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VCGM User Manual Copyright (c) 1990,1991 by Robert M. Crawford All Rights Reserved Version 1.41 CONTENTS 1.0 DISCLAIMER AND LICENSE STATEMENTS, ETC. 2.0 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS. 3.0 LIST OF FILES. 4.0 INTRODUCTION. 5.0 USING VCGM. 5.1 COMMAND LINE OPTIONS. 5.2 ZOOM. 5.3 VCGM CONFIGURATION. 5.3.1 DEFAULT PARAMETERS. 5.3.2 VCGM.CFG 5.4 KNOWN LIMITATIONS. 6.0 SHAREWARE REGISTRATION. 1.0 DISCLAIMER AND LICENSE STATEMENTS, ETC. If you don't agree to BOTH the DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY and LICENSE AGREEMENT statements, please don't use this program. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY ------------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS SOFTWARE PROGRAM AND DOCUMENTATION ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES AS TO PERFORMANCE. THE PROGRAM VCGM IS PROVIDED WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES WHATSOEVER. BECAUSE OF THE DIVERSITY OF CONDITIONS AND HARDWARE UNDER WHICH THE PROGRAM MAY BE USED, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED. THE USER IS ADVISED TO TEST THE PROGRAM THOROUGHLY BEFORE RELYING ON IT. THE USER MUST ASSUME THE ENTIRE RISK OF USING THIS PROGRAM. ANY LIABILITY OF THE AUTHOR WILL BE LIMITED TO PRODUCT REPLACEMENT OR REFUND OF THE REGISTRATION FEE. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LICENSE AGREEMENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The program, VCGM is protected under United States copyright law. You may: 1. Personally use the program on any machine free of charge for a limited trial period. Please register VCGM, if you continue to use it after a reasonable trial period. 2. Make COMPLETE UNMODIFIED copies of the software package and distribute it for others to use. You may not: 1. Sell this program for a profit without written permission from the author, Robert M. Crawford. 2. Include this program as part of another commercial or shareware product without written permission from the author, Robert M. Crawford. 3. De-compile or disassemble the program. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUPPORT ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I want to hear from you! Is VCGM useful? What problems have you encountered while using the program? All suggestions for improvements will be seriously considered. I can be reached by electronic mail: Compuserve (76356,741) My US mailing address is: Robert M. Crawford 5699 Kanan Road #197 Agoura Hills, Ca. 91301 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADEMARKS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines, Corp. Lotus, Manuscript and Freelance are registered trademarks of Lotus Development Corporation. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Harvard is a trademark of Software Publishing Corporation. CorelDRAW! is a product of Corel Systems Corporation. Other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. 2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS. VCGM runs on IBM PC, XT, AT, PS/2 (or clone) computers, with 512K of RAM, and DOS 2.0 or higher. VCGM supports both EGA and VGA graphics. EGA systems must support the 640 x 350 by 16 color mode. VGA systems can be either color or monochrome (There has been one report of VCGM not working on a system with a monochrome VGA. If you have a mono VGA system, please let me know either or not VCGM will run on your system). 3. LIST OF FILES. File Description README.1ST Disclaimer of Warranty Statement. VCGM.DOC Software Documentation (this file). VCGM.EXE CGM File Viewer. VCGM.CFG Example Configuration File. CHARSET.CGM VCGM Character Set. EGA.CGM Demonstrates VCGM EGA Color Dithering. DEMO.CGM Demonstrates VCGM support for CGM elements. 4. INTRODUCTION. VCGM is a Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) viewer. CGM is a ISO/ANSI standard for the "storage and transfer of picture description information". Some VCGM features are described below: * New with version 1.41 - Several minor bugs fixed. - You can turn off beeping on errors by using the NoBeep command in the configuration file. * Use filename wildcards to display multiple metafiles. * Three Fonts Simplex, Triplex and Triplex Script stroke fonts are supported. If no font list is included in vcgm.cfg or if vcgm.cfg does not exist, the default font is Simplex. Each font in the font list can be normal or bold. The character expansion and inter-character spacing are also parameters in the font list. * Three Character Sets VCGM supports the IBM Extended, GEM and ISO 8859-1 (ASCII 8-bit) character sets. The fonts are encoded using the IBM Extended character set. The other two character sets are mapped into the IBM Extended character set. Not all GEM and ISO characters are supported by the IBM character set. These characters are mapped into the closest matching IBM character. VCGM will automatically select the character set if the information is contained in the metafile. The IBM and GEM character sets use a private metafile encoding. The private encoding is defined below: Character Set Type Designation Tail Sequence IBM Extended Complete Code 3/1 GEM Complete Code 3/2 The three character sets can be displayed by displaying charset.cgm with the -cx command line option: vcgm -ci charset /* IBM */ vcgm -cg charset /* GEM */ vcgm -cs charset /* ISO */ * Three Color Modes VCGM supports three color modes, EGA, Dither and VGA. VGA graphics systems work in all three modes. The