Power Utilities/Power Utilities.iso/utility/pro128/whatsnew.dmo

Text File | 1993-04-07 | 9.6 KB | 184 lines

DMORF Revision History

Rel 1.0, 04/08/93 -
  o  There's only one version of the program now, running in
     Protected mode.
  o  DMorf displays pictures in 640x480x256 mode if your hardware
     can do it (and your hardware is compatible with DMorf's
     VESA graphics driver).  Otherwise, it will switch to 16-color
     mode.
     If DMorf doesn't work properly with your VESA board or VESA
     driver, you can tell it to use regular VGA mode with the
     /NOSVGA command-line parameter.
  o  Instead of listing the current row or column while morphing,
     it just displays what percent of the job it has completed.
  o  Fixed some bugs in TGA output file header.
  o  Added some controls for selectively turning off nonstandard
     features in TGA files.  (Well, they're standard according
     to the specification, but not all programs support them).
     These features include run-length encoding, 32-bit
     pictures, and top-to-bottom scanline order.
  o  Added "Mirror" buttons, which flip meshes horizontally.
  o  DMorf used to leave a temporary file called "WARP.TGA" on
     the disk when it was done morphing... it now deletes this
     file.
  o  (An otherwise undocumented features which might disappear in
     the future:  Alt-P captures the screen to a grayscale TIF
     file.)
  o  (A last-minute addition... if you use the /QUICK command-line
     option, DMorf won't keep updating the screen as it morphs...
     this can save quite a bit of time.  In the future I'll make
     this a setting that you can change on the DMorf screen.)
  o  (Another last-minute addition... if you use the /PRELOAD
     command-line option, DMorf will load each of the pictures
     into memory once at startup instead of constantly re-reading
     them during the morphing process.  This should adds a lot of
     speed, especially in SVGA mode, but requires a hunk of
     additional memory.)
  o  Fixed a bug that prevented DMorf from reading Vivid IMG files
     without crashing.
  o  Fixed a bug that caused DMorf to allocate too much memory
     while morphing.
Rel 0.12, 12/26/92 -
  o  Okay, I messed up.  Too much "holiday cheer" I guess.
     Anyway, in 0.11 I did fix the bugs mentioned below, but
     added several others while I was at it.  Fixed.
  o  Added buttons on the zoom screens for switching between
     zooms.
  o  Changed the way keyboard control works... if you press a
     letter it'll activate the screen control in question instead
     of just selecting it.
Rel 0.11, 12/24/92 -
  o  Fixed some bugs: (1) there was some garbage in the headers
     of TGA files because of uninitialized variables.
     (2) Dmorf wasn't able to read mesh files from 0.09 and earlier
     which were saved when the meshes were "locked".
  o  Fiddled with mouse stuff so it behaves more smoothly in
     protected mode.
Rel 0.10, 12/21/92 -
  o  Changed the name of the program to Dmorf (short for "Dave's
     Morphing program" ... it seems that "Morph" was already taken
     by a Macintosh commercial morphing program).
  o  Fiddled with the UI some more.  You can now click on a number
     field and type the number in instead of using the arrows to
     increment and decrement them.
  o  Added a "swap" button... it swaps meshes between the two
     pictures.
  o  Added "copy 1->2" and "copy 2->1" buttons... which make
     duplicate the mesh from one window in the other.
     These are replacements for the old "locked" setting.
  o  Dmorf no long exits to DOS when it's done morphing.  It just
     returns to edit mode.  Use the "quit" button or the <Esc> key
     to exit the program.
     If you press the ESC key while a morph is in progress,
     it returns you to edit mode.
  o  Dmorf doesn't need to load a whole picture into RAM just
     do display it anymore... so you can display pictures and edit
     meshes even with the real mode version (DMORF.EXE), and that
     means you can use the SVGA mode (with the /S option) which
     still doesn't work in protected mode.
     For large pictures (or actually, anything but TINY pictures)
     you'll need to use the protected mode version to do the
     actual morphing.
  o  You can now select UI controls with the tab key and space bar
     instead of the mouse.  You can't control meshes with the
     keyboard, but any other screen items should work fine.
     Also, you can select a control by typing the letter that's
     highlighted in its label... for instance, the G in the Go
     button is highlighted.  If you press the G key, the Go
     button will be selected... then just press the space bar
     to actually select the button.
  o  Got rid of "Spline intervals" option.  It almost always
     produces "pixel rot" (thanks to Eric Kachelhofer for coming
