The Business Master (3rd Edition)

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IMPROCES(C). Copyright (C) John Wagner 1991-92. All rights reserved. ┌┐ ┌┐ └┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼┘ │ │ │ IMPROCES(C). John Wagner 1991 - 92. All rights reserved │ │ │ │ J.W. Software Proudly Presents: │ │ │ │ IMPROCES(C) │ │ │ │ SVGA IMAGE PROCESSOR │ │ │ │ FOR IBM PC's and COMPATIBLES │ │ │ │ 320x200x256 THROUGH 1024x768x256 │ │ │ │ Very Powerful Software at a Very Reasonable Price │ │ │ │ Version 4.0 │ │ │ ┌┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼┐ └┘ └┘ Introduction..........................................................1 Why is IMPROCES?......................................................1 IMPORTANT!!! SHAREWARE INFORMATION (Please read)......................2 Registered users, please read.........................................2 Why register?.........................................................3 Business users please note............................................3 How to register (Credit Cards, Check, Money Orders, etc...)...........3 Important Information and System Requirements.........................4 Hard Disk.............................................................4 Memory................................................................5 Supported SVGA cards..................................................5 Mouse.................................................................6 Quick Start...........................................................6 Command Line Parameters...............................................7 Mouse compatibility (if your "supported" card isn't working)..........7 Swapfiles.............................................................8 TEMP and TMP, environment variables...................................9 TEMP, TMP and a RAMDISK...............................................9 For your protection (Set Preferences).................................9 Undo before paint.....................................................9 Screen start up mode..................................................9 Highest video mode....................................................10 Using XMS, EMS or both................................................10 GUI, menuing and conventions:.........................................10 The filepicker........................................................11 The color bar.........................................................12 The status box........................................................13 Button types..........................................................13 Running the program...................................................13 Saving images.........................................................14 GIF images............................................................14 16 color PCX images...................................................14 256 color PCX images..................................................14 Pixel Run Files (PRF).................................................14 Opening images........................................................15 Overlay and average loading...........................................15 Splitting the palette.................................................16 Loading options defined (overlay, average and clear)..................16 True Color Targa images...............................................17 Available memory......................................................17 Virtual screens.......................................................17 Moving around the virtual screen......................................18 Creating a virtual screen.............................................18 Editing multiple images at one time using pages.......................19 Accessing command line variables while the program is running.........19 The clipboard.........................................................20 Cutting to the clipboard..............................................20 Pasting from the clipboard............................................20 Clipboard copy modes..................................................20 Clip Paint feature....................................................21 Saving the clipboard to disk..........................................21 Load a previously saved clipboard from disk...........................21 Remapping the clipboard palette.......................................21 Painting tools........................................................22 Fill patterns and line styles.........................................22 Shapes (Triangle, circle, lines, etc...)..............................23 i Using the paintbrushes................................................24 Paintbrush toggles....................................................24 AIR switch............................................................24 Regular rainbow, burn and dodge brush.................................24 Adding text with stroked fonts........................................25 Fat Bit editor........................................................25 Copying a piece of image..............................................25 Copy image paintbrush switch..........................................25 Eraser................................................................25 Floodfill and gradient floodfill......................................26 Floodfill options.....................................................26 Scale.................................................................27 Zooming in............................................................27 Mensurate.............................................................27 Calibrating the line measure..........................................27 Splitting a line......................................................27 Drawing a perpendicular line..........................................27 Measuring angles......................................................28 Twirls (Mirror, Flip, Spin, Rotate)...................................28 Terrain and Plasma fractals...........................................28 Using Bitmap fonts....................................................29 Setting up a custom palette...........................................29 Color blender.........................................................30 Cycling the palette while editing.....................................30 Color cycling.........................................................30 Sorting the palette...................................................31 Menu adjust...........................................................31 Color reduction.......................................................31 Built in palettes.....................................................31 Halftone..............................................................31 Saving and restoring a palette........................................31 Image Processing......................................................32 The work area.........................................................32 Histograms............................................................32 Adjusting the clip values.............................................32 Contrast stretching...................................................33 Filters(Sharpening, Laplacian, Edge, Custom, etc...)..................33 Special effects (transforms)..........................................33 The Jiggler!..........................................................34 Changing video modes..................................................34 KNOWN PROBLEMS and ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS........................35 BLACK AND WHITE DOTS..................................................35 Product Support.......................................................38 Virtual video, what is it?............................................39 Getting upgrades......................................................40 Distribution policy...................................................40 Shareware vendors, please read........................................41 My phone number.......................................................46 ii INTRODUCTION IMPROCES is distributed as Shareware. Shareware is the best type of software, it's software you can try before you pay for it! Paying for Shareware is called "registering". If you bought a copy of this software through a disk vendor, a copy off a rack of software in a store, paid to download the software from a BBS, or got a copy from a friend; you did not register it. You are entitled to evaluate the software but you should read the section below entitled "SHAREWARE INFORMATION" in its entirety before you evaluate the program. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are upgrading to version 4.0 of IMPROCES from a prior version, you should read the UPGRADE NOTES section near the end of this manual. Also, now included in the package is PRIMER.DOC, an Image Processing and VGA primer. Are You Ready?: The first version of IMPROCES first became available in mid 1991. It has unquestionably become "the premier shareware image processing, painting and editing program" for PC's. Pressed into service by doctors, orthopedic surgeons, orthodontists, astronomers, aerospace engineers, imagery analysts, computer artists and PC graphics enthusiast all around the world. IMPROCES has become the jack of all trades for PC graphics. Although the term "must have" is probably the most misused in the software industry, if there ever was a program that fell into the "must have" category, it is IMPROCES. I'm sure you will enjoy using the program as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I've attempted to take a more personal approach to this documentation instead of the usual "auto repair manual" approach that is so prevalent in manuals. IMPROCES has many features: Image contrast enhancement, Histograms, Sharpening by convolution, Custom filters, Full control of the VGA palette, Clipboard, Five stroke Fonts in five sizes and the ability to import bit-map fonts, FAT BIT editor, many drawing tools, flips, mirror, Color Cycling, Plasma and terrain fractals, SVGA modes, UNDO, XMS/EMS support, edit up to five images at one time, etc... This is a feature packed program. Take the time to master it and you'll be producing images that you never dreamed of! The best thing about IMPROCES is that it is easy to use, it's fun to play with and you can try it before you decide to buy it! Why is IMPROCES?: Do you have an SVGA video card? Tired of software that won't use your SVGA modes? I am, I have an Ahead SVGA card with 1 meg of RAM and I couldn't find any software that would do 1024x768x256. Heck, I couldn't find any software that would do 640x480x256! With the help of an SVGA BGI driver for Borland languages written by Jordan Hargrave, I wrote some. Although a lot of programs now support SVGA modes for viewing images, very few are full fledged paint programs and fewer yet allow for the type of control that IMPROCES can give you. IMPROCES is incredibly fast and powerful, but it is incredibly easy to use. 1 ************************************* ***** SHAREWARE INFORMATION ***** ***** PLEASE READ ***** ************************************* There are two types of IMPROCES users, REGISTERED and UNREGISTERED. Registered users have paid me DIRECTLY for the program and have received a disk that *I* sent to them. Unregistered users are evaluating the program and may do so for a period not to exceed two weeks from the time when they first receive the package. All users are encouraged to pass the program on to others so they may evaluate it also. Although you may not be aware of it, if you bought a copy of IMPROCES from a Disk Vendor, off the rack in a software store, or wherever; you are still an UNREGISTERED user. I do not say this to insult your intelligence, but it has become necessary to make this pain-stakingly clear. I do not mandate that a limit be set on how much a distributor can charge per disk, but it must be clear with you that you did not buy this software, you paid a duplication fee for it. I entrust distributors to make this clear to people before they buy a disk, but for my own self-interest, I want to make it clear here as well. Support Shareware Authors: Use and Register Shareware! REGISTERED USERS: THANK YOU!!! Place your IMREG.KEY in the same directory as the IMPROCES.EXE file. The IMREG.KEY file contains your name and registration number. Please do not modify IMREG.KEY in any way. The program checks this file each time it runs and disables the registration screens so the program will run without delay. Also, if you are going to let others have a copy of IMPROCES, PLEASE(!) make sure you do not give them a copy of your IMREG.KEY file. Thank you! SHAREWARE VENDORS, CD-ROM DISTRIBUTORS and RACKWARE VENDORS!!!: Please read the section entitled "SHAREWARE VENDORS, PLEASE READ" near the end of this manual before distributing ANY copies of IMPROCES. UNREGISTERED USERS, PLEASE PAY FOR THIS SOFTWARE: IMPROCES is a very powerful program. It took a long time to write and there are still many enhancements planned for the future of it. A registration of $25 ($35 outside of North America) is required if you wish to continue to use IMPROCES after you try it. A single registration is all it takes, you will be registered for life. For a minimal fee to cover postage, you can receive upgrades by mail or you can wait to get upgrades from your favorite BBS or shareware vendor. 