GRIPS 2: Government Rast…rocessing Software & Data/GRIPS_2.cdr/dos/adrg/winadrg/winadrg.rmf

Text File | 1991-02-21 | 5.6 KB | 110 lines

Installing WinADRG
  You can run WinADRG from CD-ROM or your hard disk.  To copy WinADRG
to your hard disk type:

    COPY X:\DOS\ADRG\WINADRG\WINADRG.EXE C:\WINDOWS\WINADRG.EXE
    (Where X is the letter of your CD-ROM drive)

    From within Windows 3.0 choose the "run..." option under the "File" menu
item in the Program Manager.  When the dialog box comes up type:
    X:\winadrg\WinADRG.exe
    (Where X is either the letter of your CD-ROM drive or the letter of
     your hard disk, depending on where you want to run the application from.)


Purpose of WinADRG
    WinADRG is a Windows 3.0 program that will convert a portion of a DMA
ADRG CD ROM map to a bitmap about the size of a VGA screen.  The overview
image on each ADRG CD ROM can also be converted to a windows bitmap and then
used to "Zoom in" on the area of interest.  The image created by a "Zoom in"
is placed in a file named IMAGE.BMP.  This image can be manipulated further if
desired by PC Paintbrush. The bitmap can also be copied to the Clipboard using
the Alt-Shift-PrintScrn key combination.  From the Clipboard the image can be
pasted into other programs such as Word For Windows.  WinADRG can also print
the bitmap to a Windows supported printer.


Using WinADRG

Setup
    After starting WinADRG choose the "Setup" menu item.  Type in the CD ROM
drive letter and whether or not your graphics board can use 16 or 256 colors.
(Although the 256 color bitmaps look bad on a 16 color display, they can still
be printed out in 256 colors on an appropriate printer such as the HP Paint
Jet.)

Create Overview
    Choose "Create Overview" under "Overview Maps" and WinADRG will create a
bitmap from the overview image on the CD ROM.  It takes a couple of minutes
and the result is a 328 K file on the hard drive named OVERVIEW.BMP.  Because
it takes so long to pull the overview bitmap off the CD ROM, WinADRG allows
the user to "install" the overview bitmap on a disk.   This process creates a
table in a file named ADRGINFO.DAT, which associates an overview map with a
CD ROM (by stock number) and with a menu name supplied by the user.  The
OVERVIEW.BMP file is renamed to OVER#.BMP where # is a number.  When WinADRG
starts up, the table is scanned and the overview map names are put into the
main menu.   The user can quickly display any of the installed overview images
by choosing the overview image name from the menu.  If the user chooses not
to install the overview it is left on the disk as OVERVIEW.BMP, and not
renamed.

Install Overview
    If the user chooses not to install an overview when it is created the
overview image is saved on the disk as OVERVIEW.BMP.  The image can still be
installed later by opening OVERVIEW.BMP and then choosing "Install Overview".

Remove Overview
    After selecting an installed overview image you can choose "Remove Overview"
to delete the bitmap file from the disk and remove the entry in ADRGINFO.DAT.

Zoom
    Choose  menu item "Zoom", to create an image from the CD ROM.  Click the
mouse at the point of the overview where you want to zoom in.  Because the
CD ROM is slow and the data must be converted into the Windows format it takes
a couple of minutes to create the image.  This image is put into a file named
IMAGE.BMP and each time you zoom in the file is overwritten with the new image.
If a CD ROM is in the drive that does not contain the image for the displayed
overview image, the user is prompted to put in the correct CD ROM.  After the
image is displayed you can go back to the overview image by choosing the menu
item "CD ROM Overview" under "Overview Maps".  If you want to save an image
choose the "save" option under the "File" menu item, and type in the file name
you want.  At this point you can also change the format of the saved file.  For
example, "rle 8" is run length encoded for 256 color bitmaps.  The advantage of
a "run length encoded" file is that it takes up less room on the disk.  The
disadvantage is that it takes longer to display.   I've also noticed that PC
Paintbrush can't read the run length encoded files.

Reduce 4 to 1
    Choosing "Reduce 4 to 1" from the "ADRG" menu items sets WinADRG into a mode
that will average four pixels to one pixel when creating the bitmap image.
This allows four times as much of the map to be displayed on the screen but
takes almost four times as long to pull the image off the CD ROM.

CD ROM info
    Choose "CD ROM info" to get information about the CD ROM currently in the
CD ROM drive.

LIMITATIONS
    WinADRG is a demo program I put together quickly and is only
a preliminary version.  One limitation is that the overview image is always
created from the lower left corner.   This can be annoying when the lower left corner
doesn't have any thing of interest.  The next version of WinADRG will have a
solution to that problem.  The machine I used to develop WinADRG has four
megabytes of memory.  A machine with less memory may get "cannot create bitmap"
errors.  Another limitation is that it currently is not possible to adjust the
color translation algorithm used to go from 24 bit colors to 256.  The next
version of WinADRG will allow the user to "fine tune" the color conversion
algorithm to accommodate the various scanning parameters.  The next version
of WinADRG will process the entire CD ROM and store the resulting bitmaps on
the disk so the user can quickly pan around the map.
    Please feel free to give this program to any one who wants it.


                        Edward  Anderson
                        ITAC
                        1875 Campus Commons Drive
                        Suite 300
                        Reston,  VA 22091-1533
                        [phone]