Night Owl 6/Night Owl's Shareware - PDSI-006 - Night Owl Corp (1990).iso/020a/piclb183.zip/PICLAB.DOC

Text File | 1991-10-07 | 39KB | 1,080 lines

PICLAB.DOC
October 8, 1991

Piclab 1.83 is a public domain image processing program by Lee
Daniel Crocker and the Stone Soup Group.  It should be distributed
with the following files:

PL.EXE          The program itself.
PL286.EXE       Faster, smaller version for 286 (and up) machines.
PL.HLP          Text file for the HELP command.
PICLAB.DOC      This file.
GAMMA1.MAP  \
GAMMA2.MAP   X  Color maps for viewing grayscale and pseudo-color.
PSEUDO.MAP  /
SSTOOLS.SMP     Sample SSTOOLS.INI file.

If you are missing one or more of these files, contact the author
at one of the addresses listed at the end of this document.



Overview
========

Piclab operates on "images", so I will begin by explaining exactly
what an image is and how Piclab classifies them.

For our purposes, an image is a data set that describes
the reflectance of a 2-dimensional surface such as a photograph.  In
particular, an image is a 2-dimensional array of "pixels" (a short
form of "picture elements"), each of which contains data for the
small rectangular area of the image it represents.

There are many systems in which image data represents "objects"
rather than pixels.  PostScript is probably the most notable example.
The commands sent to a PostScript device tell it to draw lines or
boxes or characters and let the device decide how it will perform the
commands it gets.  Piclab does not deal with object-based images or
devices.

Image data comes in several flavors, and while all are related in
many ways, there are distinctions important to keep in mind.  I will
divide image data into four classes: bitmapped, grayscale,
golor-mapped, and true-color.  In all of these formats an image is
represented as a rectangular array of pixels, each of which may
contain some value.

Bitmapped images are collections of on/off dots.  That is, each pixel
can be either "on" or "off", with no states in between.  This type of
image can be displayed on just about any type of computer and is
especially suited to printer output.  The disadvantages are the
inability to represent color, and the lack of detail.  With large
bitmapped images, one can get a surprising amount of detail by
simulating shades of gray by dot patterns.  This process, called
halftoning, is used by newspapers to print photographs.

At this time, Piclab does not deal directly with bitmapped images,
although it can treat them as grayscale and can output images to
bitmapped devices.

Grayscale images represent images by storing the intensity of light
for each pixel on a scale of more than just on/off.  Typically, a
grayscale image will allow 64 to 256 shades of gray at each pixel.
Very high quality renderings of black and white photographs can be
stored in this format.

As an aside, the term "black and white" is often used to describe
both bitmapped images and grayscale images.  For this reason, I will
not use the term in this document.  Another common term for grayscale
is "monochrome", which is often used to describe monitors that can
display only shades of one color (often green or amber).

Color-mapped images are the ones most common on personal computers.
Each pixel in an image is represented by a number (called an index)
that is used to look up the pixel's actual color in a table (called
the palette, much like an artist's palette).  These images are
popular because they can be very colorful, yet take up less memory
than full-color images (described next).  The size of the color
palette varies among formats, but is typically 16 to 256.

True-color images are the highest quality representation, and the
largest files as well.  Each pixel contains the complete color
information for that pixel, usually expressed as the intensity of the
red, green, and blue color components of the light at that location.

Piclab deals directly with grayscale, color-mapped and true-color
images, regardless of the display capabilities of the hardware on
which it is running.  In fact, Piclab can be used to enhance and
print images on machines with no display at all.

I must stress that there is no connection between the images
Piclab deals with and the type of display on your computer.  Piclab
has a SHOW command that displays the image it is working with, but if
the image is more detailed than your display can handle, Piclab will
do its best to approximate the image on your display.  Regardless of
what the display looks like, the image itself is always stored and
operated upon in full detail.

So what's the point?  You might think that having image data more
accurate than your computer can display is wasteful, but it is not.
One reason is that images get passed around to users of different
machines, and the more accurate the image data, the better each
machine will be able to display it.  You can also do things like
print color images to a color printer even though you have no color
display on your computer.  Lastly, hardware to display images as
accurately as Piclab stores them does exist, and is becoming more
affordable every day.  If you keep your images stored in their full
accuracy, you will be better able to take advantage of any new
hardware you may get.



