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- SURFMODL IFF SUPPORT
-
- Ken Van Camp
- 9/29/91
-
- Since I can't afford a VGA monitor right now, but I have a perfectly
- good Commodore Amiga sitting next to my PC, I decided I wanted to be
- able to display my SURFMODL pictures on the Amiga. I also wanted to
- be able to take advantage of the full palette of the Amiga, which
- isn't as large as the VGA but is adequate for most purposes.
-
- My solution was to create a specially-compiled version of SURFMODL
- which I call SURFIFF. You will find the executable in the SURFIFF
- directory (or wherever you told SURFINST to put it). To use SURFIFF,
- you will have to create a file called SURFIFF.CFG. It is analogous
- to the SURFMODL.CFG file that is read by the regular SURFMODL
- program, but I use a separate config file so that you can use the
- two programs with two different system types.
-
- To create SURFIFF.CFG, start by copying SURFMODL.CFG:
- COPY SURFMODL.CFG SURFIFF.CFG
- Then use any standard text editor to edit SURFIFF.CFG, and change
- GRSYS to an 11 and GRMODE to a 0. You are now ready to run SURFIFF.
-
- In SURFIFF, no plots will be displayed on the screen; they are all
- written to an internal buffer and then dumped to a file after
- plotting is complete. This is important, because unlike most other
- programs that convert PC graphics into IFF format, this one is not
- based on an image that was originally in PC format. Instead, the
- bitmap is created in a form that is best suited to the Amiga, and the
- color palette is selected specifically for the Amiga.
-
- If your data file is called MYDATA.SRF, then the resulting IFF file
- will be called MYDATA.IFF. If you make two plots, the second one will
- just overwrite the first, so make sure you exit SURFIFF and rename the
- file in between.
-
- Now you can transfer MYDATA.IFF to your Amiga and display it.
- Personally, I use a public domain program called IBMCOPY (available
- on Fish Disk #158), which directly reads PC-format 3-1/2" disks and
- converts them to Amiga format. If you don't have this or something
- similar, you can use a Null modem to connect your two computers and
- do a binary file transfer between.
-
- Once you have the IFF file on an Amiga, you can use an IFF file
- viewer to display the picture. I use a public domain program called
- SHOW (I don't have the Fish Disk number handy).
-
- WARNING: Not all IFF viewers seem to be able to display my IFF
- files, for some reason. Commodore's IFFCheck program says there is
- nothing wrong with my files, but some IFF viewers choke and Guru on
- SURFMODL-generated IFF files (most notably, DPSLIDE).
-