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1987-04-21
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Obnokshus Software Limited Presents
***** PIXIKROME *****
24-Bit Image Processing Utility
Programmed in STOS Basic
By Mugley
Released as freeware December 1994
______________________________________________________________________________
Pixikrome is a program for the digital manipulation of 320*200 pixel images in
24-bit colour. It loads and saves in the QRT raytracer .RAW format and is also
compatible with Spectrum 512 images, Neochrome Master rasters and most ST
16-colour screen formats. Pixikrome also directly supports the use of the Vidi
ST video digitiser ( old version with separate colour splitter ). The program
runs on any ST/E with 1 meg or more of memory and should work on Mega STE's.
Pixikrome was written due to the extreme lack of decent public domain image
processing software that can run on an ordinary ST. There's Atari Image
Manager which is fine if you like tiny pictures and zero compatibility,
there's a few mono programs and there's some grossly overpriced commercial
stuff. But I haven't been able to find anything that can do something as
simple as putting a definable sine wave through a Spectrum image.
The main limitation of this utility is the inability of the ST to display 24-
bit images. .RAW files need to be converted with a program such as Raw2Spec or
Photochrome to be viewed on an ST/E. Images can be previewed within Pixikrome
by splitting them into their component red, green and blue parts or by using
the quarter-screen 512-colour preview option.
Because Pixikrome is an image processor rather than a paint program, it can't
generate pictures on its own and needs to be used alongside another graphics
utility. It is most useful for users of QRT, Vidichrome and Spectrum 512.
The process of down-converting from 24-bit to 3 or 4-bit colour is a bit
tedious to recommend regularly using Pixikrome for 16-colour images. Programs
like Crack Art, Picture Concept and Art Master are more useful for this.
Pixikrome is mostly mouse-driven, with 8 on-screen menus and a couple of
keyboard commands. The functions of these are described below :
KEYBOARD COMMANDS:
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< CONTROL > Q - quits the program when pressed on the main menu screen.
< CONTROL > H - toggles 50/60 HZ scanrate on main menu screen.
RAW ( .RAW Image Menu )
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Load - Calls up the fileselector to load a .RAW format image. Pretty bloody
obvious really.
Save - If you haven't worked this out by now I'm not going to tell you.
Update - Updates the 24-bit image in memory according to what's in the
program's red, green and blue buffers. Update should only be used if
you're using a digitiser or loading RGB screens separately.
INTENSITY ( Colour Intensity Menu )
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This menu contains arrows for increasing and decreasing the levels of colour
throughout the entire image in memory. The levels of red, green or blue can be
altered separately or all at once ( RGB ). This can be very very useful for
tweaking QRT files (eg. brightening or reddening the image) without having to
change the script file and spend hours re-rendering the picture. It can also
help to fix colour imbalances in digitised pics.
RED GREEN BLUE ( Colour Separation Menu )
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The Load, Grab, Update and View options affect the separate red, green and blue
colour planes of the picture. For the benefit of anyone who's never used a
computer paint program, all colours are made up of varying levels of red, green
and blue. No, I don't know or care why so I'm not going to explain it any
further.
Load - This takes you to the 16-colour file format menu, where you select a
picture format and then pick a file with the selector ( don't you just
love the godawful STOS file selector? ). This image is then loaded
into the colour buffer of your choice. To actually affect the 24-bit
image in memory you have to select Update from the RAW Menu as I
explained earlier. The Load function is only really of any practical
use for merging separate colour planes grabbed with Vidichrome or
other colour digitising software.
Grab - This is for digitising directly into Pixikrome with the Vidi-ST
cartridge and colour splitter. It has not been tested with the new
Vidi hardware ( Vidi-ST 12 with built-in splitter ) so I can only
say that I know it works with the old version. When Grab is selected,
it will continuously grab frames until a key is pressed. The picture
will move quite jerkily while the video is playing but there are no
problems when the video is paused. The button on the splitter will
need to be set manually unless you want to do that thing with the
video camera and the three filters.
Update - This updates the selected colour plane from the data of the 24-bit
image in memory. The main use of this is for checking the results of
various effects and filters on your image. There will be less detail
than in the full image because the 24-bit colour is scaled down to
12-bit in order to display the colour plane in 16-shade mono.
View - Displays the results of the last update. Pressing the r, g and b keys
will show the relevant colour plane. Useful for checking if grabbed
frames all line up properly. Because the colour buffers are not
automatically updated when an effect is performed, the image shown by
View may not be the same as that in the 24-bit image. When in doubt,
update the colour plane first.
Update 512 - This generates a 512-colour image ( 16 colours per scanline ) from
the 24-bit image in memory. The image generated is only quarter-
screen size ( 160*100 ) because the routine is a bit slow and
would take about 20 minutes to generate a full-screen image. As it
is, the routine takes about a minute before anything appears and
about 3-5 minutes altogether, depending on the image. QRT pics are
generally quicker than Vidi grabs. Update 512 is mostly useful for
checking the results of changes to colour intensity levels. For
checking other effects, updating a single colour plane is much
quicker.
View 512 - This allows you to view the last update of the 512-colour image
without having to recalculate.