General Operation
=================

After starting Piclab by typing "PL" at the system command line, the
user may enter any of a number of commands, each of which is
performed immediately.

If you give arguments to the PL command, the first is taken as the
name of a file containing Piclab commands, and the rest are treated
as arguments to that program, accessed as %1, %2, etc., much like DOS
batch file arguments.  This feature can be used to create programs
for specific tasks.

Commands generally operate on two internal picture buffers called OLD
and NEW.  Most commands start by deleting OLD and renaming NEW to
OLD.  They then perform some transformation on OLD storing the result
in NEW.  The command UNDO swaps NEW and OLD--effectively reversing
the last operation.

OLD and NEW are stored on disk.  This decision was made primarily
because my taste in pictures is better than my budget for RAM.  If
you are dealing with simpler pictures, or if you have RAM to burn,
you can direct Piclab to store OLD and NEW on a RAMdisk.  In MSDOS
and similar operating systems, this is done by typing "SET TMP=D:" at
the system command line before running Piclab, where D: is the drive
or directory specification of the RAMdisk.

Piclab can read and write images in different file formats.  The LOAD
command is used to read an image in one of these formats into the
edit buffers.  The SAVE is used to write the contents of the edit
buffers into one of these formats.  Every session with Piclab will
generally begin with a LOAD, and end with a SAVE (or perhaps a PRINT)
with some processing in between.  A file may be loaded from one file
format and saved in a different one, thereby converting among formats.

Command parsing in Piclab is roughly like that of the system command
line.  The line is broken into words that must be separated by
spaces; the first word specifies the actual command and the remaining
words are passed to the command handler as arguments.  The individual
command-handling routines are responsible for interpreting their
arguments.  Generally, a word may be shortened as long as it does not
conflict with any other word in the same context. For example, the
LIST COMMANDS command may be abbreviated LIS COM.

Any words in the command line that begin with the '%' character are
replaced as follows: if the remainder of the word is a number, the
word is replaced with the argument to the PL command in that position
(starting with 0).  Otherwise, the word is replaced with the value of
the DOS environment variable named by the word.  For example, here is
a short Piclab program (named V2E) to convert a VGA 256-color image
into an EGA 16-color image:

GLOAD %1
UNMAP
RESCALE 640 350
EGAPAL
MAP
GSAVE %2

With this program in the current directory, typing "PL V2E IMG1 IMG2"
will load IMG1.GIF, convert it to 16-color ega, and save that to
IMG2.GIF.

Piclab has many settings that can be changed to accommodate the
user's needs or environment.  From within Piclab, these are set with
the SET command.  Because many of these will need to be set
identically each time Piclab is run, a mechanism is proved for
putting initial settings into a startup file.

This file, called SSTOOLS.INI, must be in a directory pointed to by
the environment variables INIT or PATH.  It is a plain text file that
contains initial settings and preferences for many of the Stone Soup
tools.  Here is a sample of a typical SSTOOLS.INI file:

    [fractint]

    logmap=yes
    sound=off
    warn=yes

    [piclab]

    display=vga1
    fileformat=gif
    picdir=e:/gallery
    multiimage=off
    multimap=off
    printfile=pd
    printer=paintjet
    helpfile=c:/etc/pl.hlp

Note that sections for each tool are marked by a line containing only
the tool's name in square brackets.  The lines in the Piclab section
can contain any variable normally set by the SET command, but note
the different syntax: there is no SET, and the variable name and
value are separated by an = sign rather than a space.



Commands
========

MAKEPAL

Syntax: MAKEPAL

Makes a palette appropriate for the NEW buffer.  Operates on only
true-color images.  The variable PALETTE determines the number of
colors in the new map, and the MAKEPAL command picks that many colors
to best fit those in the image.

The MAP command must be used to map the image onto the palette.


EGAPAL

Syntax: EGAPAL

Makes a 16-of-64-color palette appropriate for the NEW buffer.
Operates on only true-color images.  This is designed primarily for
reducing full-color images to a form better suited for display on
an IBM EGA or similar device.

