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1992-05-06
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Program: BezSurf
Author: Eric Davies
Resources and Tech Assistance: LateNight Developments (LND) Corporation.
Distribution
------------
BezSurf is public domain. Feel free to copy it, enhance it, or port it to
other machines, etc.
Compilation
-----------
Compiled under Lattice C 4.0 at the LND offices.
Will also compile under Aztec 3.4a and up.
Software Disclaimer
-------------------
This is your standard software disclaimer:
Use this software at your risk.
Any loss of sleep is your own concern.
Document Disclaimer
-------------------
This document gives a partial description of BezSurf and its use. Many
of the menu-items and gadgets are not described here. I believe most people
will discover their purpose without too much trouble. If I'm wrong, you can
query me by email at:
edavies@uvicctr
or edavies@uvvm.bitnet
Or by snail mail (if some part of Canada Post is not on strike) at:
Eric Davies
1442 Harrop Rd.
Victoria, B.C.
Canada
V8P 2S6
How soon you get a response depends on how behind my school work I am
and how easily I can determine a return path to you :-).
Description
-----------
BezSurf (or Surf for short) is a program for producing bezier surfaces of
revolution. It produces awesome pictures of wineglasses and doorknobs, and
other objects one could turn on a lathe. BezSurf includes the capacity to
map iff image files onto any surface that it can draw.
History
-------
I originally wrote BezSurf for my final project in an introductory course
in computer graphics at the University of Victoria. The target machine
was a colour Sun Work Station. Being a loyal amigoid, I ported it down to
the Amiga when I had a bit more free time, the Late Night Developers
supplying resources and technical assistence as needed. I proudly claim any
errors or bugs as my own, following the lead of a certain wine glass
manufacturer, "the minute flaws in the product are your guarantee of its
handcrafted nature".
Usage
-----
I've run it successfully from Matt Dillon's Shell and the bare cli.
It should run fine from workbench, provided somebody whips up an icon
for it.
Basic Usage
-----------
Once run, you should see a 320x200 lores screen with the text
"lines curves wire shade map panel" along the top edge. These are the
basic control gadgets.
1) press "lines" (screen clears and crosshairs appear).
press and hold down the left mouse button.
move the mouse someplace else and release the button.
a line should have been rubber banded and left on the screen.
repeat as desired {
press and drag the mouse to define new line connected to
last one line.
}
2) press "curves".
the endpoints of the first line should be bracked by squares.
repeat as desired {
bring the left mouse button near one of squares.
press left button, move to new location, and release left button.
nearest square should have accompanied mouse, causing the
line to curve in strange and wonderful ways.
press right button to move the next line.
}
3) press "panel"
takes you to the control panel, so you can change the lighting, save
files, etc. It is suggested that you try "tilt" with about 20
degrees ( adds a more 3d effect ).
to get back to display, press [display] on the control panel.
4) press "wire"
generates wireframe with hidden line removal.
5) press "shade"
generates shaded image with hidden surface removal.
6) saving the images you created is done via the "files" menu in the
control panel.
save as... saves the ilbm to the specfied file name
save first... tacks on a ".0" to the file name and saves
save next... tacks on an ascending number and saves
"save first" and "save next" are provided in case somebody wants to
try producing animation sequences with Surf.
7) Anything else, excluding maps, should be self apparent with a little bit
of experimentation.
Error Messages
--------------
Error messages are displayed in a requestor. If displayed, you must click
in the requestor's close box to continue. The messages usually indicate
that your file name is wrong, screwy file contents, you don't have enough
memory, etc.
Aborting a time consuming activity
----------------------------------
Under the "Image" menu, the "abort" item will terminate any drawing in
progress.
Mapping Iff images onto Surfaces (Grey Scale Result)
--------------------------------
This is my answer to photon paints mapping of images onto spheres, cones,
etc. Before you can perform the mapping, you need two things: (1) a loaded
map image, and (2) a surface { not necessarily in that order though its
probably better to load the image first if you are not sure you have enough
memory }.
Loading the map image:
Go to the control panel window (see earlier discussion).
Under the files menu, select the "Open Map" item.
Enter the pathname of an ilbm image file (note:Ehb not supported).
Wait until the hourglass goes away.
Now, go and define a surface if you haven't already. Once you have both a
surface defined and an image file loaded, click on the "Map" gadget on the
display screen. Be prepared to wait an hour or two for your image to
be produced, it is very slow.
Using lots of bezier and revolution slices (ie, very small patches) results
in images that look less scarred.
The "MapRevV" and "MapRevH" sliders determine how many times the map image is
replicated on the surface.
Closing the map file frees up the memory used to store the map image file.
Openning a new map file automatically closes the old one.
Mapping Iff images onto Surfaces (Colour Result)
--------------------------------
The idea here is to produce three different image files, one that contains
the red component, one the green, and one the blue. After the files are
produced, use the mergergb tool to combine them into a single file for use
by the RAY2 program available from the QRT (public domain) package or DBW
(shareware).
procedure: set interlace and lores screen.
set the grey model to "R only"
load the iff image file
set the screen color to "Red" (or grey).
Generate the surface mapping.
Save with a ".r" extension.
set the grey model to "G only"
load the iff image file again
set the screen color to "Green" (or grey).
Generate the surface mapping.
Save with a ".g" extension.
set the grey model to "B only".
load the iff image file again.
set the screen color to "Blue" (or grey).
Generate the surface mapping.
Save with a ".b" extension.
now run the mergergb program with the filename without extensions
as the sole argument. Ie, if you named the files smith.r, smith.g,
and smith.b, then type:
mergergb smith
In this case, mergergb will produce smith.tmp, which can then be
fed into RAY2. Without other arguments, RAY2 wil produce an
interlaced ham image.
Future
------
Be kind of neat if somebody adapted BezSurf to produce object descriptions
for Sc*lpt3D or VideoSc*pe3D. Anyone feeling brave and bored?