320x200 (IMPROCES will switch you if you aren't). After and image is loaded into a Virtual Screen, you can scroll though the image and edit any part of it. You can also create your own Virtual Screens. Some of the other IMPROCES functions will not work with the virtual screen. They are noted with their descriptions. MOVE/CREATE: This option lets you pan around a previously created Virtual Screen or if one doesn't exist, you can create on. If you are in a mode greater then 320x200, you can load the physical screen into a virtual screen using this option. This is useful if you want to do close up editing of a large image. 14 Moving Around the Virtual Screen: You are first asked if you want to "Save the changes made to this portion of the Virtual Screen". This is another advantage to the Virtual Screens in that it can provide you with another level of UNDO. If you answer "YES", the changes will be saved. If you answer "NO", the changes won't be saved. Either way, after you answer you can move the Physical Screen around the Virtual Screen. The current coordinates of the Physical Screens top-left corner are shown. Press the LMB or ENTER key when you are at the are you want edit. Rolling the mouse will move you 20 Rows/Columns at a time. The following keyboard commands also work: Key: Action: ----------------------------------------------- Left Arrow One Column Left Right Arrow One Column Right Down Arrow One Row Down Up Arrow One Row Up Ctrl-Left Arrow 20 Columns Left Ctrl-Right Arrow 20 Columns Right Ctrl-Down Arrow 20 Rows Down Ctrl-Up Arrow 20 Rows Up Page Up 200 Rows Up Page Down 200 Rows Down Home Top Left Of Screen End Bottom Right of Screen Ctrl-End 320 Columns Left Ctrl-Page Down 320 Columns Right Creating A Virtual Screen: To create a Virtual Screen, you must select a Virtual Screen Size. IMPROCES will check if there is enough Disk Space to create the Virtual Screen. You may create the Virtual Screen in any of the following sizes: Virtual Screen Size: Amount of Free Disk Space Required: ----------------------------------------------------------------- 512x512 262,144 bytes - 256k 640x400 256,000 bytes - 250k 640x480 307,200 bytes - 255k 800x600 480,000 bytes - 469k 1024x768 786,432 bytes - 768k 1024x1024 1,048,576 bytes - 1 Megabyte 2048x2048 4,194,304 bytes - 4 Megabyte If you are in any video mode besides 320x200, IMPROCES will ask if you want to save the current screen to the new Virtual Screen. If you answer YES, IMPROCES will create the Virtual Screen as the same size as the current screen and switch you to video mode 320x200. After you are done editing in Virtual Mode, you can change back to a video mode the same size as or larger then the Virtual Screen and continue editing. This way you can use the Virtual Screen as a level of Zoom, or as a full featured Fat-Bit editor (there is an actual Fat-Bit editor in the TOOL-TOOLS menu). 15 VIEW: This will scale the entire Virtual Screen into 320x200 so that you can view it in its entirety. Press the RMB when done viewing. CLEAR: This will clear the Virtual Screen and move the Physical Screen to the top-left corner of the Virtual Screen. For more information about Physical and Virtual Screens, see the section entitled "Virtual Video, what is it?" near the end of this document. THE CLIPBOARD IMPROCES includes a clipboard for cutting and pasting between images. The clipboard also has the Overlay and Average options that the OPEN functions have and it includes a copy of the palette that is was cut from, so it is more versatile then the COPY option in the PAINT menu, although it is a little slower. CLIP...: CUT: Define an area to save to the clipboard with this option. To do this, select a corner and click the LMB. The cursor will disappear and you can now resize a rectangle that covers the area you want to copy to the clipboard. Click the LMB when you have defined the area, or click the RMB to cancel the operation. This option uses a swapfile regardless of the presence of EMS or XMS. If you cut a piece from an image and then load an image with a different palette, and then paste from the first image, the clip image will most likely look a little different then expected due to the palette being different. To avoid this, use the REMAP PAL option in the clip menu when the palette has been changed. PASTE: Move the box to the area you want to paste the current contents of the clipboard to and click the LMB. You will then have 7 options as to what type of paste you want to do: Copy, Overlay, Average, Fringe or Spray. CLIPBOARD COPY MODES: 1. COPY will copy the clip image over the selected area. 2. AVERAGE will average all pixels in the clip image within the selected area. This mode is very slow, but very good! See the section entitled "Color Averaging" near the end of this file. 3. Overlay will copy all non-color 0 pixels in the clip image and leave the pixels where incoming color 0 pixels would be unaffected. 4. Fringe will work the same as COPY, except that the edges will fringed. Sort of a fade in. 16 5. Spray will "paint" the clip image as if it came out of a spray can. The center will be solid and as the image goes out from the center, it will be faded into the image it is covering. 6. Pattern will load the clipfile using the Current Fill Pattern that is defined in the TOOL-TOOLS menu. 7. Rain will use a raindrop pattern. Click the RMB to abandon this operation. SAVE: Save the current contents of the clipboard to a file. The file will have a .CLB extension and will be saved in the current directory. The clipboard palette will have a .CLP extension and the same name as the clipboard file. NOTE: The saved clipboard palette will be the palette that the image had when the clipboard was cut. OPEN: Copy the contents of a previously saved file to the clipboard. Uses the filepicker. NOTE: All clipboard files saved with version 1.0 of IMPROCES should be converted first with the CONVCLIP.COM program before you try to use them. This file is available on the DDBBS. Clipfiles from versions prior to 3.0 use the current palette. VIEW: This will display the contents of the clipboard in the upper left corner. If you have changed palettes, use this function before you paste the clipboard into your image to see how it will look. Click either the LMB or the RMB to return to the menu. REMAP PAL: New for version 3.0 of IMPROCES is the support for clipboard palette files. Using this option, you can load a new image with a different palette and then "best fit" the clipboards palette to the new palette. This is a very useful feature for cutting and pasting between images with dissimilar palettes. See the section entitled "Best Fitting the Palette" near the end of this document. NOTE: If your clipfile is to be used in overlay mode and you had black as color 0 and you select REMAP, black might not be color 0 in the new palette and the overlay will not look right. To avoid this problem, use the SORT option in the COLOR menu before remapping the clip files palette. 