The MAP command must be used to map the image onto the palette.


MAP

Syntax: MAP

Maps NEW buffer onto the current palette.  Operates only on true-color
images, and produces a color-mapped image.  The variable DITHER
determines whether each pixel is simply mapped onto the nearest color
in the map, or whether dithering is used to achieve a more accurate
mapping.  DITHER defaults to ON, and is recommended for most uses.

The MAKEPAL command should be used to create the best possible palette
for the image before mapping, but any palette may be used for special
purposes such as mapping several images to the same palette.


PLOAD

Syntax: PLOAD file [offset [count]]

Loads a MAP file into the current palette.  First argument is the name
of the MAP file which is assumed to be in the MAPDIR directory.  If a
second argument is given, the palette is loaded starting at that index.
If a third argument is given, only that many colors are loaded.

MAP files are plain text files that contain the RGB values for each
palette index on one line.


PSAVE

Syntax: PSAVE file [offset [count]]

Saves a MAP file from the current palette.  First argument is the name
of the MAP file which is assumed to be in the MAPDIR directory.  If a
second argument is given, the palette is loaded starting at that index.
If a third argument is given, only that many colors are loaded.

This can be used to save a palette created with MAKEPAL so that it need
not be calculated again, or so that it can be used with other images.

MAP files are plain text files that contain the RGB values for each
palette index on one line.


GRAYPAL

Syntax: GRAYPAL file [offset [count]]

Makes the specified MAP file the default colors used when displaying
monochrome images or full-color images on a VGA.  The default colors
are equivalent to GAMMA1.MAP, but GAMMA2.MAP and PSEUDO.MAP can be
useful in some situations.

MAP files are plain text files that contain the RGB values for each
palette index on one line.


UNMAP

Syntax: UNMAP

Produces a true-color image from a color-mapped one.  This must be done
before applying true-color transformations such as rescaling.  After
transformations have been performed in true-color, the image may be
reduced to a color-mapped one again with the MAKEPAL and MAP commands.


HELP

Syntax: HELP [subject]

Looks like you have figured this one out already.


CALL

Syntax: CALL program [args]...

Calls the external program named by its first argument passing along
any subsequent arguments to that program.  Many programs do not
release all of the memory given to them when they terminate, so
Piclab will reserve a large portion of memory for itself before
calling a program.  If you do not have much more memory than Piclab
reserves, this may result in the program not being able to run in the
memory left.

If this is a problem, you can use the DOS or SHELL commands to exit
to DOS with all of the free memory available.


CANCEL

Syntax: CANCEL

Cancels the most recent operation.  If there are point
transformations pending that have not yet been saved with the
TRANSFORM command, these are cancelled and no changes are made to the
edit buffers.  Otherwise, the NEW and OLD buffers are exchanged.

There are some operations (like SAVE) that do not alter the edit
buffers.  If one of these operations was the last one performed, UNDO
will undo the operation before that.  No arguments.


UNDO

Syntax: UNDO

Cancels the most recent operation.  If there are point
transformations pending that have not yet been saved with the
TRANSFORM command, these are cancelled and no changes are made to the
edit buffers.  Otherwise, the NEW and OLD buffers are exchanged.

There are some operations (like SAVE) that do not alter the edit
buffers.  If one of these operations was the last one performed, UNDO
will undo the operation before that.  No arguments.


SHELL

Syntax: SHELL [command]

Calls up the DOS command line.  All available memory is released to
DOS when this command is given, and is reclaimed when DOS is exited.
For this reason, some programs that cannot be CALLed may be run from
with DOS.

Any arguments to this command will be passed to the system as a
command line, and will cause it to return immediately after the
command is done.  One particularly useful action of this program is
"SHELL COPY /B PDAT PRN", which copies the print file to the printer.
"SHELL DIR" can be used to view file directories when you want to see
all files, not just pictures.


DOS

Syntax: DOS [command]

Calls up the DOS command line.  All available memory is released to
DOS when this command is given, and is reclaimed when DOS is exited.
For this reason, some programs that cannot be CALLed may be run from
with DOS.

