Image FS² - Image Conversion Application


Introduction
My original interest in Alternative Publishing's ImageFS was merely as a way of viewing MSWord documents in TechWriter. Its main purpose is, however, viewing foreign format graphics files, and converting between them and Acorn ones.

Improvements
ImageFS has been around for a while now and has been reviewed in Archive, most recently in Volume 9 No.1. That review was particularly enthusiastic, concluding that it "is one of those essential products that anyone who is remotely interested in DTP and graphics should have... Don't hesitate to buy it. It's the ultimate in bitmap file transfer." The current version is 2·36, and it is even better than the v1·72 reviewed then. In particular it supports many more bitmap formats and, very significantly, one vector format, as shown in the table below.
Of even more tantalising interest is the fact that there are a number of formats listed in the conversion window that are greyed-out, and it is possible that Alternative Publishing will implement these in the future. In enigmatic style they aren't committing themselves either way at the moment, but they are the ones that are most likely to be added if the range is extended in the future. The last column in the table shows the formats that graphics can be saved in, which doesn't cover all the ones it can read. Notable omissions are GIF, JPEG and Psion PIC files. GIFs are dealt with by applications such as InterGIF from Peter Hartley, and JPEGs by Acorn's ChangeFSI, but those of us with Psion machines still have no way to create PIC or MBM files totally under RISC OS. The conversion from PIC files in ImageFS is not perfect, as it ignores the grey planes in S3a files. Effectively it is treating the images as if they came from a Series 3. Given that its treatment of PIC files is incomplete, I'm tempted to wonder why it bothers at all, as ChangeFSI and Steve Godfrey's Psion application handle their conversion to sprites much more faithfully. From a personal point of view, I do hope that aspect is developed further.

Filetype Format Description Save?
PCX







B

I

T

M

A

P
PC Graphics programs (.PCX .PCC .DCX) - 1/2/4/8 and 24 bpp
Yes
BMP MS Windows and OS/2 Bitmaps (.DIB .RLE .BMP .RL4 .RL8 .VGA .BGA) - 1/4/8/24 bpp, CMYK
Yes
Clear Clearfiles of John Kortink's !Translator - 1 to 24 bpp
Yes
PBMPlus Portable Bitmap Toolkit (.PBM .PPM .PNM .PGM) - 1 to 24 bpp (rounded up)
Yes
SunRastr SUN Microsystems Rasterfiles (.SUN .RAS) - 1/8/24/32 bpp
Yes
Targa Truevision TARGA images (.TGA .VDA .ICB .VST) - 8/16/24/32 bpp
Yes
TIFF Tagged Image File Format (.TIF .CMY .CPT .SEP) - 1 to 32 bpp, CMYK (rounded up)
Yes
GIF Graphics Interchange Format (.GIF) - 1 to 8 bpp, interlaced
No
MacPaint Apple Macintosh MacPaint (.PNT .MAC) - 1 bpp (fixed image size)
No
IMG Atari GEM (.IMG or .GEM) - 1 bpp only supported
No
AmigaIFF IFF and Amiga HAM images (.IFF .HAM .LBM .HBR) - 1 to 8 bpp, HAM4 and 24 bpp
Yes
ColoRIX ColoRIX softworks (.RIX .SCI .SCF) - 8 bpp only supported
No
PICT2 Apple PICT2 bitmaps (.PCT) - 1/2/4/8/16/32 bpp
Yes
JPEG JPEG File Interchange Format (.JPG .JFF .JIF .JPE .CMP) - 8/24 bpp, CMYK
No
PhotoShp Adobe Photoshop (.PSD .PHO .PTS) - 1 to 8 bpp
No
ICO MS Windows Icons (.ICO) - 4/8 bpp (fixed image size)
No
Degas Atari Degas (.PI1/2/3 .PC1/2/3) - 1/2/4 bpp (fixed image size)
No
MTV MTV raytracer (.MTV) - 24 bpp
Yes
PsionPIC Psion3a PIC images (.PIC .PSI) - 1 bpp only supported
No
QRT Quick Ray Tracer (.QRT) - 24 bpp
No
WinMeta
Vector
Windows Metafiles (.WMF) - MicroSoft Windows® graphics
No

Anything that sets itself up as "The ULTIMATE Graphics Utility" and a "Universal bitmap file converter" as ImageFS does, inevitably lays itself open to complaints that it doesn't handle particular formats at all, or as well as it could. That is a very easy criticism to make, and I'll try not to labour it any further. Neither am I being ungrateful for the range of things it does; I've already found it invaluable in converting both sprites and drawfiles to TIFF files to send to PC users.