DISK ( Disk Operations Menu )
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Format - Presents a dialogue box. Right clicking formats an 80-track, 10-
sector disk in drive A.
Delete - Brings up the file selector to delete a file.
CONVERT ( Image Conversion Menu )
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.SPC - Loads a Spectrum compressed image to convert to 24-bit colour.
.SPU - As above but for uncompressed Spectrum pics.
16-col - Brings up the 16-colour file format menu to convert. Pixikrome can
handle the following 16-colour formats :
.ART - Art Director.
.BL1 - Degas block. An uncompressed IFF format, also used by
Cyberpaint.
.CEL - Ani-ST cel image. A variant on the Neochrome format, also
used by Cyberpaint.
.CNV - Canvas uncompressed.
.FR0 - Fractal Zoom.
.IFF - ILBM imagefiles, compressed or uncompressed. At present
this routine only handles 4-bitplane 320*200 images, so
it's probably only useful for ST-originated IFF's.
.IMG - This option is greyed out and may be used for converting
GEM bit images in a later version.
.MBK - STOS compacted image in memory bank format.
.NEO - Neochrome.
.OSL - My own compressed format, can often pack better than the
Tiny and packbits (ie Degas, IFF) compression methods.
.PAC - STOS compacted image in binary file format. Not to be
confused with mono STAD images which also use the .PAC
file extender.
.PC1 - Degas compressed.
.PI1 - Degas uncompressed.
.TN1 - Tiny compressed image.
.RST - Loads a Neochrome Master raster file, then brings up the 16-colour
format menu. Select a 16-colour file to convert from 16-col per line
rasters to 24-bit colour.
2-PIC MIX ( Image Mixing Menu )
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Options in this menu bring up everyone's favourite file selector to select a
.RAW file from disk. This file is then loaded and mixed with the image in
memory. The names of the options indicate the mathematical method used in the
mix.
Max - This makes the lighter parts of each image overlay the darker parts of
the other. You'll probably need to try it to understand what I'm on
about. This can be useful for pasting bright images over the top of
darker images, otherwise it just makes pretty abstracts. Max mixing,
as well as min and mean mixing, will take about 22 seconds after
loading has finished.
Min - This has the opposite effect of max mixing.
Mean - This combines the two pics by averaging the colour values of
corresponding pixels. The result looks much better than this
description sounds.
And - Combines the two pics according to a logical AND operation. In practice
this gives results similar to min mixing, but a bit quicker ( about 4
seconds after loading ).
Or - Uses a logical OR operation, giving a similar result to max mixing but
with the same speed increase as AND mixing.
Xor - Uses a logical XOR operation. Takes about 4 seconds and gives quite
unpredictable results which usually make nice abstracts.
F-X ( Special Effects Menu )
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Unrez - Reduces the resolution of the image and gives a mosaic effect, as
seen in quite a few paint packages.
Inverse - Inverts the colours of the image, swapping black for white etc, and
producing a photo negative effect.
Shatter - Moves lines apart to 'shatter' the image. If you've used Cyberpaint
2 you'll know what I mean.
Sinewv - Displays the last update of the red plane and a menu for adjusting
the stretch and waviness of a sine wave through the image. When 'OK'
is selected, the sine wave will be put through the 24-bit image in
memory. The red plane should always be updated before selecting the
sinewave option.
Tanwave - Similar to sinewv, but with a tan routine instead of sine.
H-flip - Flips the image horizontally.
V-flip - Flips the image vertically and horizontally.
L-mirr - Left mirror, reflects the left half of the screen in the right.
R-mirr - Right mirror.
T-mirr - Top mirror.
B-mirr - Bottom mirror.
FILTS ( Digital Filter Menu )
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These are 3*3 local area filters, which you don't really need to know. For
practical purposes, these have strong effects over the entire image but take a
bloody long time. All the filters take about 7 minutes 34 seconds to 7 minutes
42 seconds, with the exception of the Linear filter which takes just over 4
minutes.
Max - This causes the light areas of the image to expand. Try it and see.
Min - Expands the dark areas of the image.
Mean - This has a very strong blurring effect.
Median - Generally has a similar effect to either the max or min filters, but
also eliminates grungy noisy bits ( so did Kurt Cobain's shotgun! )
and sometimes appears to reduce resolution.
Linear - This is a bit unpredictable, depending on the image. QRT pics can
sometimes get a metallic or washed-out appearance, while Vidi grabs
usually get a grungy super-8 type look.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Well that's about it for the instructions bit. If this has all sounded a bit
pointless, it's probably because you don't need the program. Pixikrome is
aimed at QRT and Vidichrome users who want fine control over the appearance of
their images.
Pixikrome may be freely distibuted as long as it is accompanied by this text
file. The author takes no responsibility for any loss of data, software or
hardware damage, invasions of Poland, suicide of crap rock stars, or loss of
erectile functions caused by direct or indirect use, misuse, abuse or inability
to use this program.
Coming soon from Obnokshus Software Limited :
The Baywatch Utility!
It doesn't actually do anything, but it looks
great in a swimsuit.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The next line says '-END OF FILE-' ( if you're on the Desktop )