Any arguments to this command will be passed to the system as a
command line, and will cause it to return immediately after the
command is done.  One particularly useful action of this program is
"DOS COPY /B PDAT PRN", which copies the print file to the printer.
"DOS DIR" can be used to view file directories when you want to see
all files, not just pictures.


QUIT

Syntax: QUIT [flag]

Exits Piclab.  If there is a point transformation pending, it must be
cancelled or saved before exiting.  If the exit command is given any
arguments, it exits immediately regardless of pending transformations.

Inside a program, QUIT merely sets a flag so that Piclab will exit after
the program is complete.


EXIT

Syntax: EXIT [flag]

Exits Piclab.  If there is a point transformation pending, it must be
cancelled or saved before exiting.  If the exit command is given any
arguments, it exits immediately regardless of pending transformations.

Inside a program, EXIT merely sets a flag so that Piclab will exit after
the program is complete.


LIST

Syntax: LIST [item]

If given without an argument, shows what things may can be listed.
If one of these things (e.g. FORMATS, COMMANDS, BUFFERS) is given as
an argument, the appropriate items are listed.  Especially useful are
LIST COMMANDS if you forget the name of a command you are looking for
and LIST BUFFERS to check the size and format of the image in the OLD
and NEW edit buffers.


PAUSE

Syntax: PAUSE [time]

With no arguments, Piclab waits for a key to be pressed before
continuing.  If one argument is given, Piclab waits for that number
of seconds (but will break early if a key is pressed).  This is for
use within programs.


PRINT

Syntax: PRINT [x-offset [y-offset]]

Prints the image in the NEW buffer into the file specified by the
PRINTFILE variable.  The current setting of the PRINTER variable
determines what codes are sent to the file.

For hard-to-explain reasons, the current release of Piclab does not
allow the use of a device name such as PRN in the PRINTFILE
variable.  Images must therefore be printed to disk and copied to the
printer with DOS.

If arguments are given, the first two are used as the X and Y offsets
of the first dot to print on the first page of output.


RUN

Syntax: RUN program [args...]

Takes one argument--the name of a text file containing Piclab
commands.  These are interpreted as if they had been typed from the
command line, but they are not echoed, and messages are turned off
while a program runs.  Subsequent arguments are passed along to the
program as %1, etc.

A program can also be run by giving its name as an argument to the PL
command when starting Piclab.


SHOW

Syntax: SHOW [x-offset [y-offset]]

Used to display as much of the image in the NEW buffer as will fit on
the computer's display screen.  If arguments are given, the first is
used as a horizontal offset into the image buffer and the second as a
vertical offset.  This can be used to look at different parts of an
image too big for the screen.  Certain video modes allow scrolling
with the arrow keys, but not all.  If no arguments are given, the
current values of the XORIGIN and YORIGIN variables are used.

If any point transformations are pending, the image you see on screen
reflects the image as it would be AFTER the pending transformation.
This can be used to look at the effect of a transformation before
saving or cancelling it.

Because Piclab often stores data more accurately than the display can
render it, what you see on the screen is only an approximation of the
actual image.  In particular, because Piclab does not yet support any
true-color display hardware, true-color images will be shown in grayscale
on displays capable of it, or in 8-color dither on others.


SET

Syntax: SET [variable [value]]

Without any arguments, lists all Piclab variables and their current
values.  Variables can be numbers, character strings, or TRUE/
FALSE.  Variables set system defaults and control the specifics of
how many commands perform.

If the set command is given one argument, the variable named is
cleared.  That is, set to 0 if it is numeric, to "" if it is a
string, and to FALSE if it is TRUE/FALSE.

If SET is given with two arguments, the variable named by the first
is set to the value specified by the second.  If a numeric variable
is given a string value, it is set to 0.  String values should not be
put in quotes.  TRUE/FALSE values may be set by the keywords
TRUE/FALSE, YES/NO, ON/OFF, or by the numeric values 1/0.

Within the SSTOOLS.INI file, the syntax is <variable>=<value>.

Help on individual variables is available by typing HELP <variable>.


HISTOGRAM

Syntax: HISTOGRAM [RED | GREEN | BLUE]...