17 PAINTING TOOLS TOOL: PAINT...: You've got to like this, an icon menu... Paintbrush Switches: TOOL MENU: ┌────────────────┐ Regular │ ┌────┬──┐ │ Rainbow ┌──────────┬──────────┬────┴───┬─┴─┬──┴┐ │ │ Burn │ │ Filled │ Regular│ │ │ │ │ Dodge │ Triangle │ Triangle ├────────┼───┼───┤ │ └────────── │ │ │ Rainbow│ │ │ │ ├──────────┼──────────┼────────┼───┼───┤ │ │ │ Filled │ Burn │ │ │ │ │ Rectangle│ Rectangle├────────┼───┼───┤ │ │ │ │ Dodge │ │ │ │ Paintbrush ├──────────┼──────────┼────────┼───┼───┤ │ Shapes Font │ │ Filled |--Add │ │ │ └────────────── Add │ Circle │ Circle |├────────┼───┼───┤ Pick -------------------------Pick │ │ │ Size ├──────────┼─────────|┼────────┼───┴───┤ │ │ Filled ---Size │ Air ─┼──┐ Airbrush Switch │ Ellipse │ Ellipse ├────────┴───────┤ └───────────────── │ │ │ FAT BIT EDITOR │ ├──────────┼──────────┼────────┬───────┤ │ │ Filled │ Copy │ Paint─┼──┐ Copy Switch: │ Polygon │ Polygon ├────────┴───────┤ │ When on: Define │ │ │ Eraser │ │ image area to use ├──────────┼──────────┼────────────────┤ │ as a paintbrush. │ │ │ Flood Fill │ │ When off: Regular │ Line │ Point ├────────────────┤ │ copy. │ │ │ Curve │ └─────────────────── └──────────┴──────────┴────────────────┘ ============────────┐ Current Color ┌┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┐─┐ └────────────── ├┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┤ │ Color Selector ├┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┤ ├──────────────── ├┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┤ │ └┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┘─┘ ┌───────────────────────────────────────┐ Click ─┤///////////////////////////////////////│ Current Fill Pattern here to └───────────────────────────────────────┘ change ----------------------------------------- Current Line Style Fill Pattern or Linestyle and thickness CURRENT FILL PATTERN: CURRENT LINE STYLE: The filled shapes use the fill pattern that is shown on the bottom of the menu. The line and the polygon both use the line style shown just below the current fill pattern. The Floodfill does not use the Current Fill Pattern. NOTE: The "Pattern" option in the clipboard paste option uses the current pattern as defined here. 18 To change the current fill pattern or the current line style, click in current pattern box at the bottom of the menu. Two windows will appear, one with all of the possible fill patterns and one with the possible linestyles. The current fill pattern and the current line style will be underlined. The linestyle has four possible patterns and two possible thickness's. Click on a new pattern or line style to change them. Click the RMB when finished to return to the menu. TRIANGLE: (Triangle) Move the mouse to where you want one side of the triangle to begin and press the LMB. Reposition the side until it is where you want it and click the LMB (or RMB to cancel). Now define the other two sides of the triangle by moving the mouse until the triangle is the desired size and click the LMB or the RMB to cancel the triangle. Either draw another triangle (as before) or click the RMB to return to the menu. FILLED TRIANGLE: (Large Filled Triangle) Same as TRIANGLE, only filled. Filled Triangle uses the current fill pattern. RECTANGLE: (Large Empty Square) Move the mouse to a corner of the rectangle and click the LMB. Reposition the rectangle until it is where you want it and click the LMB. Either draw another rectangle (as before) or click the RMB to return to the menu. FILLED RECTANGLE: (Large Filled Square) Same as RECTANGLE, only filled. Filled Rectangle uses the current fill pattern. CIRCLE: (Large Empty Circle) Move the mouse to the spot you want to be the center of the circle and click the LMB. Resize the circle until it the desired size and click the LMB or the RMB to cancel. Either draw another circle (as before) or click the RMB to return to the menu. FILLED CIRCLE: (Large Filled Circle) Same as CIRCLE, only filled. Filled Circle uses the current fill pattern. ELLIPSE: (Large Empty Ellipse) Move the mouse to the spot you want to be the center of the ellipse and click the LMB. Resize the ellipse until it is the desired size and click the LMB or the RMB to cancel. Either draw another ellipse (as before) or click the RMB to return to the menu. NOTE: An ellipse differs from a circle in that it's x and y radius can be different. FILLED ELLIPSE: (Large Filled ELLIPSE) Same as ELLIPSE, only filled. Filled ELLIPSE uses the current fill pattern. 19 POLY: (Large Empty Rhombus) Same as line expect the last point is connected automatically to the first point. FILLED POLY: (Large Filled Rhombus) Same as POLY, only filled. Filled POLY uses the current fill pattern. LINE: (Diagonal Line w/plus at the end) Move the mouse to where you want the line to begin and click the LMB. Reposition the line until it is where you want it and click the LMB (or RMB to cancel). You can continue drawing from where you left off or click the RMB to stop drawing and reposition the cursor to draw another line or click the RMB to go back to the menu. POINT: (Point in center of box) Fills the pixel the mouse is pointing to with the current color. Click the LMB to start drawing and keeps drawing until you click the RMB. Click the RMB again return to the menu or click the LMB to start drawing again. USING THE BRUSHES The paintbrushes can be used in four different ways. Try them all to get an idea what each one can do. BRUSHES: (12 SMALL BOXES ON LEFT EDGE) Click on desired brush, click the LMB to begin drawing. Keeps drawing until the RMB is clicked. Click the RMB again to return to the menu or click the LMB to start painting again. BRUSH TOGGLES: The current brush feature is shown in reverse video (Black on White). AIRBRUSH SWITCH: (AIR) When the AIRBRUSH switch is on (Black 'AIR' on white background), the brush you use will not color every brush point on the brush. Instead, random points will be colored, like a spray can. Click on the 'AIR' button to toggle the switch. REG BRUSH: (REG) Fills the pixels under the brush shape with the current color. Click the LMB to "turn the brush on" and click the RMB to "turn the brush off". Click the RMB while the "brush is off" to return to the menu. RAINBOW BRUSH: (RNB) Fills the pixels under the brush shape with the current color and then increments the current color by one each time the brush is moved. 