Software of the Month Club 1996 June/Software of the Month Club 1996 June.iso/mac/ISO9660/DOS/DTP/PCXDUMP/PCXLAB.DOC

Text File | 1995-07-01 | 16KB | 363 lines

                           PCXLAB 1.30

              Copyright (c) Viper Software 1993-1995

                         July 1st, 1995

                =================================



DISCLAIMER
----------
This product is distributed AS IS. The author specifically disc-
laims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, but not
limited to, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for
a particular purpose with respect to defects in the diskette and
documentation, and program license granted herein, in particular,
and without limiting operation of the program license with
respect to any particular application use or purpose. In no event
shall the author be liable for any loss of profit or any other
commercial damage including but not limited to special,
incidental, consequential or other damages.


LICENSING AGREEMENT
-------------------
PCXLAB is copyrighted software and all rights are reserved.
PCXLAB may not be changed or modified in any way except by the
author. PCXLAB is part of the PCXDUMP system. The PCXDUMP system
is SHAREWARE and may be freely distributed as long as it remains
in its complete form with all support and documentation files. It
may be used for a 10 day free trial period. Regardless of how the
copy is obtained, it is requested that all users comply with the
following licensing and registration provisions if they continue
to use it after the 10 day trial period. Should you find this
program useful, you must register it; you will then be provided
with the latest releases of the PCXDUMP system.


OVERVIEW OF PCXLAB
-------------------
*     It can be used on any color EGA, VGA or SVGA display card
      (except EGA mono).

*     It can show any 2, 16, 256 and 16.7 million (24 bit) color
      PCX file in both 16 and 256 color modes. However viewing
      256-color and 16.7 million-color pictures in 16 color will
      only give you a hint of what the picture looks like.
      Viewing 24 bit pictures in 256 color is acceptable. If the
      images displayed are bigger than the current resolution you
      can scroll the images around FAST with the arrow keys and
      PgDn & PgUp. You can also change resolution with '+' and
      '-'.

*     It detect a wide range of SuperVGA cards and uses their HiRes
      modes in 16, 256, 32K, 64K or 16.8 million colors.

*     On HiColor or TrueColor cards, you can view 24 bit colors
      PCX files in 32768 colors or 16.7 million colors (TrueColor
      card needed for this).

*     It has a neat file browser, so you can walk through all
      your directories on your harddisk without leaving PCXLAB.
      There is a limit of 2000 PCX-files per directory (you are
      not likely to hit this limit!). You simply use the cursor
      arrows or PgUp or PgDn to select the file you want to see.
      Press Enter to view file.

*     The PCX-files must be no larger that 3800 pixels wide,
      which should be more than enough.

*     You can easily set up a slideshow by tagging a number of
      files and then hitting F8 (to start the slideshow). You
      must tag at least 2 files to have a slideshow.

*     PCXLAB will detect which video modes your videocard can
      use, and you can easily switch between these modes by
      pressing F2 (or + & -).

*     It is FAST! PCXLAB is written in a high level language and
      assembler for all the screen and unpacking operations.
      Compared with the great shareware fileviewer VPIC (which
      can show a large number of formats, not only PCX), PCXLAB
      is 30%-700% faster with an average about 2 times faster as
      VPIC!

*     Converts PCX-files to other fileformats: Postscript,
      Windows BMP, Amiga LBM, TIFF, Targa TGA, Wordperfect WPG.

*     Manipulate PCX-files:
      1) Convert any color file to monochrome using Floyd&Steinberg
         or Burkes dithering.
      2) Convert any color file to 16 or 256 color file.
      3) Convert any color PCX-files to gray scaled PCX-files.

*     Shows both PCX-files and ANS-files (ANSI text files)

*     Shows images from command line.

PCXLAB will NOT show GIF, TGA, LBM, WPG, BMP, EPS, TIFF images
even though they may apper in the file browser.

USAGE
-----
PCXLAB [/CHIPSET:number] [/AUTO] [/SKIPVESA] [/PCXONLY] [files]

If one or more arguments are valid filenames on PCX- or ANS-
files, these will be showed. Otherwise the PCXLAB will start as
usually.