VGA mode cannot be used with EGA systems. A Monochrome mode is provided for Mono VGA systems. The Monochrome mode can also be used with EGA and VGA color systems. The number of colors or gray shades available for each mode is shown in the following table. Color Mono Mode (colors/palette) (grays/palette) EGA 16/64 4/4 Dither (solid fill) 115/115 13/13 Dither (all other) 16/16 4/4 VGA 16/262144 16/64 The 115 colors supported in Dither color mode are demonstrated in ega.cgm. To display ega.cgm in Dither color mode: vcgm -d ega , assumes dither color mode not set in vcgm.cfg. * Harvard Graphics and Freelance Plus Support VCGM provides support for Harvard Graphics and Lotus Freelance Plus private hatch, marker and line styles. * Zoom VCGM provides a 32 to 1 zoom controlled by the numeric key pad gray plus, gray minus and arrow keys. 5. USING VCGM. VCGM uses a command line interface. The general syntax is: vcgm [options] source Command line parameters must be separated by at least one space. No spaces are allowed within a parameter. Source is the CGM file to be displayed. The file name may include the full path name. The wildcard characters asterisk (*) and question mark (?) may be used in the filename to display multiple files. If source does not have an extension and no wildcard characters are used, .CGM is assumed. Command line options are, of course, optional. More than one option can be specified. A summary of command line options can be displayed by executing VCGM without parameters. Examples: DOS command Source file vcgm picture picture.cgm vcgm pic.lcd pic.lcd vcgm -f -h a:\files\pic a:\files\pic.cgm vcgm *.cgm ( All files in the current directory with .CGM ext.) VCGM will prompt you before displaying each metafile if wildcard characters are used in the filename. Press the space bar to display the file, the enter key to skip to the next file or the escape key to exit the program. Pressing the enter key or space bar while viewing the picture causes VCGM to display the next picture in the metafile. If there are no more pictures, in the metafile VCGM goes to the next metafile. If there are no more metafiles, VCGM returns to DOS. Note that some metafiles contain a blank picture at the beginning of the metafile. You can exit VCGM at any time by pressing the escape key. The following command line options can also be invoked while viewing a picture: -d Toggle EGA Color Dithering -f Flip the background color -g Toggle EGA/VGA Color -h Toggle HG Compatibility -j Toggle Full VDC Extent -l Toggle FL+ Compatibility -m Toggle Monochrome Graphics -t Toggle Transparency Override Invoke an option by pressing the letter for the option. For example, pressing the d key will toggle color dithering. Some metafiles do not contain background color information. If the displayed picture is blank or looks strange, try using the flip background color option (-f). You can also set the default background color in vcgm.cfg. The command line options are described in the next section. 5.1 COMMAND LINE OPTIONS. The command line options are described in this section. See the VCGM Configuration section for additional information. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -? Display Metafile Information. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- This option displays Metafile Description information. Some information is contained in optional CGM elements, so the information displayed will vary between metafiles. Example: vcgm -? demo Begin Metafile "Demo CGM Metafile" Metafile Version 1 Metafile Description "KIS CGM v1.0" Metafile Font List "Font 1" "Font 2" "Font 3" "Font 4" Character Set List 94-character G-set "B" 96-character G-set "A" Character Coding Basic 8-bit The Metafile Description can be used to determine which program created the metafile. If the metafile contains a font list, it is displayed. Character set information can also be displayed. In the above example, the ISO 8859 8-bit Latin character set (aka ASCII 8-bit or MS Windows character set) is specified. Some example Metafile Descriptions are shown below: Description Source "CorelDRAW! CGM ver 1.00" CD Ver. 1.1 "Freelance Metafile Version 2.1" FL+ Ver. 3.01 "GSS*CGMv02.01" Harvard Graphics Ver. 2.12 "CDI*CGMv01.02" Draw Partner Ver. 1.0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -cg GEM character set -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Set the default character set to GEM. This option has no effect if character set information is included in the metafile. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -ci IBM Extended character set -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Set the default character set to IBM Extended. This option has no effect if character set information is included in the metafile. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -cs ASCII 8-bit (ISO 8859-1) character set -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Set the default character set to ASCII 8-bit/ISO 8859-1. This option has no effect if character set information is included in the metafile. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -d Toggle EGA Color Dithering -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turns color dithering on and off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -f Flip the background color -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Changes the default background color to black or white. This option has no effect if background color information is present in the metafile. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -g Toggle EGA/VGA Color -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Works with VGA graphics systems. This mode switches between VGA and EGA color modes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -h Toggle HG Compatibility -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turns Harvard Graphics Compatibility on and off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -j Toggle Full VDC Extent -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turns Full VDC extent on and off. The picture VDC extent is forced to the maximum extent, (-32767,-32767,32767,32767), when this mode is enabled. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -l Toggle FL+ Compatibility -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turns Lotus Freelance Plus Compatibility on and off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -m Toggle Monochrome Graphics -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turns monochrome gray shades on and off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -t Toggle Transparency Override -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turns hatch and line transparency override on and off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -v## Color Discrimination, Range 1 to 25 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sets minimum color error used to build VCGM's internal color table in EGA and VGA color modes. The default value is 1. A value of one will add all new colors until the table is full (16 maximum). If a metafile has more than 16 colors, changing the color discrimination will spread the color values out over a wider color range and may provide better color selection. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -x## Set the default font index to ## -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sets the default font index. This option has no effect if there isn't a font list defined in vcgm.cfg or the font index is explicitly set in the metafile. 5.2 ZOOM. VCGM provides a 32 to 1 zoom controlled by the numeric key pad gray plus, gray minus and arrow keys. To zoom in, press the gray plus key. Navigate around the picture by using the arrow keys. Zoom out by pressing the gray minus key. 5.3 VCGM CONFIGURATION. 5.3.1 DEFAULT PARAMETERS. The default VCGM state is: * IBM Extended character set. * Color mode is EGA for EGA systems, and VGA for VGA systems. * Black background color. * Monochrome Graphics off. * Color Discrimination 1. * Harvard Graphics compatibility off. * Freelance Plus compatibility off. * Transparency override off. * Font index 1. * Font list consisting of one font (Simp Boff 100 10). 5.3.2 VCGM.CFG VCGM can use a configuration file, vcgm.cfg, to set program parameters. When you run VCGM, it looks for vcgm.cfg in the current directory. If VCGM can't find it in the current directory and you are using DOS 3.X, VCGM will look in the directory where VCGM resides. If no configuration file is found, VCGM uses the defaults listed in the previous section. An example vcgm.cfg file is included with VCGM.ZIP. Any word processor that can output straight ASCII text can be used to create vcgm.cfg. VCGM.CFG is made up of a set of 'statements'. Each statement starts with a keyword followed by an optional parameter list. Statements end in a semicolon (;). The case of keywords and parameters is not significant. Statements can occur in any order. Comments can be included in the file. Comments are enclosed by either curly brackets, { .... }, or C language style delimiters /* ... */. Example: BgColor White; /* sets the background color to white. */ If VCGM encounters a syntax error while parsing vcgm.cfg, a message with the line number is displayed. Each vcgm.cfg statement is described in the following paragraphs: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- BGCOLOR ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The default background color can be set to either black or white. Other background colors are supported if the background color is included in the metafile. The statement starts with the BGCOLOR keyword. Two parameters, BLACK and WHITE, are supported. Examples; BGcolor WHITE; BgColor Black; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLORMODE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- VCGM supports three color modes, 16 color EGA, 16 color VGA and 115 dither color EGA. The color mode statement starts with the COLORMODE keyword. The three possible parameters are EGA,VGA or EGADITHER. Examples: ColorMode EGA; /* 16 color EGA mode */ ColorMode VGA; /* 16 color VGA mode */ ColorMode EGADither; /* 115 color EGA Dither mode */ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MONOCHROME ------------------------------------------------------------------------- When VCGM is used on a monochrome VGA graphics system, the Monochrome mode should be set. This mode can also be used on color systems to display pictures in shades of grays. VCGM uses the NTSC mapping of colors to gray scale. The monochrome mode statement uses the MONOCHROME keyword with no parameters. Example: Monochrome; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOBEEP ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beeping on errors can be disabled with this command. Example: NoBeep; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLORDISCR ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Color Discrimination statement sets the color error