2 Why register? Registration disables the opening and the ending screen so the program will start running without delay and you will not be required to press a key to exit. In addition to the opening and closing screen, when you save an image file, the program will put up a "nag window" prompting you to click a mouse button. Registration disables this "feature" as well. I added these "features" as reminders to unregistered users, not to harass them. The unregistered version and the registered version are identical in function, with the exception of the aforementioned "features". When you register IMPROCES, you are paying me for the time and effort that went into, and continues to go into developing IMPROCES. It is also the only legal way for you to continue using the program. BUSINESS USERS PLEASE NOTE: If this program is to be used by a BUSINESS, (ie: used to make a profit), it MUST BE registered prior to its use. You may not evaluate it for the purpose of making a profit. Registrations are given on a SINGLE USE ONLY license, meaning the program may be used on a single machine (CPU) at one time. Although, it can reside on as many machines as you want, it must not be used on more than one at one time. A site license is negotiable, contact the author for more information. HOW TO REGISTER Credit Card Orders: BY PHONE, COMPUSERVE and MAIL: You may register IMPROCES with your Master Card or VISA! There are four ways you can do this: Ted Gruber Software: VOICE: (702)735-1980 Monday - Friday, 10am - 5pm PST Software Excitement!: VOICE: (800)444-5457 24 hours a day. IMPORTANT: Be sure to *SPECIFY* that you want to order the *REGISTERED* version of IMPROCES. Software Excitement! is a shareware distributor and an authorized distributor of the shareware version of IMPROCES, so if you don't specify the registered version, they might send you a copy of the unregistered version! COMPUSERVE: Type GO SE to visit the Software Excitement! online store. By Mail: Print out the enclosed INVOICE.DOC and fill in the blanks. Credit card orders be sure to include your card expiration date and the authorizing signature as credit card orders can not be processed without them. 3 Specify floppy disk format, 5 1/4" 360K or 3 1/2" 1.44 meg. Your card will be charged $25 ($35 outside of North America) and I will ship your order as soon as possible. NOTE: The above phone numbers are NOT for product support. See the section entitled "My phone number and product support" near the end of this document. Checks and Money Orders: BY MAIL: Mail your registration to: ($25, $35 outside of North America) John Wagner 6161 El Cajon Blvd, Suite B-246 San Diego, CA 92115 California residents, please add the appropriate sales tax. Outside of the United States and Canada, registration is $35. Please ensure that your check is in U.S. dollars, _DRAWN_ on a U.S. Bank. There is an ASCII file that is distributed with this package called: INVOICE.DOC, you may print out this file on your printer and mail it in, or you can just send the following information: Name (First & Last) Street Address City, State, ZIP Amount of $ enclosed Version of program you currently have Where you got your copy of IMPROCES Specify floppy disk format, 5 1/4" 360K or 3 1/2" 1.44 meg. Checks and Money orders only please. PLEASE, DO NOT send greenbacks! If your registration is received within two weeks of the planned release of a major upgrade, I will hold your registered version until the upgraded version is released. Please make all checks and money orders payable to John Wagner. Important Information and System Requirements: Hard Disk: Run IMPROCES from a sub-directory on a Hard Disk. Make sure you have at least 1.5 meg free on the hard disk that IMPROCES is installed and run from. If you plan to use the Virtual Video modes, make sure you have at least 5.5 meg of free hard disk space. If you plan on editing multiple images at once using the pages feature, keep an additional 5 meg free. Below is a table that shows the possible amounts of hard disk that might be needed. Each amount shown is a worst case scenario: Function: Disk Space Used: Clipboard 768K (1024x768 clipfile) Undo before paint 768K (1024x768) Virtual Video 4 Meg (2048x2048) Pages 768K x 5 (up to 5 pages in use) 4 The 768K comes from a 1024x768x256 image. The 4 meg virtual video for the 2048x2048x256 Virtual video. As you can see, if you don't use all of the features, you won't be needing as much free disk space. Memory: You need at least 512K RAM free after loading DOS and TSR's etc. The more memory you have over 512K before starting the program, the better. The same goes for EMS and XMS. NOTE: The presence of XMS on your machine is not enough, you need to have an extended memory driver such as the widely used HIMEM.SYS. Processor: IMPROCES will run on any MS-DOS machine, from an 8088 to a 80486 or greater. A math chip will be utilized if one is available, but the only functions that use floating point numbers are the curve, scale and filters that use convolution, and the circular gradient floodfill. VGA & SVGA: IMPROCES supports SVGA's up to 1024x768x256. If your card supports a resolution that your monitor doesn't, DON'T TRY IT!!! A VGA card and monitor is a requirement to run the program. NOTE: Make sure your monitor as well as your video card supports the modes you try to use. In this manual, all video modes refer to 256 color video modes. The following Super VGA video cards are supported: Ahead, ATI, Chips & Tech, Everex, Paradise, Trident, Tseng (both 3000 and 4000 chipsets) and Video7, any card w/ VESA capability. Mode 320x200x256 is supported on ALL VGA cards. If your card is not one of the above mentioned, and is not based on one of the above chipsets, it will be treated as a generic VGA and modes over 320x200x256 will not work. NOTE: Virtual modes up to 2048x2048 will work on any VGA card. Also, read the section on Known Problems, some mouse drivers will not work properly in the SVGA modes and IMPROCES provides the -MC command line switch for these drivers. See the section on command line parameters as well. Here is a list showing what modes your VGA card should support: VIDEO MEMORY: HIGHEST MODE: 64K (is there such a thing?) 320x200x256 256K (on chipsets mentioned) 640x400x256<─┐ Note: Some cards don't support this mode.──┘ 512K (SVGA Cards) 640x480x256 512K (SVGA Cards) 800x600x256 1024K (1 meg) 1024x768x256 Do not change the name of the program! You may place IMPROCES in a directory specified by your path and run IMPROCES from any drive or directory. The program will find the IMPROCES.CFG, IMREG.KEY, COLORS.DAT, SVGA256.BGI and font files (*.CHR) ONLY if you haven't changed the name of the program. 5 Do not compress the IMPROCES.EXE file with an executable file compressor. IMPROCES uses overlays and if the IMPROCES.EXE is compressed it will not run properly. Mouse: A Microsoft compatible mouse and mouse driver is required. IMPROCES will not run if there is not a mouse installed. Some mouse drivers have trouble with the SVGA modes. If you are having trouble getting IMPROCES to work in modes higher then 320x200, try the -MC command line switch. DOS 3.0: IMPROCES requires that you are running DOS 3.0 or greater.It has been tested and runs fine under DOS 5.0. IMPROCES uses overlays: In order to allow for as much free RAM below 640K while the program is running, IMPROCES uses Borlands VROOM technology to overlay portions of itself in its .EXE file. For this reason, DO NOT COMPRESS the IMPROCES.EXE file with an executable file compressor such as PKLITE or LZEXE. QUICK START If you are the type of user who likes to jump right in (I am!), follow these instructions to start up the program. Don't forget to come back and read the rest of the manual though! There is a lot more to IMPROCES then meets the eye. 1. Change to the drive IMPROCES is on: Assuming IMPROCES is stored on your C: drive, type: C: and tap your Enter key 2. Change to the directory IMPROCES is stored in: Assuming IMPROCES is stored in your C:\IMPROCES directory, type: CD \IMPROCES and tap your Enter key 3. Run the program, type: IMPROCES and tap your Enter key 4. Have fun! Be sure to come back and read the rest of the manual! 6 Command Line Parameters: IMPROCES has five command line parameters. Command line parameters are variables that can be entered in at the same time the program is run that effect certain options. To use the command line parameters, first enter the name of the program on the command line, in this case IMPROCES: C:\IMPROCES>IMPROCES Then hit your spacebar and enter the command line parameter(s). You can enter them in any order, in capitals or lowercase, they are always preceded by a '-' character and followed by a space: C:\IMPROCES>IMPROCES -mc -AS -Am -ip -x -v=AHEADB The IMPROCES command line parameters control the following options: -IP = Image Palette. Always use images palette. -AM = Auto Menu. Always perform a menu adjust after loading an image. -AS = Auto Sort. Always perform a palette sort after loading an image. When -AS and -AM are specified together, the sort will take place first. -X = Expert mode. Don't ask "Are you sure" when the user wants to switch screen modes. -MC = Mouse Compatibility mode for folks with mouse drivers causing problems. -V=driver = Use BGI driver specified by the filename string -IP: IMPROCES "borrows" two colors from every image for it's menus. The colors are 0 and 255. 0 is replaced with black (0,0,0) and 255 is replaced with white (63,63,63). NOTE: You can alter the color that IMPROCES uses for color 255 by including an ASCII file in the same directory as IMPROCES called COLORS.DAT. The format of COLORS.DAT is R G B, where R is the Red value to use from 0 to 63 and G and B are the Green and Blue values also in the range of 0 to 63. A sample COLORS.DAT file that would force IMPROCES to use the color Red for it's menus would look like so: 63 0 0 These colors are active whenever IMPROCES has it's menus activated. You can restore the proper colors by closing all the menus. Well, actually you can do more than that, you can tell IMPROCES, use the images palette, don't borrow from your menus, just leave it alone. Don't be surprised if you use this option and after you load an image,can't see all of the menus. If the images color 0 and color 255 are the same, you won't be able to see the menu. That is why, I also include and HIGHLY recommend, that you use either of the next two (or both of them) command line parameters in conjunction with the -IP parameter... 7 -AM: Every time you load an image, IMPROCES will perform the function that the COLOR-MENU ADJUST option does automatically. It is highly recommended that you use this command line parameter (or the next one, -AS) at all times when using the -IP parameter. -AS: Every time you load an image, IMPROCES will perform the function that the COLOR-SORT option does automatically. It is highly recommended that you use this command line parameter (or the one above it, -AM) at all times when using the -IP parameter. -X: Whenever you select a new screen mode from the MODE menu, IMPROCES asks if you are sure. This option disables this safety feature. -MC: Mouse Compatibility mode. Some mouse drivers do not use the SVGA modes that IMPROCES uses. They can cause the program to lock up or cause some very weird screens. To fix this problem, I strongly recommend getting a new mouse driver. The newer ones from Logitech and Microsoft seem to work the best. As an interim fix, or a test to see if in fact the mouse driver is causing your problems, I've included the -MC command line fix. -V=: Some video card manufactures are making cards based on certain chipsets, but the similarity ends there. Since the SVGA256.BGI video driver IMPROCES uses cannot keep up with these manufacturers, I have provided a way to tell IMPROCES what video card you are using and force it to use the modes and bank switching for that card. There are several .BGI drivers now being distributed in the package. EXAMPLES: To tell IMPROCES you have a Trident 8900 chipset: IMPROCES -V=8900 To tell IMPROCES you have a Ahead, type B chipset: IMPROCES -V=AHEADB Do NOT specify the .BGI extension with the filename! NOTE: You can also access the variables that get set with the command line parameters with the options in menu FILE-COMMAND. See the FILE-COMMAND section below. This doesn't apply for video drivers. SWAPFILES IMPROCES uses memory swapfiles for some operations. Provided the program terminates normally, all the swapfiles and other temporary files will be erased. The swapfiles are placed in the same directory that IMPROCES is stored in, or on the drive and in the directory that is specified by a TMP or TEMP variable SET in your environment. If something happens and the program terminates abnormally, you can delete the swapfiles manually. 