     up with that term), and the results were hardly ever
     any better than without.
  o  Dmorf now displays the intermediate meshes while it warps.
Rel 0.09, 12/09/92 -
  o  Added /C command-line parameter, which lets you preload a
     mesh/control file.  "morph before.tga after.tga /cbla.msh"
     preloads a control file called "bla.msh".
  o  The maximum value for the "last frame" control wasn't
     getting reset properly when Morph read in a control file.
     Fixed.
  o  Added /S command-line parameter, which tells MORPH to use
     SVGA (640*480*256) instead of VGA (640*480*16).
     Unfortunately, this only works in the real mode version,
     because the SVGA256.BGI driver dies in protected mode,
     so you'll only be able to use it on tiny pictures.
     Hopefully this'll be corrected in a future version.
Rel 0.08, 12/06/92 -
  o  Fixed two more bugs which in some circumstances caused
     runtime errors.
  o  Changed some of the on/off-type controls to checkboxes.
  o  Added controls to change the color of the mesh... sometimes
     the default red color doesn't stand out too well.
  o  Some of the on/off-type control values weren't getting saved
     in the control file correctly.  Fixed.
  o  Cleaned up the line-adding code... now Morph only pays attention
     to the right button if the cursor is in a picture border.
     In fact, if you try to use the right button anywhere else, it
     lets off an irritating sound.  It also sounds a tone if you
     try to add a line where there already is one.
  o  Morph now pays attention to the escape key in zoom mode.
Rel 0.07, 12/03/92 -
  o  Fixed another memory allocation problem, which was sometimes
     generating page-fault errors (runtime error 216).
Rel 0.06, 12/01/92 -
  o  MORPH wasn't deallocating some memory correctly, resulting
     in out of memory errors after a while.
Rel 0.05, 11/30/92 -
  o  You can halt MORPH at pretty much any time with the <Esc> key.
  o  the Warp 1/2 and Fade 1/2 controls weren't working right... no
     matter what value was selected, MORPH would use the 50% for Warp
     and 75% for Fade.  Fixed.
  o  got rid of all the EMS/XMS/virtual memory stuff... there are
     now two versions of the program: MORPH, which runs in real mode
     and should work on pictures that are 320x240 or less; and
     MORPHX, which runs in 286 Protected mode and should work on
     pictures that are up to around 2000*2000 (if you've got 16MB
     of memory... even if you've got more than 16M, MORPH can't access
     any more.)
     I will rework this so it stores only one channel at a time
     (red, green, blue, alpha) and can work with pictures four
     times larger. This'll make it slower, but I think that's a
     fair trade.
     Or maybe I'll rework MORPH so it operates on chunks instead
     of a whole picture.
     Note: to get the protected mode version working, you must have
     a copy of RTM.EXE and DPMI16BI.OVL (and maybe DPMIINST.EXE if
     you've got an unrecognized 286 processor).  These files are
     available in another archive, DTAMEM.ZIP.  They're in a separate
     archive so you won't have to redownload them each time MORPH
     (or my other programs, DTA and PDOTS) gets updated.
  o  MORPH now updates the screen as it's performing a morph.
     In each pass of the warping process, for each picture, it
     updates the picture in question with the interim results.
     It then updates both screens with the actual merged morph
     frame.
  o  I discovered that the cause of a lot of streaking on the screen,
     (and probably some crashes) was caused by a routine I was trying
     out for figuring out the resampling intervals between mesh
     curves using splines.
     An earlier version of the routine, which uses linear
     interpolation method, is stabler and faster.  The linear
     method is now the default.  You can still switch back to
     the spline method if you want (sometimes it produces more
     convincing results).  This option is called "Spline intervals".
  o  MORPH will no longer abort if you start it up without a
     mouse driver loaded.  Instead, it will allow you to type a
     few keystrokes.  The keystrokes it recognizes are <Esc>
     or "A" to abort, "L" for load mesh file, and "G" for "Go".
Rel 0.04, 11/26/92 -
  o  Fixed another bug with upside-down TGAs (in zoom mode)
  o  Fixed a minor interface bug.
  o  Linked the bgi driver into the executable... so there
     shouldn't be "initgraph" errors when you don't have
     "egavga.bgi" in the morph directory.
Rel 0.03, 11/23/92 -
  o  Fixed run-time error that was all that you got from
     pressing the Zoom buttons.
  o  When dealing with upside-down TGAs (first line
     at the bottom), MORPH flipped the picture upside down but didn't
     flip the control mesh along with it.  Oops.
  o  Copied a bit of interface gunk from PDOTS.