The Package
What you get is a rather elegant card slip-case containing a floppy disc in a CD-sized jewel case, a slim, 44 page, glossy manual, and a list of recent changes since the manual was produced. The floppy contains the main programme, CDFix, CDType, and UniImage, of which more later. Although the manual refers to the Gordian installer being used for copy protection, a text file on the disc explains that is no longer used, and all that is needed is to copy the application to your hard disc as normal. Running from a machine without a hard disc would be difficult unless the graphics files are very small, as some Scrap file space can be needed during the conversion process.

In Use
ImageFS takes a little getting used to, as it does things in what initially seems to be a slightly odd manner. What you have to do initially is remind yourself that it is a filing system (hence the FS in the name), and treat it accordingly. Foreign format files are loaded into Paint by double-clicking them, but if you hold down a shift key while doing this, another window opens up containing a sprite of the same name. This can then be dragged out of the filer window and treated like any other file (except that you can't delete or rename it, or add any other files to the window).
The closest analogy to the way you use ImageFS is to think of dealing with an archive with the read-only version of ArcFS: you can open it to see the contents, run them from the archive, or drag them out into another filer window, but you can't delete or rename them from the archive. Once that understanding has sunk in, ImageFS becomes very comfortable to use.

The illustration below shows the different stages in the process. The central filer window contains a GIF file and a JPEG, while the left and right windows show the sprite that ImageFS has revealed inside them. Finally the illustrations above and below them show the result of double-clicking the sprites or the original files.
You don't actually need to see the sprites if you don't want to, as the whole process of converting and displaying the original files is extremely quick. Alternative Publishing say that the latest version contains improved JPEG conversion code, making it even quicker than the JPEG routines built into RISC OS 3·6/3·7. I've compared the speeds to open the same file on my StrongARMed Risc PC, and that is definitely the case.

IFS.gif - 80Kb

In most cases, the speed of display is very impressive. The main exception to this is when viewing files on CD-ROM. These can take several seconds to load, and so you get a progress bar and a chance to cancel the conversion. If you have a lot of images to work through, it is probably better to temporarily copy them to a hard disc first. After the speed and convenience of that conversion, files on CDs seem to take ages in comparison.
If your image files have come from a PC, then they may not have the right filetypes set. In that case you simply drag individual or multiple files to the Iconbar for ImageFS to identify them and set the filetypes automatically.

Saving in Other Formats
Converting to another format is done by saving from Paint, with one slight difference: you go to the "Save" "Sprite" "Save As" sub-menu in Paint, and drag the file icon to a filer window while holding down the "Alt" key. That opens up a conversion window, giving a choice of the ten different formats listed in the table above. Select the appropriate one, click on "Convert" and it is saved in that format. A warning appears if you try to save the file back into the same directory without changing the name, and you have the chance to cancel the operation to avoid over-writing the original. One problem in this operation is the difficulty in saving drawfiles in other formats using ImageFS. If the drawfile contains more than just a single embedded sprite, you get an error message and an empty file is created. The only reliable way round this is to use Paint to save the screen area, and then convert it to the desired format from there. Again, that is a bit clumsy, and it would be really useful if it could be done directly. To be fair to Alternative Publishing, they didn't intend that Draw and ImageFS should be used in this way, but I'm the sort of person who always seems to try to do things software authors didn't mean to happen!