If no arguments are given, plots histograms for all planes; if one or
more arguments are given, a histogram is plotted for each plane
specified as an argument.  The histograms plotted reflect the image
as it would be after any pending transformations, so you can look at
the results of many processes before saving or cancelling them.

Each vertical bar of the histogram represents the total number of
pixels in the image with values in the range beginning with the value
listed below the histogram in hexadecimal.  Each bar covers a range
of four values and there are 64 bars.  The height of each bar is in
logarithmic proportion to the frequency of occurrence of values in
the range it represents.  The bars are automatically scaled so that
the tallest one is made 20 characters high.


NEGATE

Syntax: NEGATE [RED | GREEN | BLUE]...

Arguments are handled as in HISTOGRAM.  Inverts each value in the
lookup table for the planes specified.  This can be used after
digitizing a negative or for special effects.


DARKEN

Syntax: DARKEN [[RED | GREEN | BLUE] value]...

Subtracts a constant value to each point in the planes specified.  If
only one argument is given, all planes are brightened by that amount.
Otherwise, arguments are interpreted in order, and any arguments that
specify planes determine which plane the next numerical argument will
affect.  For example, DARKEN RED 10 BLUE 15 would subtract 10 from
the values in the red plane and 15 from those in the blue.  Any
values that would be taken out of the 0..255 range by the transform
are clamped.

Because this darkening is a linear operation, the image to be
brightened or darkened should be encoded with a gamma of 1.0.  That
is, there should be a linear relationship between values in the image
and intensities on the display.  If this is not the case, gamma
correction may be applied with the GAMMA command before adjusting
brightness.


BRIGHTEN

Syntax: BRIGHTEN [[RED | GREEN | BLUE] value]...

Adds a constant value to each point in the planes specified.  If only
one argument is given, all planes are brightened by that amount.
Otherwise, arguments are interpreted in order, and any arguments that
specify planes determine which plane the next numerical argument will
affect.  For example, BRIGHTEN RED 10 BLUE 15 would add 10 to the
values in the red plane and 15 to those in the blue.  Any values that
would be taken out of the 0..255 range by the transform are clamped.

Because this brightening is a linear operation, the image to be
brightened or darkened should be encoded with a gamma of 1.0.  That
is, there should be a linear relationship between values in the image
and intensities on the display.  If this is not the case, gamma
correction may be applied with the GAMMA command before adjusting
brightness.


CONTRAST

Syntax: CONTRAST [[RED | GREEN | BLUE] value]...

This stretches or squeezes the contrast of an image.  Arguments are
interpreted like those in BRIGHTEN.  If a given value is positive,
the image contrast is stretched so that values that were equal to the
given value become 0, and those that were equal to (255-value) become
255.  If the given value is negative, the inverse operation is
performed.  Because contrast is always stretched equally around the
midpoint of the range, it is a good idea to brighten or darken an
image as necessary to center its histogram before performing a
contrast stretch.

Also, the contrast stretching formula operates on color values
assuming a linear relationship between these values and the
intensities they represent (as do the BRIGHTEN and DARKEN commands).
Therefore, if an image has been scanned with a device with a gamma
value not equal to 1.0, the image should be gamma corrected before
contrast stretching.


GAMMA

Syntax: GAMMA [[RED | GREEN | BLUE] value]...

The color values of the specified planes are adjusted so that values
encoded for display on a monitor with a gamma value equal to the
argument become linear.

For example, images encoded for display on PCs usually expect a
monitor with a gamma near 2.0.  The GAMMA 2.0 command will convert
these values to a linear scale.

Images encoded on Macintoshes and similar equipment have linear
values already.  Such images can be adjusted for display on PCs with
the inverse transformation, i.e. GAMMA 0.5.

See Piclab.DOC for more background on gamma correction.


COLOR

Syntax: COLOR [mapfile]

Converts a grayscale image into a color-mapped image.  If the first
argument is the name of a MAP file, the image is pseudo-colored with
that map, otherwise the color map will contain the original grays.


GRAY

Syntax: GRAY

Converts true-color or color-mapped image to grayscale.  The formula
used for conversion to grayscale is the same as used by black and
white televisions and is designed to mimic the eye's response: gray =
(.287 * red) + (.589 * green) + (.114 * blue).