20 BURN BRUSH: (BRN) Reads the pixels under the brush shape while the "pen is down" and increments their value by one each time the brush passes over. Has the effect of "burning in" the area. DODGE BRUSH: (DDG) Reads the pixels under the brush shape while the "pen is down" and decrements their value by one each time the brush passes over. Has the effect of "fading or dodging" the area. ADD TEXT:(Add) Position the cursor to where you want to start entering text and press the LMB. A horizontal text cursor will appear. Enter your text. You may use the Backspace key to backup and the Return key to advance one line down. Press the Escape key (or RMB) to quit entering text. Either add more text or press the RMB to return to the menu. NOTE: Once you advance to the next line, you may not go back up, so make sure what you enter on the line is what you want before you press Return or the Escape key. FONT STYLE:(PCK) To select a new font style, click in the desired fonts box. Press the RMB to return to the menu. FONT SIZE:(SZE) To select a new font size, click in the desired size box. Press the RMB to return to the menu. FAT BITS:(FAT BIT) Select an area to edit using the FAT BIT editor by moving the rectangle over the area and clicking the LMB. The edit area is shown on the top left and the edit mode is shown by the "W" and "R" buttons on the screen. The "W" stands for WRITE (default) and the "R" stands for READ. You may select a pixel to change to the current color (shown next to the color selection bar) by pointing to the edit area and clicking the LMB. To select a new color, change to the READ mode or use the color selection bar at the bottom. Select DONE to keep the changes or CANCEL to abandon the changes. COPY: (CPY) Define the area you want to copy and then move the rectangle to the target area and click the LMB. Keep copying or click the RMB to undefine the copy source and either define a new source area or press the RMB to get back to the menu. NOTE: If you choose a piece of image that is smaller then 32,000 bytes, the image will erased and redrawn as the mouse is moved. If the piece of image is over 32,000 bytes, a rectangle will show where the image will be placed. 32,000 bytes is about half of a 320x200 screen. 21 COPY PAINTBRUSH SWITCH: (PRB) When this switch is on, the COPY function lets you define a piece of your image to use like a paintbrush. Instead of just copying the piece of image once when the LMB is pressed, the piece will be copied wherever the mouse is moved, like a paintbrush. ERASER: (Small unfilled rectangle) Move the eraser to where you want to erase and press the LMB. The eraser keeps erasing until you press the RMB. Press the RMB again to return to the menu or press the LMB to start erasing again. FLOODFILL: (FLD FLL) Floodfill is actually an Area Fill. IMPROCES will first ask you to confirm the floodfill settings: The floodfill options are: TYPE: Regular: Uses the current color and does a solid fill using the current color. Gradient: Uses the current palette and cycles in the desired direction. C-Span: Pick the colors that the gradient uses. DIRECTION: Horizontal: Colors are cycled horizontally, starting and ending colors use the Low/High and C-Span settings. Vertical: Colors are cycled vertically, starting and ending colors use the Low/High and C-Span settings. Circular: Colors start at the point the mouse is clicked and are cycled out in a circular fashion. Very neat when color cycled but a little slower at filling then regular gradient, especially in the higher resolution video modes. Low: -+- Low and high are used to control where the High: -| palette starts when using the gradient flood. Shaggy: With a gradient flood, Shaggy produces a "fuzzy" look to the fill by randomly inter-mixing the neighboring colors. Very nice effect. Once you are happy with the settings, click on CONTINUE. Pick a seed point anywhere on the screen and click the LMB. All areas within a bordered area will be filled in the specified mode, either flood or gradient. While the area is being flooded, you may click the RMB to stop the flood. After the area is flooded, click on a new area to flood or click the RMB to return to the icon tool menu. NOTE: Floodfill does not use the current fill pattern, rather it does a solid fill every time. 22 CURVE: (Small curve) Define a line (as above) that will cover the two end points of the curve. Next move the mouse until the curve is where you want it and click the LMB and continue defining the curve. Click the LMB when you are through or click the RMB at any time to abandon the curve. NOTE: If no math chip is present, the curve is drawn in straight line segments until it is finished, then it is plotted in its entirety. SCALE: Define the source area and then define the target area. This operation can take a some time and in some situations and a disk swapfile will be used regardless of the presence of EMS or XMS. A swapfile will only be used if the destination area is larger then 320x200. ZOOM x 2: Position the rectangle over the area you want to ZOOM and click the LMB. Click the RMB to restore the image or the LMB to keep the expanded image. Click the RMB, to return to the menu. LINE MES: To measure an area on the screen, define a line to measure (as above) and then the length of the line (in pixels by default or by whatever unit the program was calibrated for) will be displayed. NOTE: For overhead imagery, oblique imagery measurements should only be considered accurate when measured on equal planes as the calibrated measurement. CALIBRATE: By default, IMPROCES measures lines in pixel size units. If you have a known distance on an image, you can calibrate the program to measure in the known unit. Stretch a line (as above) over the distance that is known (a mile, an inch, a nose, whatever) and click the LMB. Any measurements taken after calibration will be in the new unit of measure. TWIRLS...: MIRROR: Define a rectangular area that you want to mirror, then choose the direction you want to mirror the area to from the pop-up menu. FLIP: Define a rectangular area that you want to flip. Flips upside down. SPIN: Define a rectangular area that you want to spin. Spins from right to left. 23 ROTATE: Define a rectangular area that you want to rotate. Rotates 90 degrees to the left. NOTE: No scaling is done. Pixels in the x (horizontal) direction are shorter then pixels in the y (vertical) direction. This means that if you choose what appears to a square, it will be rectangular when rotated. TERRAIN: Define a rectangular area to have IMPROCES draw a random 3D terrain fractal. Then use the color bar to pick what colors to use when drawing the terrain. The low color is for the water and the high color is for the land. Terrain doesn't look very good in video modes under 640x400 and should be drawn in areas that are least as large. PLASMA: Define a rectangular area to have IMPROCES draw a random Plasma fractal. Then use the color bar to select the range of colors that will be used to draw the cloud. The Plasma algorithm was taken directly the Stone Soup Groups "FRACTINT" who so graciously distribute the source to FRACTINT and to whom I owe full credit for the Plasma function. Plasma and Terrain are included for their value as a painting tools, if these Fractals interest you, might I suggest FRACTINT, by the Stone Soup Group, and the book "Fractal Creations" by the Waite Group for a reference on how to use FRACTINT to it's fullest potential. COLORS...: SET COLOR: This is your gateway to the 260,000+ colors of the VGA palette. Shown on the left are the 256 current colors in the current palette with a large rectangle to underneath the colors showing the current drawing color. On the right is the adjuster for the current color along with the values of the Red, Green and Blue attributes of the current color. To select a new color, click on a color in the palette on the left or select a color from the portion of the image that the color adjuster hasn't covered. If the color adjuster is covering a color in the image you want to pick, click on HIDE, the adjuster will be hidden and you can pick your color by clicking on it with the LMB. click the RMB to bring back the hidden adjuster. Click in the boxes to the right to raise or lower the current colors Red, Green or Blue attributes. When you are done click on the DONE box to keep the changes you made or click on the CANCEL box to reset the palette to where it was before you made any changes. THE "BLENDER": Another option on the color adjuster is called the blender. Using the blender, you can smoothly transition between two colors in your palette. To use the blender, click on the BLEND button. This will bring up the color bar. Use the color bar to choose the colors you want to blend between and press DONE. Click RMB to cancel blending. 24 CYCLE KEYS: You can also cycle the palette while using the palette adjuster. This is useful if you want blend around the top of the palette. The '<' and '>' button will move the palette one color in either direction while the '<<' and '>>' button will put the palette into motion until a mouse button is hit or the keyboard is hit. There are keyboard commands for cycling as well, the ',' and '.' keys are the equivalent of the single cycle buttons and the '<' and '>' are the same as the continuous cycle buttons. See "KNOWN PROBLEMS" near the end of this manual for information concerning the 256 color palette. BLOCK: Increases or decreases the overall Red, Green or Blue in all the colors of the palette. Uses the same interface as the SET COLOR function and works the same way with the exception that the changes take place across the entire palette. The palette is re-computed from the palette as it was when the function started to avoid palette degradation. CYCLE: This will cycle any range of the 256 colors and create quite an interesting effect and allow for color cycling animation. First you use the color bar to pick the colors that you want to cycle between. Click on DONE with the LMB or click the RMB to abandon color cycling. While the colors are cycling, the left and right arrow keys control the direction of the cycle while the up and down arrows define the speed of the cycle. The RMB stops the color cycle and returns you to the menu. When you save a file, whether it be PCX or GIF, the color cycle settings are saved in a file with the same name as the file, only with a .CCL extension. When a file is loaded, if the correct .CCL file is in the same directory as the image file, the color cycle information from the .CCL file will be loaded and used. RE-ALIGN: Use this function to identify and locate colors that are not being used in the current screen image. After selecting this function, the program will perform a quick histogram of the image and report how many colors are being used and give you the option of re- mapping the unused colors to the top of the palette. If you select "YES", the unused palette entries will be re-mapped to the top of the palette and the current screen image will be adjusted so that pixels correspond the proper values. NOTE: This function will not work with a Virtual Screen. SORT: Use this function to remap the palette and the image so that the colors that are the brightest are moved to the top of the palette. NOTE: This function will not work with a Virtual Screen. 25 MENU ADJUST: This function will find the colors in the palette that are closest to the colors that IMPROCES uses for its menu. This usually will do away with the problem of Black and White dots. See the section entitled "Black And White Dots" near the end of this document for more information. NOTE: Will not work with a Virtual Screen. REDUCE... MAKE 8/16/32/64/128: This will reduce the palette to the specified amount of colors (ie: 8/16/32/64/128) NOTE: Will not work with a Virtual Screen. PALETTE...: Color2Grey: The Color to Grey function converts a color palette to a Greyscale. NOTE: Will not work with a Virtual Screen. HalfTone: Halftones the image on the screen. NOTE: This function will work with the Virtual Screen, but only the visible area of the screen will be halftoned. DEFAULT/ICE/HEAT/GREEN/SUN/GREYSCALE: IMPROCES has six pre-saved palettes built in. Selecting one of these replaces the current palette. SAVE...: SAVE PAL: Saves the current palette to a file. Uses the IMPROCES .PAL palette file format. SAVE MAP: Saves the current palette to a file. Uses the popular .MAP file format which is also used with Fractint and many other programs. OPEN...: OPEN PAL: Loads a palette from a file. Uses the IMPROCES .PAL palette file format. Uses the filepicker. SAVE MAP: Loads a palette from a file. Uses the popular .MAP palette file format. Uses the filepicker. IMAGE PROCESSING This program includes many image processing functions in the ENHANCE section. A full discussion of image processing is beyond the scope of this manual and the ENHANCE functions will be explained only briefly. See the section on REFERENCES for information on how to get more information on Image Processing. NOTE: The IMPROCES pack includes a ASCII file called PRIMER.DOC, which is a brief introduction to image processing. 26 ENHANCE...: NOTE: All ENHANCE functions that start with GREY (example: GreySharpen) are intended for images using the ICE, HEAT, GREEN, SUN or GREYSCALE, palettes. The program will not stop you from using a GREY ENHANCE function on an image with other palettes, the fact is however, the results will be meaningless and random. To convert a color palette to one of the above, use the Color2Grey option in the COLORS-PALETTE menu. The functions that begin with COL (example: ColSharpen) are intended for any color palette. The COL functions are a lot slower then the GREY functions. You can use the COL functions on any palette, but for the best results use the GREY functions on their intended palettes. The AVERAGE and MEDIAN filters work with any palette. SET WORK AREA: All processes in the enhance menu work on a specified rectangular work area only. To redefine the current area, move the cursor to a spot you want to be one corner and click the LMB. Resize the work area until it is the size you want and click the LMB. Click the RMB to cancel the re-sizing. When you are done, click the RMB to return to the menu. AREA HISTO(GRAM): A histogram takes a measurement of the pixels in the work area. The histogram displays this measurement in