If PCXLAB somehow fails to recognize your video adapter that you
know is on the list below, you can force PCXLAB to use it with
the /CHIPSET switch. The number must be in the range 2-23:

Number  Chipset             Number    Chipset
----------------------     -------------------
   0  UNSUPPORTED             23  Realtek
   1  RESERVED                24  Matrox
   2  EGA card                25  OAK-57
   3  VGA card                26  OAK-83
   4  ATI Wonder              27  OAK-87
   5  Trident                 28  S3-911
   6  Genoa                   29  S3-924
   7  Paradise                30  S3-928
   8  Tseng ET 3000           31  S3-80X
   9  Tseng ET 4000           32  S3-864
  10  Tseng ET 4000 HiColor   33  S3-964
  11  OAK-37                  34  Compaq Qvision
  12  OAK-67                  35  ChipTech 450
  13  Video 7                 36  ChipTech 455
  14  Ahead A                 37  ChipTech 456
  15  Ahead B                 38  ChipTech 457
  16  ChipTech 451            39  ChipTech 65520
  17  ChipTech 452            40  ChipTech 65530
  18  ChipTech 453            41  ChipTech 65510
  19  VESA                    42  ChipTech 64200
  20  Tseng ET 4000 TrueColor 43  ChipTech 64300
  21  OAK-77                  44  Advance Logic
  22  MXIC


By forcing PCXLAB to use your adapter you will not be able to use
your videocards HiColor extension (if it has any)!

If you invoke PCXLAB with argument /AUTO, PCXLAB goes to AUTO,
which automatically selects a resolution which will display the
whole picture.

When PCXLAB tries to identify your video card it will always
treat your video card as a VESA card if you have a VESA-driver
installed because the very first thing PCXLAB checks, is the
presence of a VESA-driver. If you install PCXLAB with the
/SKIPVESA option no check for a VESA-driver is performed.

The /PCXONLY switch will tell PCXLAB only to scan for PCX-
files.

PCXLAB will use XMS for temporary storage when viewing or
converting PCX images. If there is not enough available XMS
memory, PCXLAB will use the disk for temporary storage.
You can tell PCXLAB where to place the temporary file with the
environment variables PCXTMP, TEMP or TMP.
First PCXLAB will check if PCXTMP is defined and points to a
valid location. If that is not the case PCXLAB will check the
TEMP variable and then if necessary the TMP variable.
If you put the following line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file

SET PCXTMP=E:\

PCXLAB will use the root of disk E: for temporary files. If you
choose to use your extended memory as a RAM disk, you should make
the PCXTMP environment variable point to your RAM disk.


FILE CONVERSION - F3
--------------------

  WPG FILES - MAXIMUM BITS: 8 (OR MAYBE 4)
  ----------------------------------------
  These are the native import graphic files for WordPerfect. These
  files can contain both bitmaps and line art, or vector graphics.
  PCXLAB will only generate the bitmapped part of them. PCXLAB will
  generate with WPG files having one, four or eight bits of color
  information, that is, monochrome files, sixteen-color files and
  256-color files.
  The WPG specification allows for 256-color files. As of this
  writing, WordPerfect itself would not read them. If you wish to
  use 256-color images in a WordPerfect document, you might want to
  either reduce them to sixteen colors or dither them to mono-
  chrome, depending upon what you will be outputting them to.

  BMP FILES - MAXIMUM BITS: 24
  ----------------------------
  These are the files which are used as "wallpaper" under Windows
  3. They can be created using the version of PC Paintbrush
  supplied with Windows. BMP files use no image compression, as the
  intention appears to be to make them fast to load. Plan on your
  BMP files being very large. There is a very important aspect of
  color BMP files which you should bear in mind when you use this
  format. Windows uses a fixed palette which Windows Paint cannot
  go about changing, as doing so would make the screen and border
  colors change too.
  This means that transferring an image to the BMP format will
  generally result in some color shifts when BMP files are imported
  into Windows applications.
  The BMP format can support 24-bit files, which PCXLAB does
  generate. However, as of this writing importing a 24-bit BMP
  image into Windows Paint results in a noticeable color shift.
  This appears to be a peculiarity of Windows Paint.

  EPS FILES - MAXIMUM BITS: 8
  ---------------------------
  The EPS format... encapsulated PostScript... is not really a
  bitmapped format at all. However, it may contain bitmapped data.
  PostScript cannot be interpreted directly by most PC applica-
  tions. As such, an EPS file which is to be imported into an
  application such as Ventura Publisher or PageMaker also includes
  a "preview". A preview is a small black and white TIFF image
  which will show you a rough idea of what the EPS file will look
  like.
  PCXLAB will not generate a preview.
  If you import an EPS file into Ventura, for example, the screen
  image you see will be the preview but the data printed to your
  printer will be the PostScript data itself.
  PCXLAB can transform PCX-files with between 1 and 24 bits of
  color information ... between two and 16.7 million colors ...
  into EPS files. Images with more than two colors will be turned
  into PostScript halftones.
  Please note that the EPS files which PCXLAB creates are only
  intended to be printed. You cannot read them into applications
  such as Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator. These applications will
  not accept the large mounts of bitmapped data which a PCXLAB EPS
  file contains. For the most part, using EPS files in this way is
  no longer necessary. Applications which import EPS files will
  usually allow you to import TIFF files as well, which will
  provide you with much better halftoning and screen control.

