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- From: mstephens.520@postman.gsfc.nasa.gov (mark stephens)
- Newsgroups: comp.graphics,comp.groupware
- Subject: Object graphics, PC & Mac, sharing... is there no hope?
- Message-ID: <1992Jul22.141739.28394@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov>
- Date: 22 Jul 92 14:17:39 GMT
- Sender: news@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov
- Organization: nasa/gsfc
- Lines: 35
-
- My shop is building a distributed database system whose front ends will
- be Macs and PCs. The application is a requirements management tool which
- deals not only in paragraphs of requirements but in pictures (lots of
- boxes with lines going every which way). The pure text part causes no
- concern as it's just ascii and is both viewable and editable on both
- platforms. Pictures are another story. Here's the HW/SW setup:
-
- Backend server: Solbourne with 2 CPUs (SUN clone) running Oracle RDBMS
- Front end application: OMNIS 7.0 by Blyth Software
-
- Omnis is a database all to itself, and communicates well to Oracle on both
- platforms. It has two types of fields for pictures. One is native format and
- the other is a shared format. The native formate preserves the objects in
- the picture. If you paste in a Microsoft Draw picture, you can get it back
- and still move boxes as boxex. Same for the Mac. You cannot view these
- pictures on a non-native computer. You can if you use the sharred format.
- Catch is Omnis converts it to a bit map. No objects and no manipulation.
- Boo, hiss.
-
- Is there any application out there which can help here. It just amaises me that
- this is STILL a problem between these two boxes. Hopefully I'm just behind the
- times. If such a converstion program could be found, we could store its binary
- format in Omnis (and a bit map so the picture can be viewed). When the picture
- needs to be copied into a drawing program, we use the binary format, convert it
- into the native format and give the file to the drawing program. Storage back
- into the database is the reverse.
-
- Any suggestion would be much appreciated.
-
- mark stephens
- NASA/GSFC code 522
- Greenbelt, MD
-
- 301 286-5994
-