values called BINS. There are 256 BINS, each corresponding to each of the 256 possible color values. BIN 0 is displayed to the left and BIN 255 (256 BINS, 0 thru 255) to the right and all BINS in between are represented. The Max BIN is displayed at the bottom. To see the value of a specific BIN, click on it's line or the color on the bottom with the LMB. To save the histogram to disk, press the 'S' key and enter the filename to save it as or enter PRN to send the information to the default printer. Click the RMB to restore the image. POINT HISTO(GRAM): Take the measurement of a single point. Click on the desired point with the LMB. Displays the coordinate, Color Value and Red, Green and Blue attributes of the color. Click the RMB to return to the menu. ADJUST CLIP: The clip values are used in the CONTRAST STRETCH functions. Depending on which style of contrast stretch you want to perform, the High Clip and Low Clip will be adjusted differently. CONTRAST STRETCH: Uses the clip value to cut the stretch off at the first low BIN with a value equal to or greater then the Low clip and the first high BIN with a value equal to or greater then the High clip. NOTE: Intended for GreyScale images only. 27 CONTRAST VSTRETCH: Uses the CLIP values as the Low and High BIN to cut the stretch off at. NOTE: Intended for GreyScale images only. CONTRAST LSTRETCH: Uses the CLIP values as the Low and High BIN to cut the stretch off at and doesn't set the BINS beyond the Low and High clips to Min/Max. NOTE: Intended for GreyScale images only. FILTERS...: SET WORK AREA: Same as above. (Col)SHARPEN: NOTE: All filters use a 3x3 kernal and convolution. (Col)LAPLACIAN: (Col)HORIZ: (Horizontal) (Col)VERTIC: (VERTICAL) AVERAGE 3x3: MEDIAN 3x3: (Col)CUSTOM: BOOST: See the included file PRIMER.DOC for more information on how these filters work. EFFECTS...: NOTE: The functions in the EFFECTS menu work on the whole screen, not just the ENHANCE work area. Also, if you are using a virtual screen, the effects will only take place on the portion of the screen that is visable. RELIEF: Makes the image look like it was molded in sand. REVERSE: Reverse the color values. SOLARIZE: Has a similar effect as solarizing a monochrome print after it is exposed and before it has been developed. MELT: Slowly (and I do mean SLOWLY) melts the image. Click the RMB when you get tired of watching this! BENTLEY: Named after the guy who's picture was in the book that this effect is taken from. Weird effect. HINT: Use the DEFAULT palette and make a full screen PLASMA cloud and then run the BENTLEY. AWESOME! 28 OIL: Slow. Transforms a greyscale image into a oil painting. Does not effect the last 3 columns and the last 3 rows of pixels. Works well on some color palettes, but not all. JIGGLER: This is sort of different, and it is very fun! Using the Jiggler, you can pick up to five areas on you image and IMPROCES will "set them jiggling". Heres how: First you define up to five a rectangular areas. Then IMPROCES will shift the areas back and forth very rapidly making them "jiggle" until you hit the RMB. You can slow down the speed of the jiggler with the DOWN ARROW key and speed it up with the UP ARROW. Limitations are: The areas must not touch either edge of the image and the areas must be under 32,000 bytes in size (about 160x100). REPLICATE...: X 2, X 4: Replicate the image 2 or 4 times. VIDEO MODE...: NOTE: THIS WILL ERASE THE SCREEN!!! WARNING: DO NOT TRY A MODE YOUR HARDWARE DOESN'T SUPPORT!!! WARNING: DO NOT TRY A MODE YOUR HARDWARE DOESN'T SUPPORT!!! WARNING: DO NOT TRY A MODE YOUR HARDWARE DOESN'T SUPPORT!!! On a scale of GOOD to BAD, this would be BAD!!! 'NUFF SAID??? Select the mode you want to use and click on it. If you were using a Virtual Screen and the new mode is larger then the Virtual Screen, you will be asked if you want to load the Virtual Screen. To load a Physical Screen into a Virtual Screen, use the option in FILE-VIRTUAL-MOVE/CREATE menu. QUIT: Self explanatory! 29 KNOWN PROBLEMS and ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS GIF and PCX files contain their own palette settings. This presents a problem when designing a graphical menu system in that the program is forced to use the colors contained in the image files palette. As it stands, the foreground color (color 255, used for menu text and mouse cursor) is set to white and the background (color 0) is set to black while using the menus. When the main menu is closed, color 0 and 255 are set to the proper values. Because of this, any adjustments you make to color 0 or 255 with the color adjuster will not be seen until you "back out" of all the menus. Also, as color 0 and 255 get replaced, this might cause random black or white (or both) dots to appear in the image. Again, when you back out of the menus, the proper color 0 and 255 will be restored. See the COLOR-MENU ADJUST FUNCTION. I have been getting quite a few phone calls and letters. Below are the most commonly asked questions. Q. I have a 386 with 1 meg of memory, how come I can't use 1024x768x256 mode? A. The amount of VIDEO MEMORY determines what modes you can access with the program. Not the amount of memory in your machine. Some VGA cards can be upgraded with more memory, some cannot. Contact the manufacturer of your video card, or consult your users manual for more information. NOTE: Most machines that come with a VGA card included on the motherboard only have 256K of Video Memory, therefore the highest mode you will be able to access will be 640x400x256, and that is only if the video card is based on one of the chipsets mentioned near the top of this manual. See the next question... Q. I have an "Off Brand" VGA card with 512K of video memory, how come I can't access modes greater then 320x200x256 with IMPROCES? A. If your card is not based on one of the chipsets listed at the beginning on this manual, it will not be able to access modes higher then 320x200x256. See the next question... Q. I have a VGA card with a chipset based on one of those listed at the top of the manual. All of the modes but one works. Why? A. Sometimes a video card will be BASED on one of the more popular chipsets but the similarity stops there. Sometimes the implementation is complete, other times it is not. Some video cards come with a Terminate, Stay Resident (TSR) program to make the card emulate the VESA standard. If you have such a card, try loading the VESA emulation program and then running IMPROCES. 