8 You can control where these swapfiles (and Virtual Video Screens and Page files) are placed... DOS keeps a set of environment variables that programs can use. Of these variables, one of them is usually called TMP or TEMP. To see what variables you have set, from the DOS command line type SET and hit ENTER. The current environment variables will be listed. You can set these variables from the command line or from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file (autoexec.bat is a more popular and a better approach). To set the TEMP variable so that IMPROCES will place all of its swapfiles in the C:\TEMP directory, type the following at the DOS command line or place it in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and re-boot your machine: SET TEMP=C:\TEMP - or for TMP - SET TMP=C:\TEMP If you do not have a TEMP or TMP variable set, IMPROCES will place its swapfiles in the directory where the IMPROCES.EXE file resides on your hard disk. In either case, IMPROCES will erase the swapfiles when it no longer needs them or when the program ends. TEMP, TMP and a RAMDISK: If you set the TEMP or TMP environment variables to point to a RAMDISK make sure there is sufficient space on the RAMDISK for the swapfiles prior to running IMPROCES. See the table above that lists the amount of disk space to see how much space might be needed by some of the IMPROCES functions. If you get error messages complaining about insufficient drive space, check the TEMP or TMP variables and the drive/directory that it specifies, if you don't have a TEMP or TMP variable then check the directory IMPROCES is in when it is run. FOR YOUR PROTECTION (Set Preferences) In the FILE menu, there is an option called "Set Pref" (Set Preferences). In this dialog box, you can custom configure IMPROCES for your system and control the UNDO feature for the paint menu. The five options are: UNDO BEFORE PAINT: When this is set to ON, the on-screen image is saved to a EMS, XMS or a swapfile before you enter the PAINT menu. When you exit the PAINT menu, IMPROCES will ask if you want to keep the changes you made. SCREEN START UP MODE: This controls the video mode that the program starts up in. It must be lower than or equal to the highest video mode. 9 HIGHEST VIDEO MODE: This controls the highest video mode the program will let you access. This is a safety feature for people whose video card does not support all of the modes that IMPROCES is capable of. USE EMS, XMS OR BOTH: Click on the appropriate radio button to toggle the use of either type of memory on or off. You can keep them both on and IMPROCES will attempt to use EMS first and then XMS. Clicking on SAVE will save the parameters you setup in a file called IMPROCES.CFG that is stored in the same drive/directory as IMPROCES. Please do not distribute your IMPROCES.CFG file with the program, as other users preferences/machines may be different from yours. GUI, MENUING and CONVENTIONS: The following conventions are used in this manual: Video: All video modes refer to 256 color video modes. Mouse: LMB = Left Mouse Button RMB = Right Mouse Button Click on = Press a mouse button and release it (usually implies LMB) Hold down Left Shift Key = Lock the mouse onto a horizontal plane Hold down Ctrl key = Lock the mouse onto a vertical plane The mouse hot spot is: ┌O┐_______Right Here! │ └┐ │ └─┐ │ └┐ │ └┐ │ └┐ │ └┐ │ └┐ │ ┌─┐ └┐ │ ┌┘ └┐ └┐ │ ┌┘ └─┐ │ └─┘ └──┘ When the program starts you will see the menu bar at the top of the screen. (See Diagram 1.0) Diagram 1.0 Menu Bar Current Palette ───────┬─────── │ ┌───────────┼──────────────────────────────────┐ │ ------------------------------ │ ├─────┬─────┬─────┬──────┬────────┬─────┬──────┤ │ File│ Clip│ Tool│ Color│ Enhance│ Mode│ Quit │ └─────┴─────┴─────┴──────┴────────┴─────┴──────┘ 10 Click on the option you want and a sub-menu will drop down. To close a sub-menu, choose another item from the top-menu or press the RMB. Some sub-menus have sub-menus within them, when a sub-menus option is another sub-menu, the option will be annotated with three periods after the option (See Diagram 1.1). To get out the sub-menus sub-menu, choose an option from the top-menu or press the RMB. If you are anywhere in the pull-down menu system and press the spacebar, the icon paint menu will pop-up. You can also use the keyboard arrow keys to choose options from the menus. The ESC is the equivalent of the RMB and the ENTER will select the option with the highlight bar over it. Click the RMB to close a drop down menu. To close the top menu bar, click the RMB continuously until it goes away. When the top menu bar is hidden, the proper color 0 and 255 values are restored and the mouse may be toggled on or off with the LMB. Click the RMB again to bring the top menu bar back. If you are using IMPROCES with a capture program, you can back out of all the menus by clicking the RMB until the top menu bar goes away. If you want to hide the mouse so it won't show in your capture, click the LMB once. NOTE: Make sure your capture program can handle the SVGA modes that IMPROCES is capable of using, failure to do so may cause some very unpredictable and undesirable results. Diagram 1.1. Sub-Menu ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ------------------------------ │ ├─────┬─────┬─────┬──────┬────────┬─────┬──────┤ │ File│ Clip│ Tool│ Color│ Enhance│ Mode│ Quit │ └─────┴────┬┴─────┴─────┬┴────────┴─────┴──────┘ │ Tools... ─┼──┐Option has sub-menu │ Scale │ │ ──────┬────── │ Zoom X 2 │ ├─────────┘ │ Line Mes │ │ │ Calibrate │ │ │ Twirls... ─┼──┘ │ Terrain │ │ Plasma │ │ Siner │ └────────────┘ Filepicker: Whenever you load an image, palette or clipfile, you will use the filepicker. In the filepicker, the sub-directories will be the first in the list and will be followed by a <DIR>. Click on a sub- directory to change to it. If there are more files then there is room in the selection box, click on the "PGDN" button to view the next page of files and click "PGUP" to go up one page. You can use the keyboard "Page UP" and "Page DN" instead of the mouse buttons if you want, the same goes for the keyboard arrow keys and the ENTER and ESC keys. This might be desirable if there are a lot of files in the directory you are in, as you can hold down the keyboard keys to rapidly flip through the pages of files instead of clicking your mouse button repeatedly. 11 Select a file by clicking on it with the LMB, or press the RMB to cancel the selection of a file. If you change to a sub-directory, that directory will become the active directory (if a file is selected in it) and any file not saved with a PATH before it will be saved to the current directory. If you click the RMB to cancel the file selection, the directory you started in will be restored as the current directory. NOTE: The filepicker will view a maximum of 4000 files in any directory. (See Diagram 1.2) Diagram 1.2. Filepicker ┌───────────────────┐ │ \ <DIR>─┼─── Goes to root directory │ .. <DIR>─┼─── Goes up one sub-directory │ ANIMALS <DIR>─┼─── Switches to the │ SATELITE <DIR> │ ANIMALS directory │ ASTRO <DIR> │ │ JOHN.GIF │ │ SHERRY.GIF │ │ MARTIN.GIF │ │ MOM.GIF ──────────┼─── Click here to select MOM.GIF │ DAVE.GIF │ │ FRED.GIF │ │ JOE.GIF │ │ ┌─────┐ │ │ │PG DN├─┼─── Click here to Page Down │ └─────┘ │ └───────────────────┘ Color Bar: The color bar is used to display the palette in a straight line with two re-positionable lines under it that define the two points for which you want the function that called the color bar to use. To move the lines, click on them or the two rectangles directly under the palette. Click the DONE button to perform the desired action or click the RMB to cancel to the function using the color bar. Some functions that call the color bar, will allow you to use color 0 and some will not. See diagram 1.3. Diagram 1.3. Color Bar ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ┌──────┐ │ │ │ Current Palette │ │ DONE │ │ │ └──────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────┬─┘ └──────┘ │ │ │ ─── Re-positionable Bars ────────────────── │ 45 │ │ 245 │ │┌─┬───────────────────────┬─┐┌─┬──────────────────────┬─┐ │ ││<│ │>││<│ │>│ │ │└┬┴─┼─────────────────────┴┬┘└┬┴────────────────────┼─┴┬┘ │ └─┼──┼──────────────────────┼──┼─────────────────────┼──┼─────────────┘ │ └Click here to grab │ │ Click here to grab─┘ │ │ lower bar │ │ upper bar │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └───── Moves the bar one in the desired direction ────┘ 12 Status Box: Hitting the ALT key anytime the mouse is active will bring up a Status Box. The status box contains the following information: Mouse X/Y coords Current Page # Current filename for the given page # After you are done viewing the information, hit the OK button or press ENTER. The mouse will be returned to the exact position it was in before the ALT key was hit. Button Types: IMPROCES uses three types of buttons to get user input from the mouse. The button types are explained below: 1. The Radio Button. This is a toggle switch that will generally be an ON/OFF option or specify some kind of action to be performed after a CONTINUE button has been pressed. When a Radio Button is activated (ON), it's inner area will have a filled circle in it. When it has been deactivated (OFF), it's inner area will be black. 2. The 3D Push Button. This button is a delayed reaction button in that the specified action (ie: CONTINUE, CANCEL, VIEW, Change Video Mode, etc...) doesn't take place until after the button has been released. When you push a 3D button, the button will remain depressed while the mouse is still within the boundary of the button. When the mouse button is released, if the mouse cursor is still within the boundary of the button, the desired action will take place. If the mouse button is released and the cursor is not within the boundary of the button, the program will continue as if you never pressed a button and continue to wait for input. 3. The Immediate Action Button. This button is identifiable as a rectangular button that is not 3D. When a mouse button is pressed with the cursor within the boundary of this button, the specified action takes place immediately without waiting for the mouse button to be released. RUNNING IMPROCES Change to the drive and directory the IMPROCES files are stored in and type IMPROCES and any command line parameters, and press enter. If the IMPROCES files are accessible via your PATH statement, just type IMPROCES from anywhere (somewhere near the computer will be desirable!) and press enter. 13 SAVING IMAGES IMPROCES will save image files in four formats, GIF, PCX 16 Color, PCX 256 Color and PRF. The GIF and PCX(16/256) formats are the most popular. The PRF format is of little use to anyone except programmers who want to include image files created by IMPROCES in programs they write that utilize the Fastgraf graphics library from Ted Gruber Software. NOTE: IMPROCES appends the proper file extension for all image formats, regardless of whether one is specified when the filename is entered. Also, IMPROCES saves the image in whatever video mode the program is in, regardless of what the resolution the image was when it was loaded. This means that PCX or GIF images that started out as less then 256 color images, will be saved as 256 color images. Images saved as PCX 16 will be 16 color images. FILE...: SAVE... SAVE GIF: Enter the name to save as (path is optional) and press return (or LMB). Press Escape (or RMB) to abandon the save. If the file already exists, IMPROCES will ask if you want to overwrite it. IMPROCES saves GIF images as non-interlaced images, with a global color palette and no local palette. Currently only single image GIF saves are supported. SAVE PCX 16: Same as GIF, only for PCX files. The image will be saved as 16 color, 4 color plane PCX file, regardless of whether it started out as a 2,4,16 or 256 color image to begin with. Only the first 16 colors in the palette will be saved. Any colors greater than color index 15 will be "virtualized". This means that color 16 is mapped to color 0, 17 = 1, 18 = 2 and so on. SAVE PCX 256: Same as GIF, only for PCX files. The image will be saved as 256 color, one color plane PCX file, regardless of whether it started out as a 2,4,16 or 256 color image to begin with. SAVE PRF: This is an option included for programmers who wish to use IMPROCES to draw or import images and save them for use with the Fastgraph Programmers Library from Ted Gruber Software. Only REGISTERED users may use images created by IMPROCES in their Fastgraph programs. After entering in the name of the file to save, define the area to save by rubber banding a rectangle around the region to save and then click the LMB to continue or the RMB to abandon the save. IMPROCES will then show you the dimensions of the image (Fastgraph requires you have this, so be sure to write it down) and then gives you the option of micro-adjusting the width and length. Click the "Continue" button to save the image or click "Cancel" to abort the save. 14 NOTE: As of version 1.04 of Fastgraph, you cannot have a video mode over 640x480 in a Fastgraph program, you should keep this in mind when creating your .PRF files. To load and display a PRF file using Fastgraph, use: fg_dispfile (char *filename, int width, int format); IMPROCES puts a short header file on the front of PRF images it saves. The header file contains the image height and width and the format mode. For some sample C code on using the header in your own program, call the DDBBS and download IMFGHEAD.ZIP. NOTE: Unregistered users of IMPROCES may not use Pixel Run Format files created with IMPROCES in their programs, whether they are registered users of Fastgraph or not. OPENING IMAGES IMPROCES will load images in four formats. GIF, PCX, TGA and PRF. GIF, PCX and TGA formats of any size may be loaded into any supported video mode. If the image is larger than the screen size, you have three options as to how to handle the oversize image. 1. Change the video mode so that the image will fit. Doing so will clear the screen, so you cannot use the OVERLAY and AVERAGE loading schemes when you change video modes to load an image. 2. Scale the image to fit the screen. Just clicking on the CONTINUE button (or hitting ENTER) will scale the image to fit the size of the screen in the current video mode. Using this scaling option, you can use the OVERLAY and AVERAGE loading schemes. 