TRANSFORM

Syntax: TRANSFORM

Saves the result of a series of point-process transformations to the
edit buffer.  This must be done before any other transformation may
be performed on the image.  If you wish to cancel the pending
transformations without saving them, use UNDO or CANCEL.


MEDIAN

Syntax: MEDIAN [WEIGHTED]

Reduces spot noise in an image.  Each point is replaced by the median
of the points in its 3 x 3 area.  That is, the nine points in this
area are sorted and the fifth one is taken.  If the one argument to
this routine is WEIGHTED, then the center point is added twice more
to the list and the sixth of the 11 points is taken.

The median filter results in some smoothing, but not as much as with
the SMOOTH command.  This effect is a little less drastic with the
weighted median filter.  Repeated application of this operation will
result in an oil-paint texture appearing on the image.

This filter will not help reduce periodic or other noise--only small
spot noise such as from dust on a lens.


SHARPEN

Syntax: SHARPEN [value]

Applies what is called (somewhat inaccurately) a LaPlace transform to
the image.  The effect is that edges in the image are sharpened as if
the image had been re-focused.  Unfortunately, it also increases the
amount of noise in the image, making it appear more grainy.

The command can be given a single numerical argument, which specifies
the severity of the transform.  It is basically a tradeoff between
sharpness and noise, and defaults to 1.0.  This value provides a
noticeable increase in both sharpness and noise, and is about the
best value for sharpening when the purpose is to bring out
information.  When applying to a real image, a less severe value of
.2 to .5 is often better.  Values greater than 1.0 should be used
only when trying to locate specific objects in an image.  They
produce too much noise for accurate reproduction.

This function works by amplifying the differences between each point
and its neighbors.  This has the effect of amplifying high spatial
frequency details such as edges and noise.


SMOOTH

Syntax: SMOOTH [value]

Replaces each point with the average of the values of the nine points
in its neighborhood.  This has the effect of smoothing the image and
reducing high frequency effects like aliasing and noise, as well as
high frequency details.  If an argument is given, it is taken as a
value of the severity of the transform as with the SHARPEN command. A
value of 1.0 is exactly as described.  Values less than 1.0 change
the center value less than if a straight average had been done.
Values greater than 1.0 are not recommended.  If more smoothing is
desired, perform SMOOTH more than once rather than with a high value.


ADD

Syntax: ADD [WRAP]

Adds the OLD and NEW edit buffers storing the result in the NEW
buffer.  If the only argument to the command is WRAP, then values
that are taken out of the 0..255 range by the addition are taken mod
255; otherwise, values are clamped.


SUBTRACT

Syntax: SUBTRACT [WRAP]

Subtracts the NEW edit buffers from the OLD buffer storing the result
in the NEW buffer.  If the only argument to the command is WRAP, then
values that are taken out of the 0..255 range by the addition are
taken mod 255; otherwise, values are clamped.


AVERAGE

Syntax: AVERAGE

Averages the OLD and NEW buffers, storing the result in NEW.  This
can be used to reduce random digitizer noise by averaging the results
of different samplings.  Can also be used to produce a double exposure
effect when two different images are averaged.  No arguments.


CLIP

Syntax: CLIP [x-size y-size]

If no arguments are given, image is clipped from (XORIGIN,YORIGIN) to
lower right corner (upper right for bottom-up images).  If two
arguments are given, the image is clipped from (XORIGIN,YORIGIN) to
the horizontal and vertical size specified by the arguments.  XORIGIN
and YORIGIN are set to 0 after this operation.  One argument is an
error; more than two are ignored.


EXPAND

Syntax: EXPAND x-size y-size [(BLACK | WHITE | value) [value]...]

This command increases the size of the image to the width and height
specified by its first two arguments by adding extra rows and columns
of pixels.  If a third argument is given, it can be either BLACK or
WHITE to indicate what color the extra pixels should be.  If three
numeric arguments are given after the bounds arguments, they are
taken as the red, green, and blue value of the extra pixels.

Multiple images can be placed in a montage by using EXPAND and
OVERLAY.  Parts of an image may be joined with these functions as
well, but it is not recommended for separately digitized image
pieces, as no mosaicking is performed.