30 Q. Why can't IMPROCES support every VGA video card? There is a standard for these things, isn't there? A. The SVGA256.BGI driver has autodetect logic for the most popular chipsets. Only a fool would make a statement that their program can support EVERY VGA card ever built. The problem is that the VGA has a memory area for graphics that begins at the address 0xA0000000 and is 64K long. The video mode 320x200x256 uses 62,000 bytes of memory and fits in nicely to the allocated section of VGA video memory. The video mode 640x400x256 requires 256,000 bytes of memory and does not fit nicely into the allocated area. What SVGA cards do is switch what part of memory on the video card is mapped into the VGA address space by doing page swaps, much the same way that Expanded Memory works. Great idea! Unfortunately, the manufacturers never decided on a standard way to do the mapping and page swapping like the manufacturers of the EMS did. They also never decided on a standard for mode numbers. And they never provided a standard way to identify who's chipset you are dealing with! Seems kind of stupid in retrospect, but what can you do? Thousands and thousands of these cards are out there, and most people aren't going to throw their card just because someone in the future decides on a standard and their card isn't it! The whole matter gets even more complicated because some manufacturers simply looked for the cheapest chipset they could find in order to keep the prices of their cards competitive. As long as they could say "Supports 1024x768x256" they were happy. Why should they care if nobody had any software to run on it. Usually these cards would come with a "demo" program to show that the card did indeed support the advertised mode. These manufacturers are about as brilliant as the guys who say "Well if the programmer used the BIOS calls to plot the pixels...". Q. Why do black and white dots randomly appear sometimes after loading a image? A. Read the section on KNOWN PROBLEMS. Also, try COLOR-MENU ADJUST. Q. I only have an A:, B: and C: drive but the IMPROCES drive menu shows drives A: - E: and if I select E:, it says the drive doesn't exist. Why? A. IMPROCES makes use of the LASTDRIVE environment that is usually SET in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If you do not have a LASTDRIVE variable set, DOS will default to drive E: as your LASTDRIVE variable, whether you have a drive E: or not. 31 Q. Do you really expect people to send you $25 for a program they already have? A. YES! I believe in Shareware and believe it is the best way to market this type of software. Why is IMPROCES shareware? I went to a software store and was looking at a graphics package that "said" it supported 256 color VGA and SVGA. It only cost $150 to find out! I wasn't about to gamble $150 hard earned dollars. I don't think you should have to gamble with your hard earned money either, so please try IMPROCES before you buy it, just don't forget to buy it if you use it! Q. $25 is sort of inexpensive for such a powerful program. Why don't you charge more? A. I believe the program is worth more myself. I also believe that people shouldn't have to spend a small fortune on their software. All of the documentation for the program is online and there is no option for a printed manual, thereby keeping costs down. Their is also the savings from using the Shareware method of distribution. All of these savings are passed on to the user. Q. I have a suggestion or a feature I would like to see included in the next release of IMPROCES. Would you like to hear it? A. Yes! I don't mind suggestions or ideas on improving the program. Keep in mind that I do get a lot of suggestions from many sources, some of which I implement immediately, some of which I shelve for later releases. I do listen to/read them all though. EXAMPLES/TUTORIAL Coincident with the release of Version 2.2 was the release of the IMPROCES Example Pack. Compiled by John Wagner and Steve Lumos, this package contains many examples and tutorials on things you can do with the program. It is available on the Dust Devil BBS as IMTTR10.ZIP. Any additions to the pack are welcome but I must ask that before you add anything to the pack, you do it by contacting myself or Steve and we will add your submission to subsequent tutor packs. If you have something to add, please contact either Steve or I on the DDBBS. Be forewarned that the IMTTR10.ZIP file is over 300K long. REFERENCES: There is an excellent article in the March 1987 issue of Byte Magazine that explains many of the image processing functions used in the program. Most public libraries maintain back issues of Byte Magazine. Two excellent books on Image Processing and one on graphics: 32 "Beyond Photography, The Digital Darkroom", Gerald J. Holzmann, ISBN # 0-13-074410-7. An excellent book on transforms, plenty of 'C' code and examples, written with a slight sense of humor and very easy to understand. "Digital Image Processing", William K. Pratt, ISBN # 0-471-01888-0. Hard to stomach super-techno-nurd reference manual that contains everything you ever wanted to know and didn't want to know about image processing. Buy this book if either 1: You hold a Masters Degree in some kind biological chemical engineering, or 2: You want to leave the book open in hopes of impressing your friends. If you are looking for a good book on graphics programming, try "Graphics Gems", Andrew Glassner, ISBN # 0-12-286165-5. This book is a compilation of effective (and fast) graphics programming techniques. There is plenty of C code and psuedo-code included. I can't say enough good things about this book, I love it! PRODUCT SUPPORT: Registered and unregistered users are encouraged to call the Dust Devil BBS, (702)796-7134 for product support. Once you log on to Dust Devil, you will have full access to the JW Software conference where I answer any and all questions about IMPROCES. New users have full download privileges on the first call, so you may also call just to get the latest version of IMPROCES. I am not the Sysop of Dust Devil, therefore direct any questions about the BBS to the Sysop. BUG REPORTS: If you have a problem with the program and think it is a bug, I am most interested in hearing about it. Before you contact me please make sure it is a bug by first looking up the function in the manual and also reading the KNOWN PROBLEMS and the Q and A sections. BLACK AND WHITE DOTS: Yes, I know there are sometimes random black white and dots on the screen after loading certain image files. Clicking the RMB until the menu bar goes away will restore the proper values for these pixels. The KNOWN PROBLEMS section will explain why this happens. Also, the COLOR-MENU ADJUST function can help fix this problem. VIRTUAL VIDEO, WHAT IS IT?: Virtual Video (or Disk Video) is a way of manipulating large image files using a video mode that is smaller then the image file without any information loss from scaling. What you must recognize when using a Virtual Screen, is that the Physical Screen does not represent the whole picture. The Physical Screen is actually a small "window" into the Virtual Screen that can be moved around so that you can "look into" and edit any area of the Virtual Screen. See diagram 2.0. 