3. Use a VIRTUAL screen. By clicking on the VIRTUAL button (or hitting the Space Bar) you can load the image into a Virtual Screen and then pan around the image to view and edit it. The Virtual Screen mode only works in video mode 320x200, so the program will switch to that mode when the VIRTUAL button is pressed. Also, you cannot use the OVERLAY and AVERAGE loading schemes when using a virtual image, although you may use these loading schemes when loading images on top the Virtual Screen. NOTE: When using OVERLAY and AVERAGE on top of a Virtual Screen, only the portion of the image that is visible will be used. If you change video modes, the Virtual Screen will be erased. See the section entitled "Virtual Video, what is it?" near the end of this document. Overlaying and Averaging: GIF and PCX images may Overlaid or Averaged with the current image on the screen. These options are explained below. When an image is loaded and Overlay or Average mode is selected, you will have the choice of whether to use the current palette that is on-screen and the incoming palette and image will be "best fitted" to the on-screen palette or you may use the incoming palette from the file you are loading and the on-screen image will be "best fitted" to the incoming palette. You may also "Split the Palette" and both images will be "best-fit" to the split palette. 15 Splitting the palette will reduce the on-screen image to 128 colors and then reduce the incoming images palette to 128 colors. Splitting is sometimes the best solution when images have palettes that are very different. See the section entitled "Best Fitting the Palette" near the end of this file. Because of the complexity and memory requirements when reducing TGA images, you must use the CLEAR screen mode (IMPROCES forces you to do this, so don't worry about selecting it). If you wish to overlay or average two TGA images, save one of them as a GIF or PCX file first, load the other one and then reload the previously saved first image. PRF images do not have any of the above mentioned options. The screen resolution must be equal to or greater than the PRF image you want to load. PRF images cannot be Overlaid or Averaged either. OPEN... OPEN GIF: Use the filepicker to select a file to load. After you select a file to load, you will be presented with an Image Information Control Panel that will give you the: Image name, Image dimensions, Current Screen Resolution, and the Overlay and Average options. You will have four options to choose from that control how the image is loaded: (GIF, PCX and TGA only) 1. OVERLAY does not clear the image on the screen, instead, any spots on the image being loaded that are color 0, are replaced with the pixels that were left by the original image. This a good option for framing selected parts of an image. 2. AVERAGE does not clear the image on the screen either, instead it takes an average of the pixel being loaded with the one on the screen as the image is loaded. See the section entitled "Color Averaging" near the end of this file. 3. CLEAR will clear the screen and load the new image fresh. NOTE: The Up and Down Arrow keys will move the load mode between the OVERLAY, AVERAGE and CLEAR options. 4. The RESOLUTION options will let you change video modes before you load the image. You may display any resolution image in any of the available resolutions (GIF,PCX and TGA only). If the image you want to display is larger than the screen size, it will be scaled to fit as it is loaded (GIF, PCX and TGA). The keyboard equivalent of the RESOLUTION buttons are: 1 = 320x200 2 = 640x400 3 = 640x480 4 = 800x600 5 = 1024x768 16 Click on "CONTINUE" to continue with loading the image, or click on "CANCEL" to cancel the loading of the image or click on any of the resolution options. NOTE: If you change video modes before loading an image, the screen will be cleared regardless of whether you select Average or Overlay. OPEN PCX: Same as OPEN GIF, only for PCX files. OPEN TGA: Same as OPEN GIF, only for TGA files. TGA stands for True Color Targa file. IMPROCES only supports the Type II uncompressed Targa format such as those made with the popular Ray Tracing program DKB. After selecting the TGA image to load, IMPROCES will ask if you want to force a .MAP palette file. If you select YES, you then select the .MAP file to use from the file picker. If you select NO, IMPROCES will reduce the palette of the TGA file to 256 color and then map the image to the palette as it loads. See section entitled "True Color Targa" near the end of this file. OPEN PRF: Loading a PRF file is slightly different then the other formats. After the file to load is selected, a check is made if the image has a header file (was it saved by IMPROCES). If so the image dimensions will then be checked, if it is to wide or to long for the current video mode, it will not be loaded. If there is no header file found, you will be prompted for the image dimensions (only the width is actually used) and the format that the image is saved in. The image will then load from the bottom left corner of the screen of without clearing the screen first. I didn't put in the options of clearing, overlaying and averaging and scaling for PRF files because they are not intended to be used like the other formats. MEMORY: Display current memory status. Shows base memory (below 640K), number of EMS pages available and whether a XMS driver is available. The amount of free base memory will drop in modes greater then 320x200. Switching back to 320x200 will bring back this memory. This is due to the windows taking more memory to save the contents under them in the higher modes. SET PREF: (SET PREFERENCE) See the section above called FOR YOUR PROTECTION for information concerning the SET PREFERENCE options. Using this you can set up a custom configuration for IMPROCES and toggle the UNDO feature and control what type of memory IMPROCES uses. VIRTUAL...: IMPROCES will let you load images with sizes up to 2048x2048 into a Virtual Screen. You must be in Video Mode 320x200 (IMPROCES will switch you if you aren't and select Virtual). After an image is loaded into a Virtual Screen, you can scroll though the image and edit any part of it. You can also create your own Virtual Screens. Some of the other IMPROCES functions will not work with the virtual screen. They are noted with their descriptions. 17 MOVE/CREATE: This option lets you pan around a previously created Virtual Screen or if one doesn't exist, you can create one. If you are in a mode greater then 320x200, you can load the physical screen into a virtual screen using this option. This is useful if you want to do close up editing of a large image. Moving Around the Virtual Screen: You are first asked if you want to "Save the changes made to this portion of the Virtual Screen". This is another advantage to the Virtual Screens in that it can provide you with another level of UNDO. If you answer "YES", the changes will be saved. If you answer "NO", the changes won't be saved. Either way, after you answer you can move the Physical Screen around the Virtual Screen. The current coordinates of the Physical Screens top-left corner are shown. Press the LMB or ENTER key when you are in the area you want edit. Rolling the mouse will move you 20 Rows/Columns at a time. The following keyboard commands also work: Key: Action: ----------------------------------------------- Left Arrow One Column Left Right Arrow One Column Right Down Arrow One Row Down Up Arrow One Row Up Ctrl-Left Arrow 20 Columns Left Ctrl-Right Arrow 20 Columns Right Ctrl-Down Arrow 20 Rows Down Ctrl-Up Arrow 20 Rows Up Page Up 200 Rows Up Page Down 200 Rows Down Home Top Left Of Screen End Bottom Right of Screen Ctrl-End 320 Columns Left Ctrl-Page Down 320 Columns Right Creating A Virtual Screen: To create a Virtual Screen, you must select a Virtual Screen Size. IMPROCES will check if there is enough Disk Space to create the Virtual Screen. You may create the Virtual Screen in any of the following sizes: Virtual Screen Size: Amount of Free Disk Space Required: ----------------------------------------------------------------- 512x512 262,144 bytes - 256k 640x400 256,000 bytes - 250k 640x480 307,200 bytes - 255k 800x600 480,000 bytes - 469k 1024x768 786,432 bytes - 768k 1024x1024 1,048,576 bytes - 1 Megabyte 2048x2048 4,194,304 bytes - 4 Megabytes 18 If you are in any video mode besides 320x200, IMPROCES will ask if you want to save the current screen to the new Virtual Screen. If you answer YES, IMPROCES will create the Virtual Screen as the same size as the current screen and switch you to video mode 320x200. After you are done editing in Virtual Mode, you can change back to a video mode the same size or larger then the Virtual Screen and continue editing. This way you can use the Virtual Screen as a level of Zoom, or as a full featured Fat-Bit editor (there is an actual Fat-Bit editor in the TOOL-TOOLS menu). VIEW: This will scale the entire Virtual Screen into 320x200 so that you can view it in its entirety. Press the RMB when done viewing. CLEAR: This will clear the Virtual Screen and move the Physical Screen to the top-left corner of the Virtual Screen. For more information about Physical and Virtual Screens, see the section entitled "Virtual Video, what is it?" near the end of this document. PAGES... Page 1 - 5: IMPROCES includes the ability to have up to five work areas open at one time. Each work area can be in any video mode, except for a virtual video mode. If you put one of the pages into a virtual mode, you MUST change out of virtual mode before changing pages. Each page is stored on disk using a swapfile. When you change pages, you are asked if you want to save any changes that you made to the page. If the page you are changing to is in a different video mode then the mode you are currently in, IMPROCES will ask if you want to change to that video mode before changing pages. You MUST change into the new video mode if the new page is larger then the current video mode. When you exit the program, IMPROCES will erase any pages that it used, so be sure to save the pages to image files if you want to use them again. COMMAND... -IP = x -AM = x -AS = x Where xxx is either "ON" or "OFF" -X = x -MC = x This menu provides access to the variables that you can set using the command line parameters. By clicking on an option, you can toggle it ON or OFF while you are running the program. A good reason to do this might be that you are going to do some editing of the palette, and you had -IP set to ON, and you want to make sure that you can see the menus while you are editing the palette. 19 THE CLIPBOARD IMPROCES includes a clipboard for cutting and pasting between images. The clipboard also has the Overlay and Average options that the OPEN functions have and it includes a copy of the palette that is was cut from, so it is more versatile then the COPY option in the PAINT menu, although it is a little slower. CLIP...: CUT: Define an area to save to the clipboard with this option. To do this, select a corner and click the LMB. The cursor will disappear and you can now resize a rectangle that covers the area you want to copy to the clipboard. Click the LMB when you have defined the area, or click the RMB to cancel the operation. This option uses a swapfile regardless of the presence of EMS or XMS. If you cut a piece from an image and then load an image with a different palette, and then paste from the first image, the clip image will most likely look a little different than expected due to the palette being different. To avoid this, use the REMAP PAL option in the clip menu when the palette has been changed. PASTE: Move the box to the area you want to paste the current contents of the clipboard to and click the LMB. You will then have 8 options as to what type of paste you want to do: Copy, Overlay, Average, Fringe, Spray, Pattern, Rain or Clip Paint. CLIPBOARD COPY MODES: 1. COPY will copy the clip image over the selected area. 2. AVERAGE will average all pixels in the clip image within the selected area. This mode is very slow, but very good! See the section entitled "Color Averaging" near the end of this file. 3. Overlay will copy all non-color 0 pixels in the clip image and leave the pixels where incoming color 0 pixels would be unaffected. 4. Fringe will work the same as COPY, except that the edges will fringed. Sort of a fade in. 5. Spray will "paint" the clip image as if it came out of a spray can. The center will be solid and as the image goes out from the center, it will be faded into the image it is covering. 6. Pattern will load the clipfile using the Current Fill Pattern that is defined in the TOOL-TOOLS menu. 7. Rain will use a raindrop pattern. 20 8. Clip Paint will let you use any of twelve paintbrushes to paint in the contents of the clipboard. This operation loads the clipfile into XMS memory, or if no XMS memory is available, it will access the clipfile directly. Accessing the clipfile directly on disk slow. If the clipfile is less then 64K in size, it will load it into conventional base memory. You are given option of using overlay mode with the clip paint feature after you decide where to place the contents of the clipboard. Click the RMB to abandon this operation. SAVE: Save the current contents of the clipboard to a file. The file will have a .CLB extension and will be saved in the current directory. The clipboard palette will have a .CLP extension and the same name as the clipboard file. NOTE: The saved clipboard palette will be the palette that the image had when the clipboard was cut, not the current palette. OPEN: Load the contents of a previously saved clipfile to the clipboard. Uses the filepicker. NOTE: All clipboard files saved with version 1.0 of IMPROCES should be converted first with the CONVCLIP.COM program before you try to use them. This file is available on the DDBBS. Clipfiles from versions prior to 3.0 use the current palette. VIEW: This will display the contents of the clipboard in the upper left corner. If you have changed palettes, use this function before you paste the clipboard into your image to see how it will look. Click either the LMB or the RMB to return to the menu. REMAP PAL: Using this option, you can load a new image with a different palette and then "best fit" the clipboards palette to the new palette. This is a very useful feature for cutting and pasting between images with dissimilar palettes. See the section entitled "Best Fitting the Palette" near the end of this document. NOTE: If your clipfile is to be used in overlay mode and you had black as color 0 and you select REMAP, black might not be color 0 in the new palette and the overlay will not look right. To avoid this problem, use the SORT option in the COLOR menu before remapping the clip files palette. 