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- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!cbmvax!rehab1!misseye!pianoman
- From: pianoman@misseye.uucp (Alan D. Ray)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
- Subject: Re: IFF Picture DataBase (is there still a picbase?)
- Message-ID: <pianoman.00gr@misseye.uucp>
- Date: 21 Jul 92 22:06:31 GMT
- References: <_lkx41+@rpi.edu> <1992Jul17.143450.20644@col.hp.com>
- Organization: Not an Organization
- Lines: 72
-
- In article <1992Jul17.143450.20644@col.hp.com> dkm@col.hp.com (Dave K. Martin) writes:
- >Not having used PICBASE (have seen it though), I can't comment on it. For
- >a commercial counterpart, look for ImageFinder by Zardoz Software. I had my
- >dealer order it a year or so ago, no one seems to carry it as a stock item.
- >I have seen Imagefinder in recent ads in the later Amiga magazines however.
- >The price runs somewhere around $35-45 US.
- >
- >Imagefinder will scan sham, and dynamic hi-res in addition to the normal
- >Amiga display modes (ham, ehb, hi-res, etc). You can create the thumbnail
- >images in Black and White, Gray Scale, and 8 or 16 color versions. The thumb-
- >nail image size is somewhat adjustable up to about 150x150 pixels. Multiple
- >image index files can be opened by ImageFinder at the same time, even combinat-
- >ions of black and white, gray scale and color indexes at the same time. The
- >display pallete defaults to the currently active thumbnail image. Not a
- >problem with B/W or gray scale images but can look strange on the color images.
- >The thumbnail resoulution is good enough to discern the inactive images even
- >with the color shift however.
- >
- >Imagefinder's scanner runs as a seperate process so that all of the display
- >functions are available even as an index is being created. There is limited
- >ARexx support built in for extracting info about pictures but (on my version)
- >no ARexx commands for scanning pictures yet. The requestors are somewhat
- >clumsy but a small price for the power of the program. Imagefinder was
- >designed to be a load and stay resident program with hot-key support. A
- >useful feature is the ability to pass path and file name info to an open
- >requestor. Ie, run DPaint, open a file requestor and hit the Imagefinder
- >hot-keys. Double clicking on the thumbnail image in Imagefinder will load the
- >path and filename for that image into the DPaint (or other program) requestor
- >and Imagefinder will then return to its invisible mode. Neat stuff!
- >
- >The image indexes can grow quite large (320 ham and low-res images made an
- >index file of 890k) and can take a looonnng time to create. About 40 minutes
- >per image on a stock 68000, about 7 on a 25 mhz '030. Load up a set of floppys
- >and let it run overnight. Imagefinder can scan any valid disk device, starting
- >at the specified directory and all subdirectories. Multiple drives can be
- >scanned with one session.
- >
- >I guess it's time to get off the soapbox now, but I think this program never
- >got the recognition that it deserves.
- >
- >---
- >--- Dave Martin - dkm@col.hp.com
- >---
-
-
- I received one update for ImageFinder free, right back when I bought
- it (last summer or early last spring). Zardoz was going to send
- another free update out, but never did. The new version I received
- was V1.0D, and the letter I received from James Goodnow II, President
- of Zardoz Software, said 'you will also be receiving a final version
- of ImageFinder.... (some stuff deleted). This letter was dated Feb. 1,
- 1991.
- Anyone know if Zardoz is still supporting ImageFinder, or are they
- even around anymore? I haven't tried ImageFinder with OS2.04 on my
- 3000; I gave up using it when I had my A1000 because it was so slow.
-
- >AL<
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- --
- **************************************************************************
- * Sing me a song \ Alan D. Ray / BERKS AMIGA BBS *
- * you're the \ Reading, Pa./ (215)-921-1016 *
- * pianoman.... ******************* *
- * B. Joel uunet!cbmvax!rehab1!misseye!pianoman *
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