33 Diagram 2.0: Virtual versus Physical Screen (Virtual Mode 2048x2048 shown) Virtual Screen─┐ 0,2047 0,0 ┌─────────┴───────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ a┌─────────────┐ │ │ │ Physical │ │ │ │ Screen │ │ │ └─────────────┘b │ │ │ │ Physical Virtual │ │ a = 0,0 100,100 │ │ b = 319,199 419,299 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 0,2047 2047,2047 IMPROCES implements the Virtual Screen as a disk file that is a bitmap of video memory that can be swapped in and out of video memory very fast, allowing the user to pan through file, much like you would scan through a text document. These disk files can be very large, (a 2048x2048 pixel disk file would take 4 megabytes of disk space), therefore a hard disk is pretty much a requirement to do this. One advantage of Virtual Screens is that they can provide another level of UNDO. Before you move the Virtual Screen, you are asked if you want to save the changes that were made to it. BEST FITTING A PALETTE, or Re-Mapping: The overlaying and averaging options and the clipboard give you the options of "Best Fitting the Palette". What this means is that the clipfile or incoming image (or on-screen, depending on your selection) will have it's palette adjusted so that it will look like it was intended with the new palette. If the difference in palettes is largely in the placement of colors in the palette, there will hardly be any noticeable difference in the adjusted image. If the change in the palette is radical, there will be some notice of the change in the image. Color Averaging: Another feature released with version 3.0 is color averaging on the incoming files and clip files. To improve the speed of this, IMPROCES pre-computes a look up table of values. This takes up time before an image or clipfile is loaded (in average mode), but it improves the overall speed of the loading. For best results, use a Split Palette whenever possible if averaging. HOW TO CONTACT ME: If you need to contact me, I prefer you do it through the Dust Devil BBS or by mail at the address for registering IMPROCES. 34 GETTING UPGRADES Registered users of IMPROCES, are entitled to free upgrades. You may obtain your upgrades in a number of ways. The Dust Devil BBS is the "Home Base" of IMPROCES and the latest version of IMPROCES will always be available there. You can also wait for the program to arrive at your favorite BBS. For $5 a upgrade fee, I will mail you the latest version of the program. If you go this route, include the version number of the program you are presently using so I'll know whether to send you a disk right away or to wait for the next upgrade. The number of the DDBBS is (702)796-7134. UPGRADE NOTES: If you are upgrading from version 1.0, you must run a utility program called CONVCLIP.COM to upgrade any clipboard files you might have saved with version 1.0. CONVCLIP.COM is no longer distributed with the IMPROCES package but it is available on the Dust Devil BBS as CONVCLIP.ZIP. Again, you will only need this program to convert the clipboard images from version 1.0 only. As of version 3.0 of IMPROCES, clipboard files also have a separate palette file so that the clipfiles can be re-mapped to another palette. If you have clipboard files from a version of IMPROCES prior to 3.0, you might want to re-save these files so that they can take advantage of the re-mapping feature. DISTRIBUTION POLICY: You may, and are encouraged to share this program with others so that they may try it. Please distribute the program in the original package you received it in, whether it be a ZIP file, LZH file or whatever. If you received the IMPROCES files in uncompressed form, and want to compress the files before distribution, please distribute it with a filename of IMPROCxx.zzz where xx is the version (11 for 1.1, 20 for 2.0 etc...) and where zzz is the extension that the compression program provides. Example: IMPROCES, Ver 3.0, compressed by PKZIP would be IMPROC30.ZIP. If you upload the program to a BBS, please use the following description: SVGA Image Processor/Editor. VGA/MOUSE Req. SHAREWARE VENDORS: I strongly encourage all shareware vendors to include IMPROCES in their catalogs. However, before you do I ask the following: ALL VENDORS SHOULD RECEIVE WRITTEN PERMISSION from me, John Wagner, prior to including ANY VERSION of IMPROCES in a catalog and prior to distributing IMPROCES. Before I grant permission to a Shareware Vendor to distribute IMPROCES, I would like to see a sample catalog from your outfit and receive reassurance from you stating that your customers are aware that purchasing a disk from you still requires them to register the software if they plan to use it. This must be stated clearly in any catalog or advertisement that IMPROCES is to be included in as well. 35 When I grant permission for a Shareware Vendor to distribute IMPROCES, I will mail them a master diskette, for which the Vendor shall agree that all copies of IMPROCES that they distribute will be made from and all of the files on the disk I send will be included when IMPROCES is distributed. Additionally, I reserve the right to revoke permission to distribute IMPROCES with written notice at any time without giving reason. IMAGE FILE FORMATS: GIF and PCX: IMPROCES uses the GIF file format and the PCX file format. All flavors of GIF and PCX are supported. All images saved in either format will be saved as 256 color images. In the PCX format, the first 16 colors will be saved in the image header and the full 256 color palette will be tacked on the end of the file, in accordance with the PCX format. The reason I use GIF and PCX only is because I felt that those two formats represent the greatest number of images available today. GIF is useful because of it's device independence and cross platform and O/S usage. PCX because of it's use in most drawing programs and image file converters. The PRF format is really of use only to programmers who use Fastgraph. I don't recommend using PRF for storing your images if you aren't going to use them in a Fastgraf program. There is no palette information stored with the PRF file. I wrote the PCX decoder and encoder myself as well as the Targa decoder. The PRF decoder was written by me and the PRF encoder was based on some code provided to me by Ted Gruber Software. The GIF encoding and decoding is done with a GIF library written by Gershon Elber. GIF_LIB is widely available on many BBS's and Compuserve. Additionally, the source code for the Stone Soup Groups Fractint contains code for GIF encoding and decoding. True Color Targa files (TGA): Starting with version 3.0 of IMPROCES, is support for 24 bit color, Uncompressed, True Color Targa files. Theses files can contain up to 16 million different colors in them and are usually very large. IMPROCES performs a histogram weighted color reduction to shrink the possible 16 million colors to the 256 supported by the program. Color reduction is an art, more than a science and the algorithm used by IMPROCES was developed by me using trial and error until the best results were found on a multitude of different