21 PAINTING TOOLS TOOL: PAINT...: Paintbrush Switches: TOOL MENU: ┌────────────────┐ Regular │ ┌────┬──┐ │ Rainbow ┌──────────┬──────────┬────┴───┬─┴─┬──┴┐ │ │ Burn │ │ Filled │ Regular│ │ │ │ │ Dodge │ Triangle │ Triangle ├────────┼───┼───┤ │ └────────── │ │ │ Rainbow│ │ │ │ ├──────────┼──────────┼────────┼───┼───┤ │ │ │ Filled │ Burn │ │ │ │ │ Rectangle│ Rectangle├────────┼───┼───┤ │ │ │ │ Dodge │ │ │ │ Paintbrush ├──────────┼──────────┼────────┼───┼───┤ │ Shapes Font │ │ Filled |--Add │ │ │ └────────────── Add │ Circle │ Circle |├────────┼───┼───┤ Pick -------------------------Pick │ │ │ Size ├──────────┼─────────|┼────────┼───┴───┤ │ │ Filled ---Size │ Air ─┼──┐ Airbrush Switch │ Ellipse │ Ellipse ├────────┴───────┤ └───────────────── │ │ │ FAT BIT EDITOR │ ├──────────┼──────────┼────────┬───────┤ │ │ Filled │ Copy │ Paint─┼──┐ Copy Switch: │ Polygon │ Polygon ├────────┴───────┤ │ When on: Define │ │ │ Eraser │ │ image area to use ├──────────┼──────────┼────────────────┤ │ as a paintbrush. │ │ │ Flood Fill │ │ When off: Regular │ Line │ Point ├────────────────┤ │ copy. │ │ │ Curve │ └─────────────────── └──────────┴──────────┴────────────────┘ ============────────┐ Current Color ┌┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┬┐─┐ └────────────── ├┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┤ │ Color Selector ├┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┤ ├──────────────── ├┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┤ │ └┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┴┘─┘ ┌───────────────────────────────────────┐ Click ─┤///////////////////////////////////////│ Current Fill Pattern here to └───────────────────────────────────────┘ change ----------------------------------------- Current Line Style Fill Pattern or Linestyle and thickness CURRENT FILL PATTERN: CURRENT LINE STYLE: The filled shapes use the fill pattern that is shown on the bottom of the menu. The line and the polygon both use the line style shown just below the current fill pattern. The Floodfill does not use the Current Fill Pattern. NOTE: The "Pattern" option in the clipboard paste option uses the current pattern as defined here. 22 To change the current fill pattern or the current line style, click in current pattern box at the bottom of the menu. Two windows will appear, one with all of the possible fill patterns and one with the possible linestyles. The current fill pattern and the current line style will be underlined. The linestyle has four possible patterns and two possible thickness's. Click on a new pattern or line style to change them. Click the RMB when finished to return to the menu. TRIANGLE: (Triangle) Move the mouse to where you want one side of the triangle to begin and press the LMB. Reposition the side until it is where you want it and click the LMB (or RMB to cancel). Now define the other two sides of the triangle by moving the mouse until the triangle is the desired size and click the LMB or the RMB to cancel the triangle. Either draw another triangle (as before) or click the RMB to return to the menu. FILLED TRIANGLE: (Large Filled Triangle) Same as TRIANGLE, only filled. Filled Triangle uses the current fill pattern. RECTANGLE: (Large Empty Square) Move the mouse to a corner of the rectangle and click the LMB. Reposition the rectangle until it is where you want it and click the LMB. Either draw another rectangle (as before) or click the RMB to return to the menu. FILLED RECTANGLE: (Large Filled Square) Same as RECTANGLE, only filled. Filled Rectangle uses the current fill pattern. CIRCLE: (Large Empty Circle) Move the mouse to the spot you want to be the center of the circle and click the LMB. Resize the circle until it the desired size and click the LMB or the RMB to cancel. Either draw another circle (as before) or click the RMB to return to the menu. FILLED CIRCLE: (Large Filled Circle) Same as CIRCLE, only filled. Filled Circle uses the current fill pattern. ELLIPSE: (Large Empty Ellipse) Move the mouse to the spot you want to be the center of the ellipse and click the LMB. Resize the ellipse until it is the desired size and click the LMB or the RMB to cancel. Either draw another ellipse (as before) or click the RMB to return to the menu. NOTE: An ellipse differs from a circle in that it's x and y radius can be different. FILLED ELLIPSE: (Large Filled ELLIPSE) Same as ELLIPSE, only filled. Filled ELLIPSE uses the current fill pattern. POLY: (Large Empty Rhombus) Same as line expect the last point is connected automatically to the first point. 23 FILLED POLY: (Large Filled Rhombus) Same as POLY, only filled. Filled POLY uses the current fill pattern. LINE: (Diagonal Line w/plus at the end) Move the mouse to where you want the line to begin and click the LMB. Reposition the line until it is where you want it and click the LMB (or RMB to cancel). You can continue drawing from where you left off or click the RMB to stop drawing and reposition the cursor to draw another line or click the RMB to go back to the menu. POINT: (Point in center of box) Fills the pixel the mouse is pointing to with the current color. Click the LMB to start drawing and keeps drawing until you click the RMB. Click the RMB again return to the menu or click the LMB to start drawing again. USING THE BRUSHES The paintbrushes can be used in four different ways. Try them all to get an idea what each one can do. BRUSHES: (12 SMALL BOXES ON RIGHT EDGE) Click on desired brush, click the LMB to begin drawing. Keeps drawing until the RMB is clicked. Click the RMB again to return to the menu or click the LMB to start painting again. BRUSH TOGGLES: The current brush feature is shown in reverse video (Black on White). AIRBRUSH SWITCH: (AIR) When the AIRBRUSH switch is on (Black 'AIR' on white background), the brush you use will not color every brush point on the brush. Instead, random points will be colored, like a spray can. Click on the 'AIR' button to toggle the switch. REG BRUSH: (REG) Fills the pixels under the brush shape with the current color. Click the LMB to "turn the brush on" and click the RMB to "turn the brush off". Click the RMB while the "brush is off" to return to the menu. RAINBOW BRUSH: (RNB) Fills the pixels under the brush shape with the current color and then increments the current color by one each time the brush is moved. BURN BRUSH: (BRN) Reads the pixels under the brush shape while the "pen is down" and increments their value by one each time the brush passes over. Has the effect of "burning in" the area. DODGE BRUSH: (DDG) Reads the pixels under the brush shape while the "pen is down" and decrements their value by one each time the brush passes over. Has the effect of "fading or dodging" the area. 24 ADD TEXT:(Add) Position the cursor to where you want to start entering text and press the LMB. A horizontal text cursor will appear. Enter your text. You may use the Backspace key to backup and the Return key to advance one line down.Press the RIGHT ARROW key to increment the current color by one, or the LEFT ARROW key to decrement the current color by one. Press the Escape key to quit entering text. Either add more text or press the RMB to return to the menu. NOTE: Once you advance to the next line, you may not go back up, so make sure what you enter on the line is what you want before you press Return or the Escape key. FONT STYLE:(PCK) To select a new font style, click in the desired fonts box. Press the RMB to return to the menu. FONT SIZE:(SZE) To select a new font size, click in the desired size box. Press the RMB to return to the menu. FAT BITS:(FAT BIT) Select an area to edit using the FAT BIT editor by moving the rectangle over the area and clicking the LMB. The edit area is shown on the top left and the edit mode is shown by the "W" and "R" buttons on the screen. The "W" stands for WRITE (default) and the "R" stands for READ. You may select a pixel to change to the current color (shown next to the color selection bar) by pointing to the edit area and clicking the LMB. To select a new color, change to the READ mode or use the color selection bar at the bottom. You can also hit the RMB and the color of the pixel under the cursor will become the current color. Select DONE to keep the changes or CANCEL to abandon the changes. COPY: (CPY) Define the area you want to copy and then move the rectangle to the target area and click the LMB. Keep copying or click the RMB to undefine the copy source and either define a new source area or press the RMB to get back to the menu. NOTE: If you choose a piece of image that is smaller than 32,000 bytes, the image will erased and redrawn as the mouse is moved. If the piece of image is over 32,000 bytes, a rectangle will show where the image will be placed. 32,000 bytes is about half of a 320x200 screen. COPY PAINTBRUSH SWITCH: (PRB) When this switch is on, the COPY function lets you define a piece of your image to use like a paintbrush. Instead of just copying the piece of image once when the LMB is pressed, the piece will be copied wherever the mouse is moved, like a paintbrush. ERASER: (Small unfilled rectangle) Move the eraser to where you want to erase and press the LMB. The eraser keeps erasing until you press the RMB. Press the RMB again to return to the menu or press the LMB to start erasing again. 25 FLOODFILL: (FLD FLL) Floodfill is actually an Area Fill. IMPROCES will first ask you to confirm the floodfill settings: The floodfill options are: TYPE: Regular: Uses the current color and does a solid fill using the current color. Gradient: Uses the current palette and cycles in the desired direction. C-Span: Pick the colors that the gradient uses. DIRECTION: Horizontal: Colors are cycled horizontally, starting and ending colors use the Low/High and C-Span settings. Vertical: Colors are cycled vertically, starting and ending colors use the Low/High and C-Span settings. Circular: Colors start at the point the mouse is clicked and are cycled out in a circular fashion. Very neat when color cycled but a little slower at filling then regular gradient, especially in the higher resolution video modes. Square: Colors start at the point the mouse is clicked and are cycled out in a square fashion. Low: -+- | High -+- Low and high are used to control where the palette starts when using the gradient flood. Shaggy: With a gradient flood, Shaggy produces a "fuzzy" look to the fill by randomly inter-mixing the neighboring colors. Very nice effect. Once you are happy with the settings, click on CONTINUE. Pick a seed point anywhere on the screen and click the LMB. All areas within a bordered area will be filled in the specified mode, either flood or gradient. While the area is being flooded, you may click the RMB to stop the flood. After the area is flooded, click on a new area to flood or click the RMB to return to the icon tool menu. NOTE: Floodfill does not use the current fill pattern, rather it does a solid fill every time. CURVE: (Small curve) Define a line (as above) that will cover the two end points of the curve. Next move the mouse until the curve is where you want it and click the LMB and continue defining the curve. Click the LMB when you are through or click the RMB at any time to abandon the curve. NOTE: If no math chip is present, the curve is drawn in straight line segments until it is finished, then it is plotted in its entirety. 26 SCALE: Define the source area and then define the target area. This operation can take a some time and in some situations and a disk swapfile will be used regardless of the presence of EMS or XMS. A swapfile will only be used if the destination area is larger then 320x200. ZOOM x 2: In 320x200 mode: You will able to scroll around the image by moving the mouse. Click the RMB to restore the image or the LMB to keep the expanded image. Click the RMB, to return to the menu. In any higher mode: Position the rectangle over the area you want to ZOOM and click the LMB. Click the RMB to restore the image or the LMB to keep the expanded image. Click the RMB, to return to the menu. MENSURATE...: IMPROCES provides some basic tools that are very useful for taking measurements from an image. There are many uses for the mensuration tools, both in medicine and in other scientific research. CALIBRATE: By default, IMPROCES measures lines in pixel size units. If you have a known distance on an image, you can calibrate the program to measure in the known unit. Stretch a line (as above) over the distance that is known (a mile, an inch, a nose, whatever) and click the LMB. Any measurements taken after calibration will be in the new unit of measure. NOTE: Using nose lengths might be deceiving as nose lengths vary from person to person. LINE MEAS: To measure an area on the screen, define a line to measure (as above) and then the length of the line (in pixels by default or by whatever unit the program was calibrated for) will be displayed. NOTE: For overhead imagery, oblique imagery measurements should only be considered accurate when measured on equal planes as the calibrated measurement. LINE SPLIT: Draw a line and IMPROCES will place a dot in the exact center of the line. DRAW LINE: Same as LINE above, just added here for convenience. DRAW PERP: Draw a line and IMPROCES will add a line that is 90 degrees to the line you defined. See the NOTE below. 