For color-mapped images, the third argument is treated as a color map
index rather than a color value.


MIRROR

Syntax: MIRROR

Flips the image horizontally.  No Arguments.


OVERLAY

Syntax: OVERLAY [x-offset y-offset]

Overlays the image in the NEW buffer on top of the OLD buffer.  The
image in the NEW buffer must not be larger than the image it is to
overlay.  If two arguments are given, they are used as the horizontal
and vertical offsets into the base image at which the overlay image
is to be placed.  Otherwise, XORIGIN and YORIGIN are used.


RESCALE

Syntax: RESCALE value | (x-size y-size)

Resamples the image at a different resolution.  This is useful for
scaling images up to a larger size for printing, or for scaling them
down for display.  It is recommended that image data always be saved
at its original sampling resolution to preserve as much data as
possible and only scaled when necessary to conform to hardware.

If only one argument is given, horizontal and vertical resolution are
both increased in the given proportion.  For example, if a 320 x 240
image is in the NEW buffer when the command RESCALE 1.5 is given, the
NEW buffer will contain the same image at 480 x 360.

More useful, though, is the case where two arguments are present.  In
this case, the arguments are treated directly as the new horizontal
and vertical resolution of the image.  The transformation above could
be expressed as RESCALE 360 480.  This is most often used to
compensate for differing aspect ratios.  For example, a 320 x 400
from an Amiga can be rescaled to 320 x 200 to be viewed on a VGA, or
to 720 x 540 for printing on the HP PaintJet.

Because RESCALE interpolates color values, it cannot be used on
color-mapped images.


REVERSE

Syntax: REVERSE

Changes the storage order of an image from top-down to bottom-up or
vice versa.  This is used primarily to save an image loaded from a
file in one format (like PCX) to a format requiring the opposite
order (like GIF).

Targa files can be stored either way, and contain information in the
header specifying which way they are stored.  Thus, any image can be
saved in Targa format at any time with minimal memory usage.


ROTATE

Syntax: ROTATE value

Rotates image in 90-degree increments.  The single argument may
specify 1, 2, or 3, in which case that number of clockwise 90-degree
rotations are performed.  If a number >= 90 is given as the argument,
the image is rotated that number of degrees (truncated to the nearest
90-degree increment).

This is very useful for rotating screen-oriented images for printing
on paper.  Because this operation requires large amounts of memory
for large images, it is recommended in this case to rotate the image
before scaling it up to size for printing.


DIR

Syntax: DIR [directory]

Lists all files in the PICDIR directory in the current file format.  If
an argument is given, files in that directory are listed.  No other
file specifications can be given.  If FILEFORMAT is set to GIF or
TARGA, statistics on the files will be listed as well.


GDIR

Syntax: GDIR [directory]

Lists only GIF files from PICDIR or from the directory given as sole
argument.  Statistics are listed from each file as well.


TDIR

Syntax: TDIR [directory]

Lists only Targa files from PICDIR or from the directory given as
sole argument.  Statistics are listed from each file as well.


LOAD

Syntax: LOAD file [args]...

Loads a file in the current file format into the NEW buffer, moving
the current contents of the NEW buffer to OLD.  Any arguments are
passed along to the function that handles loading for the current
format and are interpreted by that routine.  The first argument is
always the file to be loaded, but other arguments vary with the format.

LIST FORMATS will give you a list of all the available file formats,
and HELP is available for each.


GLOAD

Syntax: GLOAD file

Loads image in GIF format regardless of the current setting of
variable FILEFORMAT.  Sole argument is filename.


TLOAD

Syntax: TLOAD file

Loads image in Targa format regardless of the current setting of
variable FILEFORMAT.  Sole argument is filename.


RLOAD

Syntax: RLOAD file x-size y-size [COLOR | MONO]

Loads image in RAW format regardless of the current setting of
variable FILEFORMAT.  The width and height of the image must be
specified as the second and third arguments to RLOAD.  A fourth
argument may be either of the words COLOR or MONO to specify the
number of planes.  COLOR is default.

Color-mapped RAW files must be loaded as MONO, then colored with the
COLOR command after the palette is loaded with PLOAD.


SAVE

Syntax: SAVE file [args]...