images. After the image is loaded into IMPROCES, it can be saved as a GIF or PCX file which will be much smaller then the original Targa file. It can even be saved as a PRF file and incorporated into a program that uses Fastgraph! FILES OF INTEREST TO PROGRAMMERS: Registered users of IMPROCES might want to make use of the IMRPOCES .CLB and .PAL file formats in their programs. Below is a 36 brief description of them. NOTE: Anyone can use the .MAP palette file format. I included it in IMPROCES to maintain compatibility with the Stone Soup Groups Fractint and the many other programs that use it. Although no compression is performed on the clipfiles, they are very fast to read from the disk. The format of the .CLB file is very basic, the file is a byte for byte copy of video memory, with the dimensions tacked on the end after the text "DIMS:". To get the DIMS, open the file in TEXT mode and then set the file pointer back about 50 or so bytes and scan forward until you reach the string "DIMS:", then read in the SX, SY, EX, and EY with a scanf() like so: fscanf(fp,"%d %d %d %d",&sx,&sy,&ex,&ey); The IMPROCES .PAL format is very basic. The format is the as follows: byte 0 = color 0 red attribute byte 1 = color 0 green attribute byte 2 = color 0 blue attribute ..... byte 765 = color 255 red attribute byte 766 = color 255 green attribute byte 767 = color 255 blue attribute The values in the .PAL should then be bit shifted 2 bits to get the proper values when using a IBM VGA system. The .MAP is the same is .PAL except that the .MAP file is written in text mode with room for comments. The following code will read in one line from a .MAP file: fgets(line,100,fp); //get 100 bytes from the file *fp sscanf( line, "%d %d %d", &r, &g, &b ); //sscanf the values The values in the .MAP should then be bit shifted 2 bits to get the proper values when using a IBM VGA system. HOW?: IMPROCES was written originally written in MS QC using the 320x200x256 VGA mode only. A friend introduced me to Turbo C and the BGI and it was downhill from there! Using a BGI driver written by Jordan Powell Hargrave and the Borland Turbo C++ graphics library, I achieved a program that works in 320x200x256 thru 1024x768x256. Not an easy feat! I have seen no other programs like this on the market so if you decide to keep the program, please register it. As of version 2.0, IMPROCES is compiled with Turbo C++, Version 1.01. It is still written in straight C however. 37 WHO?: The IMPROCES Team: Programmer: John Wagner, Las Vegas, Nevada Beta Testers: Steve Lumos, Las Vegas, Nevada Mitch Harhay, Las Vegas, Nevada Bob Sherburne, Las Vegas, Nevada Special Thanks: Thanks to Ted and Diana Gruber of Ted Gruber Software for the use of the Dust Devil BBS for user support and as a beta test site. Ted Gruber Software has many fine shareware products, most notably Fastgraph and Fastgraph Light Graphics libraries which provide programmers with the tools to do animation and many other advanced graphics functions. One of the best parts of Fastgraph is its users manual which is practically a textbook on how to do graphics animation and other very advanced graphics functions. To download the latest version of IMPROCES or Fastgraph, call the Dust Devil BBS at (702)796-7134. Downloads are allowed and encouraged on the first call. Leave me a note if you call! Ted also wrote the PRF encoder that is included in IMPROCES. Thanks to the Beta Testers Steve Lumos, Mitch Harhay and Bob Sherburne. I don't think beta testers is a fair title for these guys because they provided so many ideas and useful input that equal credit should given to them for the outcome of the program. Thanks to the Stone Soup Group for making the source code to FRACTINT so freely available. Without it, the Plasma Cloud function would not have been possible. Thanks to Mitchell Waite of the Waite Group for his useful suggestions and for providing insights into the user interface and other functions of the program. If you haven't bought any of the Waite Groups computer books, you are missing out. I started programming in 'C' after buying the Waite Groups "C Primer Plus", which I highly recommend for anyone starting out with C programming. Special thanks to my wife Sherry for putting up with me spending all these late nights on my computer. And last but not least, thanks to my son Martin (who just turned a year old Aug 20, 1991) for being such great little guy and not pouring his oatmeal into my floppy disk drive (yet). He has made some kamakazi dives at the keyboard though and he did manage to get some jelly on my mouse pad, oh well. 38 LEGAL STUFF: IMPROCES(C). Copyright John Wagner 1991. All rights reserved. GIF and "Graphics Interchange Format" are trademarks (tm) of Compuserve Incorporated, an H&R Block Company SVGA256.BGI is Copyright 1991, JORDAN HARGRAPHIX SOFTWARE Created using Turbo C++, Copyright (C) Borland 1990 GIF Decoding and Encoding done via: GIF_LIB (C), Gershon Elber, 1991. Version 1.1 Fastgraph and Fastgraph Light is Copyright, 1991, Ted Gruber Software DISCLAIMER AND LEGAL NOTICES: I, John M. Wagner retain ALL rights to distribute and collect fees for this software. This software IS NOT RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN!!! IT IS NOT FREE!!! It is OWNED by me and only me! You, as a user have the right to possess and distribute this software. You MAY NOT collect ANY FEE, real or otherwise for the transfer of this software, Exception: You may charge the cost of distribution (ie: phone transfer costs, floppy disk/mailers, postage. It is to be understood, with the party that is charged these fees, that paying transfer costs DOES NOT constitute a registration fee to the author and that a registration fee is STILL required after evaluating the software. All files included in this package must be distributed together and may not be modified in ANY WAY by anyone other then John Wagner. I reserve the right to refuse anyone the right to distribute this software with a written notice. DISCLAIMER NOTICE: This program was written by John Wagner. I, John Wagner accept NO RESPONSIBILITY for ANY damages, real or otherwise that this program cause. I make no guarantees that this program works as described in this document file or anywhere else. This software is provided "AS IS" with NO GUARANTEE, expressed or implied. USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK! 39 USERS LICENSE UNREGISTERED USERS: Users who have not registered their copy of IMPROCES, are hereby granted permission to try IMPROCES for a period of two weeks before they must discontinue using the program or register a copy. This two week period starts from when the package is first received by the user. REGISTERED USERS: Users who have registered IMPROCES may use the program on a single computer. The registered version of the program may reside on more then one computer at one time, provided it is not possible to use more then one copy at one time. 40