27 ANGLE MEAS: First draw a line. Then draw another line and IMPROCES will compute the angle between the two lines. After reading the angle, you may measure another angle off of the first line, or hit the RMB and then redefine the first line, or hit the RMB again to return to the menu. See the NOTE below. NOTE: IMPROCES makes no attempt to correct for square pixels in the DRAW PERP and ANGLE MEAS functions. In video modes 320x200 and 640x400, the pixels are not square and a line drawn at 90 degrees to another will not look correct if the first line is not exactly vertical or horizontal. The line will be mathematically correct. In video modes 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768 the perpendicular lines and angle measurements will look correct, except on some monitors/video cards that shrink or otherwise distort the display in these modes. TWIRLS...: MIRROR: Define a rectangular area that you want to mirror, then choose the direction you want to mirror the area to from the pop-up menu. FLIP: Define a rectangular area that you want to flip. Flips upside down. SPIN: Define a rectangular area that you want to spin. Spins from right to left. ROTATE: Define a rectangular area that you want to rotate. Rotates 90 degrees to the left. NOTE: No scaling is done. Pixels in the x (horizontal) direction are shorter then pixels in the y (vertical) direction. This means that if you choose what appears as a square, it will be rectangular when rotated. TERRAIN: Define a rectangular area to have IMPROCES draw a random 3D terrain fractal. Then use the color bar to pick what colors to use when drawing the terrain. The low color is for the water and the high color is for the land. Terrain doesn't look very good in video modes under 640x400 and should be drawn in areas that are at least as large. PLASMA: Define a rectangular area to have IMPROCES draw a random Plasma fractal. Then use the color bar to select the range of colors that will be used to draw the cloud. The Plasma algorithm was taken directly the Stone Soup Groups "FRACTINT" who so graciously distribute the source to FRACTINT and to whom I owe full credit for the Plasma function. Plasma and Terrain are included for their value as a painting tools, if these Fractals interest you, might I suggest the program FRACTINT, by the Stone Soup Group, and the book "Fractal Creations" by the Waite Group for a reference on how to use FRACTINT to it's fullest potential. 28 BITMAP FONTS (BitFonts)...: In addition to the scaleable fonts available in the TOOL-PAINT, IMPROCES supports bit-mapped font files. Included in the IMPROCES package are several of these bit-mapped fonts, all with the extension .FNT. It is possible to "roll-your-own" fonts for use with IMPROCES. The bit-map font format is identical to bit-map font format as specified by ZSoft. NOTE: ZSoft is not affiliated in any way shape or form with IMPROCES or John Wagner. Please do not contact ZSoft with questions concerning IMPROCES. The format for the ZSoft bit-mapped font file is widely available and is part of a technical reference document on PCX images that ZSoft publishes. LOAD .FNT: Uses the filepicker. Select the bit-map font that you want to use. ADD TEXT: Works identically to the ADD option in the TOOL-PAINT menu. Use the RIGHT ARROW key to increase the color while adding text, or the LEFT ARROW key to decrease the color. SHADOW = OFF/ON: Toggles between SHADOW = OFF and SHADOW = ON. The shadow is applied by first writing the character 2 pixels to the left and 2 pixels down in color 0, and then writing the character in the current color. This affects the scaleable fonts in the TOOL-PAINT menu as well. FONT SIZE = x1/x2: Toggles between FONT SIZE = 1 and FONT SIZE = 2. A font size of 1 is the regular size font and a size of 2 is twice the regular size in both the x and y dimension. This doesn't affect the fonts in the TOOL-PAINT menu. BOLD = NO/YES: Toggles between BOLD = NO and BOLD = YES. BOLD = NO is the standard font and BOLD = YES is the same font, only in a bold typeface. COLORS...: SET COLOR: This is your gateway to the 260,000+ colors of the VGA palette. Shown on the left are the 256 current colors in the current palette with a large rectangle to underneath the colors showing the current drawing color. On the right is the adjuster for the current color along with the values of the Red, Green and Blue attributes of the current color. To select a new color, click on a color in the palette on the left or select a color from the portion of the image that the color adjuster hasn't covered. If the color adjuster is covering a color in the image you want to pick, click on HIDE, the adjuster will be hidden and you can pick your color by clicking on it with the LMB. Click the RMB to bring back the hidden adjuster. Click in the boxes to the right to raise or lower the current colors Red, Green or Blue attributes. When you are done click on the DONE box to keep the changes you made or click on the CANCEL box to reset the palette to where it was before you made any changes. 29 THE "BLENDER": Another option on the color adjuster is called the blender. Using the blender, you can smoothly transition between two colors in your palette. To use the blender, click on the BLEND button. This will bring up the color bar. Use the color bar to choose the colors you want to blend between and press DONE. Click RMB to cancel blending. CYCLE KEYS: You can also cycle the palette while using the palette adjuster. This is useful if you want blend around the top of the palette. The '<' and '>' button will move the palette one color in either direction while the '<<' and '>>' button will put the palette into motion until a mouse button is hit or the keyboard is hit. There are keyboard commands for cycling as well, the ',' and '.' keys are the equivalent of the single cycle buttons and the '<' and '>' are the same as the continuous cycle buttons. See "KNOWN PROBLEMS" near the end of this manual for information concerning the 256 color palette. BLOCK: Increases or decreases the overall Red, Green or Blue in all the colors of the palette. Uses the same interface as the SET COLOR function and works the same way with the exception that the changes take place across the entire palette. The palette is re-computed from the palette as it was when the function started to avoid palette degradation. CYCLE: This will cycle any range of the 256 colors and create quite an interesting effect and allow for color cycling animation. First you use the color bar to pick the colors that you want to cycle between. Click on DONE with the LMB or click the RMB to abandon color cycling. While the colors are cycling, the left and right arrow keys control the direction of the cycle while the up and down arrows define the speed of the cycle. The RMB stops the color cycle and returns you to the menu. When you save a file, whether it be PCX or GIF, the color cycle settings are saved in a file with the same name as the file, only with a .CCL extension. When a file is loaded, if the correct .CCL file is in the same directory as the image file, the color cycle information from the .CCL file will be loaded and used. RE-ALIGN: Use this function to identify and locate colors that are not being used in the current screen image. After selecting this function, the program will perform a quick histogram of the image and report how many colors are being used and give you the option of re-mapping the unused colors to the top of the palette. If you select "YES", the unused palette entries will be re-mapped to the top of the palette and the current screen image will be adjusted so that pixels correspond the proper values. NOTE: This function will not work with a Virtual Screen. 30 SORT: Use this function to remap the palette and the image so that the colors that are the brightest are moved to the top of the palette. NOTE: This function will not work with a Virtual Screen. MENU ADJUST: This function will find the colors in the palette that are closest to the colors that IMPROCES uses for its menu. This usually will do away with the problem of Black and White dots. NOTE: You can use the command line parameter -AM to automatically do a menu adjust whenever a new image is loaded. See the section entitled "Black And White Dots" near the end of this document for more information. NOTE: Will not work with a Virtual Screen. REDUCE... MAKE 8/16/32/64/128: This will reduce the palette to the specified amount of colors (ie: 8/16/32/64/128) NOTE: Will not work with a Virtual Screen. PALETTE...: Color2Grey: The Color to Grey function converts a color palette to a Greyscale. NOTE: Will not work with a Virtual Screen. Halftone: Halftones the image on the screen. NOTE: This function will work with the Virtual Screen, but only the visible area of the screen will be halftoned. DEFAULT/ICE/HEAT/GREEN/SUN/GREYSCALE: IMPROCES has six pre-saved palettes built in. Selecting one of these replaces the current palette. SAVE...: SAVE PAL: Saves the current palette to a file. Uses the IMPROCES .PAL palette file format. SAVE MAP: Saves the current palette to a file. Uses the popular .MAP file format which is also used with Fractint and many other programs. OPEN...: OPEN PAL: Loads a palette from a file. Uses the IMPROCES .PAL palette file format. Uses the filepicker. OPEN MAP: Loads a palette from a file. Uses the popular .MAP palette file format. Uses the filepicker. 31 IMAGE PROCESSING IMPROCES includes many image processing functions in the ENHANCE section. A full discussion of image processing is beyond the scope of this manual and the ENHANCE functions will be explained only briefly. See the section on REFERENCES for information on how to get more information on Image Processing. NOTE: The IMPROCES pack includes an ASCII file called PRIMER.DOC, which is a brief introduction to image processing. ENHANCE...: NOTE: All ENHANCE functions that start with GREY (example: GreySharpen) are intended for images using the ICE, HEAT, GREEN, SUN or GREYSCALE palettes. The program will not stop you from using a GREY ENHANCE function on an image with other palettes, the fact is however, the results will be meaningless and random. To convert a color palette to one of the above, use the Color2Grey option in the COLORS-PALETTE menu. The functions that begin with COL (example: ColSharpen) are intended for any color palette. The COL functions are a lot slower than the GREY functions. You can use the COL functions on any palette, but for the best results use the GREY functions on their intended palettes. The AVERAGE and MEDIAN filters work with any palette. SET WORK AREA: All processes in the enhance menu work on a specified rectangular work area only. To redefine the current area, move the cursor to a spot you want to be one corner and click the LMB. Resize the work area until it is the size you want and click the LMB. Click the RMB to cancel the re-sizing. When you are done, click the RMB to return to the menu. AREA HISTO(GRAM): A histogram takes a measurement of the pixels in the work area. The histogram displays this measurement in values called BINS. There are 256 BINS, each corresponding to each of the 256 possible color values. BIN 0 is displayed to the left and BIN 255 (256 BINS, 0 thru 255) to the right and all BINS in between are represented. The Max BIN is displayed at the bottom. To see the value of a specific BIN, click on it's line or the color on the bottom with the LMB. To save the histogram to disk, press the 'S' key and enter the filename to save it as or enter PRN to send the information to the default printer. Click the RMB to restore the image. POINT HISTO(GRAM): Take the measurement of a single point. Click on the desired point with the LMB. Displays the coordinate, Color Value and Red, Green and Blue attributes of the color. Click the RMB to return to the menu. ADJUST CLIP: The clip values are used in the CONTRAST STRETCH functions. Depending on which style of contrast stretch you want to perform, the High Clip and Low Clip will be adjusted differently. 32 CONTRAST STRETCH: Uses the clip value to cut the stretch off at the first low BIN with a value equal to or greater then the Low clip and the first high BIN with a value equal to or greater then the High clip. NOTE: Intended for GreyScale images only. CONTRAST VSTRETCH: Uses the CLIP values as the Low and High BIN to cut the stretch off at. NOTE: Intended for GreyScale images only. CONTRAST LSTRETCH: Uses the CLIP values as the Low and High BIN to cut the stretch off at and doesn't set the BINS beyond the Low and High clips to Min/Max. NOTE: Intended for GreyScale images only. FILTERS...: SET WORK AREA: Same as above. (Col)SHARPEN: NOTE: All filters use a 3x3 kernal and convolution. (Col)LAPLACIAN: (Col)HORIZ: (Horizontal) (Col)VERTIC: (VERTICAL) AVERAGE 3x3: MEDIAN 3x3: (Col)CUSTOM: BOOST: See the included file PRIMER.DOC for more information on how these filters work. EFFECTS...: NOTE: The functions in the EFFECTS menu work on the whole screen, not just the ENHANCE work area. Also, if you are using a virtual screen, the effects will only take place on the portion of the screen that is visible. RELIEF: Makes the image look like it was molded in sand. REVERSE: Reverse the color values. SOLARIZE: Has a similar effect as solarizing a monochrome print after it is exposed and before it has been developed. MELT: Slowly (and I do mean SLOWLY) melts the image. Click the RMB when you get tired of watching this! BENTLEY: Named after the guy who's picture was in the book that this effect is taken from. Weird effect. HINT: Use the DEFAULT palette and make a full screen PLASMA cloud and then run the BENTLEY. AWESOME! 