Alternatives
There are other, cheaper, ways of doing some of the same jobs, and a range of PD or Shareware convertors exists. They allow you to convert between Drawfiles and WMF, Sprites, EPS and CGM files. In addition, every Acorn owner has a copy of ChangeFSI, which will convert between sprites and JPEGs, as well as reading Psion PIC files, TIFFs, some GIFs, and a few other formats. All of these applications do their job, but none of them will do everything. If you want to convert a GIF to a TIFF, or a sprite to PCX, or lots of other permutations, then the simplest way is to use ImageFS. It will do all these, and many more besides, quickly and efficiently. ChangeFSI will only open one file at a time; if you want more open, you need to run more copies of it, which puts demands on memory and makes finding out which copy has which picture in it a little difficult. As ImageFS uses Paint, you can have a large number of pictures open at once, and double clicking on another won't close an existing one down. I find both of these features to be very handy when I'm working through a number of files, and the consistent approach of using ImageFS makes things so much simpler than using a range of different applications. I think that one of its great strengths is the tremendous degree of integration with Paint, which anyone who's used an Acorn for a while will have learnt to use to some extent. Because of that ImageFS feels less like a separate package, and much more like an extension of Paint.

Fine Tuning
In reality, ImageFS is a complex application with a bewildering array of possible configurations, but fortunately you very rarely need to change anything. Most of the controls can be left in the default position, but if you love to fiddle, there is plenty of scope for doing that. It really is well worth taking the advice in the manual to read the "How ImageFS Works" chapter first, to start to understand what it actually does. Clicking on the Iconbar icon opens up one of the four configuration windows. By default the first one is entitled configuration (see below), and allows you to choose whether the conversions are turned on, off, or set to automatic. Setting a particular filetype to "Inactive" makes ImageFS ignore it, which can be useful if you have another application that copes better with those files. The "Active" setting just lets you open the window onto the sprite file instead of viewing it. That is handy if all you want to do is convert files to Acorn ones, and save them without looking at them first. This is the same result as the double-clicking while holding down a shift key I mentioned earlier when in the default "Auto" setting.

Ftype.gif - 24Kb

Perhaps the most important window is the Conversion one (below), as that allows you to select between the "New" (or "Deep") and "Old" sprite formats. That's really the only one I've had to change, as some files are invisible or have distinctly odd colours if that is wrong. I've now adopted the policy of swapping that if the files look strange for any reason, and it has always sorted any problems out. There's a lot of information in the manual about the differences between these two sorts of sprites, and you should read it if you want to understand when to use which method. Again, you don't need to understand the details to make use of the application.

Convi.gif - 24Kb

One other useful feature is the "Tinyview", which allows you to see a small pop-up version of the image by double-clicking on the file while holding down a Control key. This is also configurable, and is very good for checking which of the files in a directory is the one you want. Some files can't be displayed in this way, and the manual explains the problems you might have. You can also set ImageFS to load on booting the machine, to remove its icon while still remaining active, and do many other things. Fortunately if you mess the whole thing up, you can restore all the default conditions to get back to the original state. It also includes interactive help and works well with applications such as BubbleHelp, in case you want reminding of the purpose of a control without resorting to the manual.
I currently load ImageFS only when I want it, and initially its insistence on displaying its splash banner on top of any other window, including the one I wanted to work in, annoyed me intensely. I mentioned this to Alternative Publishing, and they pointed out that simply clicking the banner gets rid of it. Since then, I've been much happier!

Universal Image
This is a small, and mostly undocumented application that comes with ImageFS. It gives you a strip down the right hand side of the screen, onto which you can drag files to store a thumbnail picture for future use. It allows you to drag the illustrations from the strip to any other application, view information on them, and open up the directory they came from. All these actions can be done from the strip and the icons at the bottom of it. The whole strip can be saved for reloading in future sessions, and individual thumbnails can be inspected by double-clicking them. Some GIF files can't be viewed this way, and these are the ones that ImageFS won't produce its own previews for, but apart from that, everything works well. It is certainly very useful as a palette of pictures to be drawn on to illustrate a document, and really saves hunting around for the right one. In fact the contents of a directory can be selected and dragged onto the strip to be sorted, as in the example shown here.

Conclusions
If you haven't already got a copy of ImageFS, and have wondered why every review of it you've seen has told you to go out and buy it, then my advice is to buy a copy and find out for yourself! If you need to view or convert graphics files from other machines, then you really should have a copy. It does more than any comparable package, and does it superbly well.

You should be able to find it at any Acorn dealer for around £46·94 including VAT. It sounds a lot, but is worth every penny if you use a lot of graphics files. Combined with Techwriter, it provides the perfect way of reading and writing MSWord files without a PC.

Uni.gif - 30Kb


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