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ArtWorks Rendering Switcher 1.00 (25-Jul-02)
Name: ArtWorks Rendering Switcher
Purpose: Change the number of anti-aliasing level for rendering ArtWorks files
Author: Martin Würthner
Requires: RISC OS 3.1 or higher, ArtWorks Viewer or ArtWorks modules in
CCShared
Status: FreeWare (see [4] below)
WWW: http://www.mw-software.com/
Normally, ArtWorks files are rendered using 16 levels of anti-aliasing. For
most applications, in particular for on-screen viewing, this is quite adequate.
However, for high-quality bitmap output, this is not optimal. This little
utility allows you to switch between 16, 64 and 128 levels of anti-aliasing.
Please note that using 64 or 128 levels of anti-aliasing as opposed to 16 slows
down the rendering of ArtWorks files by about 10% - this is the price for the
higher quality and this is also the reason why the standard number of
anti-aliasing levels is still 16. The difference between 16 and 64 is quite
noticeable when you magnify the output, but at normal screen resolution, it is
difficult to see.
128 levels is the maximum number that is possible without major changes in
GDraw. However, it would not make sense to have more than that anyway because
the theoretical maximum of anti-aliasing levels that can be displayed, even in
a 16 million colour mode, is only 256. However, due to the way anti-aliasing
works - there is only a one pixel thin border of anti-aliasing around each
object - even the difference between 128 and 256 levels is almost non-existent.
Even other applications that claim to offer more levels never display these on
screen but only use them when outputting to formats that support even more than
16 million colours.
In practice, 64 levels might even be better in some cases than 128 because the
64 levels anti-aliasing is symmetric (3 bits, i.e., 8-way supersampling in both
directions), while 128 levels are assymmetric (4 bits horizontally, and 3 bits
vertically). Again, the difference is probably negligible.
1) Using AWSwitch
=================
The AWSwitch utility sits on the icon bar and allows you to change the number
of anti-aliasing levels used for rendering ArtWorks files by clicking on the
icon using the Select button. The Adjust mouse button instead switches in the
opposite direction. At any time, the icon shows the number of anti-aliasing
levels currently used. This is either 16, 64 or 128. If the icon shows two
question marks, then the ArtWorks rendering modules are not currently loaded.
When you change the number of anti-aliasing levels, the corresponding set of
modules is loaded from disc and the screen is redrawn to force all windows with
ArtWorks graphics to be rendered using the new number of anti-aliasing levels.
The AWSwitch utility contains special versions of the GDraw and DitherExtend
modules for 64 and 128 levels of anti-aliasing. If you switch to 16 levels,
AWSwitch tries to load the standard modules from either AWViewer or CCShared,
whichever has the latest version of GDraw. If it cannot find the standard GDraw
module, an error is displayed. In this case, please download the latest
AWViewer (see next section).
2) Error messages
=================
If AWSwitch displays the error "GDraw in CCShared outdated" or "GDraw in
AWViewer outdated" or "Different versions of GDraw in AWViewer and CCShared"
when you switch to 16 levels, then your installation is not up to date. In this
case, please download the latest AWViewer from
http://www.mw-software.com/software/awmodules/awrender.html#download
and run the !InstMods script inside !AWViewer. This will install the latest
versions of the ArtWorks rendering modules to the appropriate places.
2) Contacting me
================
Martin Wuerthner
Mannheimer Str. 18
67655 Kaiserslautern
Germany
Phone: +49-(0)631-3608205
Fax: +49-(0)631-3608203
e-mail: martin@mw-software.com
WWW: http://www.mw-software.com/
3) Copyright
============
The ArtWorks Rendring Switch utility, related documentation and files are ©
Copyright 2002 by Martin Würthner. All rights reserved. This application is is
FREEWARE. This means that you may copy it freely provided that
(a) all files of this application are distributed together without
modification - in particular, this means that the special versions of the
rendering modules (GDraw and DitherExtend) in !AWSwitch.RMStore may NOT be
distributed separately
(b) this application is not sold for profit without my explicit written
permission
I retain the copyright on all files.