33 OIL: Slow. Transforms a greyscale image into a oil painting. Does not effect the last 3 columns and the last 3 rows of pixels. Works well on some color palettes, but not all. JIGGLER: This is sort of different, and it is very fun! Using the Jiggler, you can pick up to five areas on you image and IMPROCES will "set them jiggling". Heres how: First you define up to five a rectangular areas. Then IMPROCES will shift the areas back and forth very rapidly making them "jiggle" until you hit the RMB. You can slow down the speed of the jiggler with the DOWN ARROW key and speed it up with the UP ARROW. Limitations are: The areas must not touch either edge of the image and the areas must be under 32,000 bytes in size (about 160x200). REPLICATE...: X 2, X 4: Replicate the image 2 or 4 times. Uses a disk swapfile. VIDEO MODE...: NOTE: THIS WILL ERASE THE SCREEN!!! WARNING: DO NOT TRY A MODE YOUR HARDWARE DOESN'T SUPPORT!!! WARNING: DO NOT TRY A MODE YOUR HARDWARE DOESN'T SUPPORT!!! WARNING: DO NOT TRY A MODE YOUR HARDWARE DOESN'T SUPPORT!!! On a scale of GOOD to BAD, this would be BAD!!! 'NUFF SAID??? Select the mode you want to use and click on it. If you were using a Virtual Screen and the new mode is larger then the Virtual Screen, you will be asked if you want to load the Virtual Screen. To load a Physical Screen into a Virtual Screen, use the option in FILE-VIRTUAL-MOVE/CREATE menu. If you accidentally select a mode your hardware doesn't support, hitting your ENTER key twice should bring you back into video mode 320x200. QUIT: Self explanatory! 34 KNOWN PROBLEMS and ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS BLACK AND WHITE DOTS: GIF, PCX and TGA files contain their own palettes. This presents a problem when designing a graphical menu system in that the program is forced to use the colors contained in the image files palette. As it stands, the foreground color (color 255, used for menu text and mouse cursor) is set to white and the background (color 0) is set to black while using the menus. When the main menu is closed, color 0 and 255 are set to the proper values. Because of this, any adjustments you make to color 0 or 255 with the color adjuster will not be seen until you "back out" of all the menus. Also, as color 0 and 255 get replaced, this might cause random black or white (or both) dots to appear in the image. Again, when you back out of the menus, the proper color 0 and 255 will be restored. To counter the problem with the color 0 and 255 palette registers getting temporarily "borrowed" while the menus are active, I've included the command line options -IP, -AM, -AS. -IP does not borrow the color 0 and 255 palette registers, it just forces IMPROCES to use whatever happens to be in these registers. This might produce the very undesirable result of not being able to read the menus. To counter this, using the -AM or -AS options (or both) will assure that if the palette has more then two colors, you will be able to read the menus. The reason that IMPROCES doesn't automatically do the Auto Menu Adjust or Auto Palette Sort is that the creators of images sometimes have very valid reasons for having a certain color in a certain palette register, and automatically moving the palette registers around would create havoc for them. A classic case is the designer of game screens or someone who uses image data to take measurements using the brightness of a point as the Z-axis. Common Questions: Below are the most commonly asked questions about IMPROCES: -- Q. I have a SVGA card that is based on one of the chips you mention but IMPROCES crashes above mode 320x200, whats up? A. Try changing your mouse driver. More often then not, this will fix your problem. You can also try the -MC command line switch. The -MC might cause your driver to update on every other pixel in the higher video modes, but should cure your problem of the program locking up. Also, if switching to a higher mode crashes IMPROCES, try hitting your ENTER key twice before re-booting. -- 35 -- Q. I have a '386 with 1 meg of memory, how come I can't use 1024x768x256 mode? A. The amount of VIDEO MEMORY determines what modes you can access with the program. Not the amount of memory in your machine. Some VGA cards can be upgraded with more memory, some cannot. Contact the manufacturer of your video card, or consult your users manual for more information. NOTE: Most machines that come with a VGA card included on the motherboard only have 256K of Video Memory, therefore the highest mode you will be able to access will be 640x400x256, and that is only if the video card is based on one of the chipsets mentioned near the top of this manual. See the next question... -- -- Q. I have an "Off Brand" VGA card with 512K of video memory, how come I can't access modes greater then 320x200x256 with IMPROCES? A. If your card is not based on one of the chipsets listed at the beginning on this manual, it will not be able to access modes higher then 320x200x256. See the next question... -- -- Q. I have a VGA card with a chipset based on one of those listed at the top of the manual. All of the modes but one works. Why? A. Sometimes a video card will be BASED on one of the more popular chipsets but the similarity stops there. Sometimes the implementation is complete, other times it is not. You can try the command line parameter -V= and force IMPROCES to use a certain video driver. See the section entitled "COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS" for more information. Also, your mouse driver might be interfering with your video card in the SVGA modes, to see if this so, try the -MC command line switch. Again, see the section entitled "COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS" for more information. Some video cards come with a Terminate, Stay Resident (TSR) program to make the card emulate the VESA standard. If you have such a program, try loading the VESA emulation program and then running IMPROCES. -- -- Q. Why can't IMPROCES support every VGA video card? There is a standard for these things, isn't there? A. The SVGA256.BGI driver has autodetect logic for the most popular chipsets. It also lets you force what video driver to use with the -v=driver command line option. Only a fool would make a statement that their program can support EVERY VGA card ever built. You can force IMPROCES to use a specific video driver, see the section entitled "COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS" for more information. -- 36 -- Q. Why do black and white dots randomly appear sometimes after loading a image? A. Read the section on KNOWN PROBLEMS. Also, try COLOR-MENU ADJUST. You can tell IMPROCES use the images palette and also do an AUTO-MENU adjust, auto COLOR-SORT when loading a new image. See the section entitled "COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS" for more information. -- -- Q. I only have an A:, B: and C: drive but the IMPROCES drive menu shows drives A: - E: and if I select E:, it says the drive doesn't exist. Why? A. IMPROCES makes use of the LASTDRIVE environment variable that is usually SET in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If you do not have a LASTDRIVE variable set, DOS will default to drive E: as your LASTDRIVE variable, whether you have a drive E: or not. -- -- Q. Do you really expect people to send you $25 for a program they already have? A. YES! I believe in Shareware and believe it is the best way to market this type of software. -- -- Q. $25 is sort of inexpensive for such a powerful program. Why don't you charge more? A. I believe the program is worth more myself. I also believe that people shouldn't have to spend a small fortune on their software. All of the documentation for the program is online and there is no option for a printed manual or a nice cardboard box, thereby keeping costs down. Their is also the savings from using the Shareware method of distribution. All of these savings are passed on to the user. -- -- Q. Where does the name IMPROCES come from? A. The name IMPROCES is derived from IMage PROCESsor. -- -- Q. I have a suggestion or a feature I would like to see included in the next release of IMPROCES. Would you like to hear it? A. Yes! I don't mind suggestions or ideas on improving the program. Keep in mind that I do get a lot of suggestions from many sources, some of which I implement immediately, some of which I shelve for later releases. I do listen to/read them all though. If you would like a written response sooner then later, please include a Self-Addressed Stamped envelope. -- 37 EXAMPLES/TUTORIAL Coincident with the release of Version 2.2 was the release of the IMPROCES Example Pack. Compiled by John Wagner and Steve Lumos, this package contains many examples and tutorials on things you can do with the program. It is available on the Dust Devil BBS as IMTTR10.ZIP. Any additions to the pack are welcome but I must ask that before you add anything to the pack, you do it by contacting myself or Steve and we will add your submission to subsequent tutor packs. If you have something to add, please contact either Steve or I on the DDBBS. Be forewarned that the IMTTR10.ZIP file is over 300K long. REFERENCES: There is an excellent article in the March 1987 issue of Byte Magazine that explains many of the image processing functions used in the program. Most public libraries maintain back issues of Byte Magazine. Two excellent books on Image Processing and one on graphics: "Beyond Photography, The Digital Darkroom", Gerald J. Holzmann, ISBN #0-13-074410-7. An excellent book on transforms, plenty of 'C' code and examples, written with a slight sense of humor and very easy to understand. "Digital Image Processing", William K. Pratt, ISBN #0-471-01888-0. Hard to stomach super-techno-nurd reference manual that contains everything you ever wanted to know and didn't want to know about image processing. Buy this book if either 1: You hold a Masters Degree in some kind biological chemical engineering, or 2: You want to leave the book open in hopes of impressing your friends. If you are looking for a good book on graphics programming, try "Graphics Gems", Andrew Glassner, ISBN #0-12-286165-5. This book is a compilation of effective (and fast) graphics programming techniques. There is plenty of C code and psuedo-code included. I can't say enough good things about this book, I love it! PRODUCT SUPPORT: Registered and unregistered users are encouraged to call the Dust Devil BBS, (702)796-7134 for product support. Once you log on to Dust Devil, you will have full access to the JW Software conference where I answer any and all questions about IMPROCES. New users have full download privileges on the first call, so you may also call just to get the latest version of IMPROCES. I am not the Sysop of Dust Devil, therefore direct any questions about the BBS to the Sysop. BUG REPORTS: If you have a problem with the program and think it is a bug, I am most interested in hearing about it. Before you contact me please make sure it is a bug by first looking up the function in the manual and also reading the KNOWN PROBLEMS and the Q and A sections. If the program is not working with your video card, read the Q and Section, use the command line method of forcing a video driver and try the -MC command line switch. 38 VIRTUAL VIDEO, WHAT IS IT?: Virtual Video (or Disk Video) is a way of manipulating large image files using a physical video mode that is smaller then the image file without any information loss from scaling. What you must recognize when using a Virtual Screen, is that the Physical Screen does not represent the whole picture. The Physical Screen is actually a small "window" into the Virtual Screen that can be moved around so that you can "look into" and edit any area of the Virtual Screen. See diagram 2.0. Diagram 2.0: Virtual versus Physical Screen (Virtual Mode 2048x2048 shown) Virtual Screen─┐ 0,2047 0,0 ┌─────────┴───────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ a┌─────────────┐ │ │ │ Physical │ │ │ │ Screen │ │ │ └─────────────┘b │ │ │ │ Physical Virtual │ │ a = 0,0 100,100 │ │ b = 319,199 419,299 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 0,2047 2047,2047 IMPROCES implements the Virtual Screen as a disk file that is a bitmap of video memory that can be swapped in and out of video memory very fast, allowing the user to pan through file, much like you would scan through a text document using a work processor. These disk files can be very large, (a 2048x2048 pixel disk file would take 4 megabytes of disk space), therefore a hard disk is pretty much a requirement to do this. One advantage of Virtual Screens is that they can provide another level of UNDO. Before you move the Virtual Screen, you are asked if you want to save the changes that were made to it. BEST FITTING A PALETTE, or Re-Mapping: The overlaying and averaging options and the clipboard give you the options of "Best Fitting the Palette". What this means is that the clipfile or incoming image (or on-screen, depending on your selection) will have it's palette adjusted so that it will look like it was intended with the new palette. If the difference in palettes is largely in the placement of colors in the palette, there will hardly be any noticeable difference in the adjusted image. If the change in the palette is largely in the actual colors, there will be a more noticeable in the image. 