Saves the image in the NEW buffer to the file specified by the first
argument.  Subsequent arguments are passed along to the file save
routine of the current file format.

LIST FORMATS will give you a list of all the available file formats,
and HELP is available for each.


GSAVE

Syntax: GSAVE file [INTERLACE]

Saves the NEW buffer to the file named by the first argument in GIF
format regardless of the current setting of variable FILEFORMAT.  If
the second argument is the word INTERLACE, image is interlaced.


TSAVE

Syntax: TSAVE file [bits]

Saves the NEW buffer to the file named by the first argument in Targa
format regardless of the current setting of variable FILEFORMAT.  If
the second argument is 16, 24, or 32, it is used as the number of
bits per pixel stored in the file.


RSAVE

Syntax: RSAVE file

Saves image in RAW format regardless of the current setting of
variable FILEFORMAT.  No arguments.



Warnings and Errors
===================

"Command arguments ignored"

    This warning occurs when you give a command more arguments than it
    needs.  Review the syntax of the command for an explanation.

"Open files were closed"

    This indicates that a command halted for some reason while files
    were open.  Piclab has closed the files but data may be lost.

"Probable information loss"

    This warning is very common and should be taken lightly.  It
    indicates that some transformation has been performed that is not
    reversible.  Most of the time, the initial image will be safely
    stored in a disk file, or recoverable with UNDO, so this is
    unimportant.

"Assertion failure; contact author"

    The is printed only in places I think are unreachable.  This
    message indicates a serious error, and action (such as saving the
    working file and exiting the program) should be taken immediately.

"Insufficient memory"

    There is not enough memory to perform the command issued with the
    current environment.  This is most common in frame processes like
    ROTATE, and with GIF loading with MULTIIMAGE and MULTIMAP set ON.
    In the latter case, those variables can be set to OFF before
    loading.  In the former, there is not much alternative but to clip
    the image to a smaller size or try to provide more memory.

"Miscellaneous file I/O"

    File open or write failed.  Could be bad or full disk.  Retrying
    may help.

"Unexpected end of file"

    File read failed.  This may occur when loading a file that is not
    encoded in the correct format, or when loading a RAW or IP file
    when the size is specified incorrectly.  CLIP may sometimes be used
    to recover.

"LZW compression/decompression"

    Usually the result of a bad GIF file.

"Unrecognized file format or bad file"

    The LOAD command encountered something in the file not consistent
    with the file format being loaded.  Usually this is because you
    specified the wrong format, but may also occur on a bad or
    incorrectly encoded file.

"Image buffer empty"

    You attempted a transformation when no image is in the edit
    buffers.

"Point transform pending; issue TRANSFORM command"

    The command you issued cannot be performed until any pending point
    transformations are either saved with the TRANSFORM command or
    cancelled with the UNDO command.

"Illegal parameter values"

    This is a catch-all command syntax error.  Review the syntax of
    the command you are issuing.

"File not found"

    File open in LOAD command failed.  Check that the file is in the
    proper directory by issuing a DIR command.  Also check for correct
    spelling.



Acknowledgements
================

Though I wrote 90% of the code, this project was definitely a group
effort.  The Graphics Support Forum Developer's Group on CompuServe
was instrumental in helping to inspire, create, optimize and test
this program.  I cannot acknowledge them all (or even name them all)
but a few deserve special mention:

John Bridges' Image Tools package served as an inspiration and a
performance yardstick for many of this program's functions, and some
of his generously donated code appears in the display code.  John is
the author of the GRASP animation package.

Bert Tyler, Timothy Wegner, and the rest of the Stone Soup Group
inspired several features and did some testing as well.

John Swenson, who knows more about how to use the program than even
I do, provided invaluable insights.

'GIF' and 'Graphics Interchange Format' are trademarks of CompuServe
Incorporated, an H&R Block company.



Author
======

Lee Daniel Crocker
5506 Camden Ave #D3
San Jose, CA  95124

The best way to reach me is to type GO PICS on CompuServe and leave
mail to user ID [73407,2030].  I read these messages two or three
times a week.

I am also reachable on Usenet as "[e-mail]" (uunet!mport!lee).