  TIFF FILES - MAXIMUM BITS: 24
  -----------------------------
  PCXLAB generates 1, 4, 8 or 24 bit TIFF files. Color TIFF files
  are useful in Corel Draw, among other places.
  Corel Draw 3.0 will import color TIFF files for inclusion in CDR
  graphics. Due to the complicated nature of TIFF-files PCXLAB will
  only dump uncompressed TIFF. This will allow almost any TIFF-
  reader to read the files generated by PCXLAB without choking.

  IFF/LBM FILES - MAXIMUM BITS: 24
  --------------------------------
  These started out on the Amiga. The IFF file standard is
  extremely flexible, and allows all sorts of things besides images
  to be stored in IFF files. IFF files are found on the PC having
  been ported from Amiga systems. They are also created on the PC
  by several applications such as Electronic Arts' Deluxe Paint
  package and Digital Vision's Computer Eyes video scanner board.
  In the first case they are given the extension LBM. In the second
  they are given the extension CE. The basic file structure is the
  same, however. The standard IFF image files are called ILBM,
  compressing all images as planes. This is much slower, but such
  files will be readable by pretty well all IFF readers... even if
  you port them back to the Amiga.
  This is how PCXLAB creates IFF files. Unfortunately, there is a
  problem with old versions of Deluxe Paint which will occasionally
  stop reading some files part way through the image. This happens
  to IFF files from sources other than PCXLAB, so it is probably a
  bug in these versions of Deluxe Paint.

  TGA FILES - MAXIMUM BITS: 24
  ----------------------------
  The Truevision Targa format is used by several high end paint
  programs and things like ray tracing packages. It can handle
  images with up to sixteen million unique colors. PCXLAB will
  generate 1, 4, 8, or 24 bit TGA files. As with TIFF files, PCXLAB
  will only generate uncompressed TGA files.


COLOR TRANSFORMATION - F4
-------------------------

This function allows you to create destination files a different
number of colors than the source files they are derived from. You
can use this function, for example, to reduce a 256-color file to a
16-color one. It is particularly useful for reducing 24-bit files
to 256-color files, or promoting 16-color files to 256-colors files.
You can choose dithering or remapping as color transformation method.

Dithering is a sort of magical process by which color images can
be converted into pretty attractive black and white versions for
reproduction on a monochrome screen or a black and white laser
printer. Note that source files for dithering must have more than
one bit of color information per pixel. Dithering often works a
lot better if you scale the original image up. PCXLAB lets you
dither with images from "size as" up to 300 percent expansion.
Dithering is a fairly slow process, and the better the dithering
algorithm, the slower it gets.
The two dithering algorithms use what is called "error diffusion".
These produce really nice looking dithers, but they are quite slow.
The fastest, and least attractive, is Floyd & Steinberg. The better,
and slower, is Burkes (in my opinion). It is possible to adjust
the brightness and contrast of dithered images with the GAMMA and
CONTRAST values. It is also possible to invert the dithered
image.

Remapping. Whenever you reduce the number of colors in a file,
some image information will get lost. The simplest form of color
reduction is "remapping". This simply means that the destination
image will have the best "all around" color palette, and that all
pixels are chosen to match this palette.
The results are usually not very attractive.

When a color file is transformed into a new file with less colors,
it is possible to choose "Dithering" or "Remapping". When a color
file is transformed into a new file with more colors, PCXLAB
always uses "Remapping".

PRINTING - F6
-------------
You can print PCX-files to a either an EPSON compatible printer
or a HP LaserJet compatible printer with PCXLAB. However your
PCX-file must satisfy the following conditions:

1) It must a monochrome PCX-file
2) It must be no wider than 640 pixels (MATRIX-printer)
  (2000 pixels for a HP LaserJet)

You can only print one file at a time, no matter how many you
have tagged. You will be asked if you want to invert the output,
the density on the printer, output resolution and which printer
port (1, 2 or 3).


AUTO/LOCK - F7
--------------
Pressing F7 goes to AUTO, which automatically selects a resolu-
tion which will display the whole picture. Pressing F7 goes back
to LOCK, which forces the default resolution (above) no matter
what size the image is.


VIEW SLIDESHOW - F8
-------------------
Pressing F8 will do a slide show of the tagged files until ESC is
pressed.
Alt+D prompts for a new slide delay time in seconds. You must tag
at least 2 files to start the slideshow.


RESCAN DIRECTORY - F9
---------------------
Pressing F9 will cause PCXLAB to rescan the current directory for
PCX and ANS-files. If you activate PCXDUMP from within PCXLAB,
PCXDUMP will create new PCX-files that does not appear in the
file selection window. If you press F9 PCXLAB will scan the
directory and the new files will appear in the file selection
window.


CHANGE DRIVE - F10
------------------
Press F10 to change drive.


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