value used in building VCGM's internal color table. The statement starts with the COLORDISCR keyword followed by the value. The value can range between 1 and 25. Larger values cause greater separation between colors. Example: ColorDiscr 7; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- DEFAULTCHARSET ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The default character set can be set to IBM Extended, GEM or ISO 8859-1. The default character set statement starts with the DEFAULTCHARSET keyword. The possible parameter values are IBM,GEM or ISO. Examples: DefaultCharSet IBM; /* IBM Extended character set */ DefaultCharSet GEM; /* GEM character set */ DEFAULTCHARSET ISO; /* ISO 8859-1 character set */ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- FONTLIST ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The font list statement defines the fonts VCGM uses to display text. The statement starts with the FONTLIST keyword. The first parameter is the number of fonts in the list. Font entries follow the first parameter. Each font entry consists of four parts; font style, weight, character expansion and character spacing. The first font entry is index 1. Commas separate font entries. The font style can be either SIMP (Simplex) , TRIP (Triplex), or TSCR (Triplex Script). The weight parameter can be either BOFF (Normal) or BON (Bold). Character expansion can be between 50 and 200. A character expansion of 50 reduces the character width by half. A value of 200 doubles the character width. The normal value is 100. The character spacing parameter controls the inter-character spacing. Positive values increase and negative values decrease the spacing. The range can be between -100 and +100. A character spacing value of 100 increases the spacing by the character height. Example: FontList 6 SIMP BOFF 100 0, /* Normal Simplex */ TRIP BOFF 100 0, /* Normal Triplex */ TSCR BOFF 100 0, /* Normal Triplex Script */ TRIP BON 100 20, /* Bold Triplex, spacing increased by .2 character height */ TSCR BON 150 20, /* Bold Triplex Script, width increased 50%, spacing increased by .2 character height */ SIMP BOFF 75 -10; /* Normal Simplex, width decreased 50%, spacing decreased by .1 character height */ /* Remember the semicolon after the last font entry */ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSPARENCYOFF ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Many graphics programs do not support transparency for hatch filled objects. The transparency override mode forces transparency off for lines and hatch filled objects to accommodate these programs. The transparency override statement uses the TRANSPARENCYOFF keyword with no parameters. Example: TransparencyOff; ------------------------------------------------------------------------- HARVARD ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This mode enables Harvard Graphics compatibility with private marker and hatch styles. The transparency override mode is also enabled. The Harvard Graphics Compatibility statement begins with the HARVARD keyword. A VDC extent parameter is optional. The VDC extent defines the "area of interest" in the picture. If the VDC extent parameter is omitted, the default value of (0,0,32767,32767) is used. The VDC extent parameter has the following syntax: (lower left x, lower left y, upper right x, upper right y) Each value is a 16-bit signed integer. Under normal circumstances, the VDC extent parameter should not be required. Examples: Harvard; /* default VDC extent of (0,0,32767,32767) used */ Harvard (0,0,30000,23000); Note: For metafiles generated with HG v2.1x, use Harvard(0,0,30000,23000). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- FULLVDCEXTENT -------------------------------------------------------------------------- This mode forces the picture VDC extent to the maximum size, (-32767,-32767,32767,32767). This mode overrides the Harvard Graphics mode VDC extent. Example: FullVDCExtent; /* force VDC extent to (-32767,-32767,32767,32767) */ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LOTUS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This mode enables Lotus Freelance Plus compatibility with private line, marker and hatch styles. The transparency override mode is also enabled. The Lotus Freelance Plus Compatibility statement uses the LOTUS keyword with no parameters. Example: Lotus; 5.3 KNOWN LIMITATIONS. The VCGM supports only the CGM Binary encoding, 16-bit integers (index, VDC space, etc.) and 32-bit fixed point reals. Color values can be either 8 or 16 bit integers. I don't know of any PC based graphics applications that are not compatible with the above limitations. Other program limitations are summarized below: * The following CGM elements are not supported: - Cell Array - Pattern Table, Pattern Size and Fill Reference Point elements - All Bundled Attribute elements - Text Path - Metafile Defaults Replacement - VDC Real Precision * Polyline and polymarker elements are limited to 16,000 points. * Polygon elements are limited to 16,000 vertexes and about 8,000 "spans". * Polygon Set elements are limited to 10,600 vertexes and about 8,000 "spans". * Lines and edges are limited to a width of either 1 or 3 pixels. 6. SHAREWARE REGISTRATION If you find VCGM useful, a registration fee of $25 would be appreciated. If you what the latest version sent to you; add $5 for 5 1/4" disks or $6 for 3 1/2" disks. Send check or money order to: Robert M. Crawford 5699 Kanan Road #197 Agoura Hills, CA 91301