39 Color Averaging: Another feature released with version 3.0 is color averaging on the incoming files and clip files. To improve the speed of this, IMPROCES pre-computes a look up table of values. This takes up time before an image or clipfile is loaded (in average mode), but it improves the overall speed of the loading. For best results, use a Split Palette whenever possible if averaging. GETTING UPGRADES Registered users of IMPROCES, are entitled to free upgrades. You may obtain your upgrades in a number of ways. The Dust Devil BBS is the "Home Base" of IMPROCES and the latest version of IMPROCES will always be available there. You can also wait for the program to arrive at your favorite BBS. For $5 a upgrade fee, I will mail you the latest version of the program. If you go this route, include the version number of the program you are presently using so I'll know whether to send you a disk right away or to wait for the next upgrade. The number of the DDBBS is (702)796-7134. UPGRADE NOTES: If you are upgrading from version 1.0, you must run a utility program called CONVCLIP.COM to upgrade any clipboard files you might have saved with version 1.0. CONVCLIP.COM is no longer distributed with the IMPROCES package but it is available on the Dust Devil BBS as CONVCLIP.ZIP. Again, you will only need this program to convert the clipboard images from version 1.0 only. As of version 3.0 of IMPROCES, clipboard files also have a separate palette file so that the clipfiles can be re-mapped to another palette. If you have clipboard files from a version of IMPROCES prior to 3.0, you might want to re-save these files so that they can take advantage of the re-mapping feature. DISTRIBUTION POLICY: INDIVIDUALS, BBS Systems and online networks: You may, and are encouraged to share this program with others so that they may try it. Please distribute the program in the original package you received it in, whether it be a ZIP file, LZH file or whatever. If you received the IMPROCES files in uncompressed form, and want to compress the files before distribution, please distribute it with a filename of IMPROCxx.zzz where xx is the version (11 for 1.1, 20 for 2.0 etc...) and where zzz is the extension that the compression program provides. Example: IMPROCES, Ver 4.0, compressed by PKZIP would be IMPROC40.ZIP. 40 SHAREWARE VENDORS, PLEASE READ: The IMPROCES Distribution Network The "IMPROCES Distribution Network" is available to interested shareware distributors. When you join the network, I will mail you the current version of IMPROCES, with a coded INVOICE.DOC form so I can keep track of where users who register the program are getting it from. You will be kept current by me for a year. If I get a registration that I can attribute to your catalog (on the coded INVOICE.DOC form in the package), I will keep you current for the life of IMPROCES. Before you decide to join the "IMPROCES Distribution Network", you should apply for a distribution license. Applications for a license should include a current catalog/product listing. First off, lets clarify a who must apply for a distribution license: Who must: Any Shareware Vendor. Any "Rackware" Vendor. Any CD-ROM distributor. Any Company, business or individual who charges a disk duplication fee to copy software. Who doesn't: Any BBS system*. Public BBS systems may charge for the access to their file base and still not be in the vendor class. Any online service network* like Compuserve, Genie, Internet, etc... *NOTE: This does not apply to shareware vendors who also sell their products online. When I grant a distribution license, I will mail a master diskette for which the distributor shall agree that all copies of IMPROCES that they distribute will be made from and all of the files on the disk I send will be included when IMPROCES is distributed. The terms of a distribution license are as follow: 1. You agree not to alter any of the files I provide you. 2. You agree to make a "Shareware Notice" visible on any catalog, advertisement or in store display that IMPROCES is included in. 41 3. If IMPROCES is to be packaged for retail sale (rackware), an OBVIOUS notice be on the package stating that IMPROCES is shareware and that purchasing your product does not constitute payment to the author. It must further state that payment to the author is REQUIRED if the product is to be used past it's evaluation period. This statement must be on any catalog or advertisement that IMPROCES is included in. 4. You agree to notify me of any bugs or problems reported to you about IMPROCES. 5. You use a technically accurate description for IMPROCES in your catalog. I will be more then happy to provide you with a description if you require one. I am available by telephone (number is near the end of this manual), BBS and by mail for any questions you may have. Please don't hesitate to ask me for assistance if you have any questions concerning IMPROCES. I wish to ensure that all IMPROCES product descriptions are technically accurate and that any problems that you might have with the program, or problems your customers might have are addressed. I am here to support you. IMAGE FILE FORMATS: GIF and PCX: IMPROCES uses the GIF file format and the PCX file format. All flavors of GIF and PCX are supported. All images saved in either format will be saved as 256 color images. In the PCX format, the first 16 colors will be saved in the image header and the full 256 color palette will be tacked on the end of the file, in accordance with the PCX format. The reason I use GIF and PCX is because I felt that those two formats represent the greatest number of images available today. GIF is useful because of it's device independence and cross platform and O/S usage. PCX because of it's use in most drawing programs and image file converters. The PRF format is really of use only to programmers who use Fastgraph. I don't recommend using PRF for storing your images if you aren't going to use them in a Fastgraph program. There is no palette information stored with the PRF file. True Color Targa files (TGA): Starting with version 3.0 of IMPROCES, is support for 24 bit color, Uncompressed, True Color Targa files. Theses files can contain up to 16 million different colors in them and are usually very large. As of version 4.0, IMPROCES supports 15 bit True Color Targa images, in both top-down and bottom-up raster format. Color reduction is an art, more than a science and the algorithm used by IMPROCES was developed by me using trial and error until the best results were found on a multitude of different images. After the image is loaded into IMPROCES, it can be saved as a GIF or PCX file which will be much smaller than the original Targa file. It can even be saved as a PRF file and incorporated into a program that uses Fastgraph! 42 FILES OF INTEREST TO PROGRAMMERS: Registered users of IMPROCES might want to make use of the IMPROCES .CLB and .PAL file formats in their programs. Below is a brief description of them. NOTE: Anyone can use the .MAP palette file format. I included it in IMPROCES to maintain compatibility with the Stone Soup Groups Fractint and the many other programs that use it. CLIPBOARD (.CLB): Although no compression is performed on the clipfiles, they are very fast to read from the disk. The format of the .CLB file is very basic, the file is a byte for byte copy of video memory, with the dimensions tacked on the end after the text "DIMS:". To get the DIMS, open the file in TEXT mode and then set the file pointer back about 50 or so bytes and scan forward until you reach the string "DIMS:", then read in the SX, SY, EX, and EY with a scanf() like so: fscanf(fp,"12 0 28531 8250",&sx,&sy,&ex,&ey); The IMPROCES .PAL format is very basic. The format is the as follows: byte 0 = color 0 red attribute byte 1 = color 0 green attribute byte 2 = color 0 blue attribute ..... byte 765 = color 255 red attribute byte 766 = color 255 green attribute byte 767 = color 255 blue attribute The values in the .PAL should then be bit shifted 2 bits to the right to get the proper values when using a IBM VGA system. The .MAP is the same is .PAL except that the .MAP file is written in text mode with room for comments. The following code will read in one line from a .MAP file: fgets(line,100,fp); //get 100 bytes from the file *fp sscanf( line, "12 0 29555", &r, &g, &b ); //sscanf the values The values in the .MAP should then be bit shifted 2 bits to the right to get the proper values when using a VGA system. HOW?: IMPROCES was written originally written in MS QC using the 320x200x256 VGA mode only. A friend introduced me to Turbo C and the BGI and it was downhill from there! Using a BGI driver written by Jordan Powell Hargrave and the Borland Turbo C++ graphics library, I achieved a program that works in 320x200x256 thru 1024x768x256. Not an easy feat! I have seen no other programs this powerful on the market so if you decide to keep the program, please register it. As of version 2.0, IMPROCES is compiled with Turbo C++, Version 1.01. It is still written in straight 'C' however. 43 WHO?: The IMPROCES Team: Programmer : John Wagner, Las Vegas, Nevada Beta Testers: Steve Lumos, Las Vegas, Nevada Mitch Harhay, Las Vegas, Nevada Bob Sherburne, Las Vegas, Nevada Special Thanks: Thanks to Ted and Diana Gruber of Ted Gruber Software for the use of the Dust Devil BBS for user support and as a beta test site. Ted Gruber Software has many fine shareware products, most notably Fastgraph and Fastgraph Light Graphics libraries which provide programmers with the tools to do animation and many other advanced graphics functions. One of the best parts of Fastgraph is its users manual which is practically a textbook on how to do hi-res graphics animation and other very advanced graphics functions. To download the latest version of IMPROCES or Fastgraph, call the Dust Devil BBS at (702)796-7134. Downloads are allowed and encouraged on the first call. Leave me a note if you call! Ted gruber also wrote the PRF encoder that is included in IMPROCES. Thanks to the Beta Testers Steve Lumos, Mitch Harhay and Bob Sherburne. I don't think beta testers is a fair title for these guys because they provided so many ideas and useful input that equal credit should given to them for the outcome of the program. Thanks to the Stone Soup Group for making the source code to FRACTINT so freely available. Without it, the Plasma Cloud function would not have been possible. Thanks to Mitchell Waite of the Waite Group for his useful suggestions and for providing insights into the user interface and other functions of the program. If you haven't bought any of the Waite Groups computer books, you are missing out. I started programming in 'C' after buying the Waite Groups "C Primer Plus", which I highly recommend for anyone starting out with C programming. In fact, it's a must have, I still refer back to it. Special thanks to my wife for putting up with me spending all these late nights on my computer. And last but not least, thanks to my son for being such great little guy and not pouring his oatmeal into my floppy disk drive (yet). He has made some kamakazi dives at the keyboard though and he did manage to get some jelly on my mouse pad, oh well. As of version 3.1 of IMPROCES, he tried to fit a Cheese-Nip into one of my floppy drives. Well, they sort of look like floppy disks! 44 LEGAL STUFF: IMPROCES(C). Copyright John Wagner 1991-92. All rights reserved. GIF and "Graphics Interchange Format" are trademarks (tm) of Compuserve Incorporated, an H&R Block Company SVGA256.BGI is Copyright (C) JORDAN HARGRAPHIX SOFTWARE, 1991 Created using Turbo C++, Copyright (C) Borland 1990 Fastgraph and Fastgraph Light is Copyright, 1991-92, Ted Gruber Software All other names, copyrights and trademarks of products mentioned throughout this documentation are trademark(tm) and/or copyright(C) of there respectful owners. DISCLAIMER AND LEGAL NOTICES: I, John M. Wagner retain ALL rights to distribute and collect fees for this software. This software IS NOT RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN!!! IT IS NOT FREE!!! It is OWNED by me and only me! You, as a user have the right to possess and distribute this software. YOUR MAY NOT MODIFY, DISASSEMBLE or change in any way, this document, the IMPROCES.EXE file or any other file included in the IMPROCES package. You MAY NOT collect ANY FEE, real or otherwise for the transfer of this software, Exception: You may recover the cost of distribution (ie: phone transfer costs, floppy disk/mailers, postage. It is to be understood, with the party that is charged these fees, that paying transfer costs DOES NOT constitute a registration fee to the author and that a registration fee is STILL required after evaluating the software. All vendors or business that wish to distribute IMPROCES must do so in accordance with the guidance set forth above in the section entitled "SHAREWARE VENDORS, PLEASE READ". All files included in this package must be distributed together and may not be modified in ANY WAY by anyone other than John Wagner. I reserve the right to refuse anyone the right to distribute this software with a written notice. DISCLAIMER NOTICE: I, John Wagner accept NO RESPONSIBILITY for ANY damages, real or otherwise that this program may cause. I make no guarantees that this program works as described in this document file or anywhere else. This software is provided "AS IS" with NO GUARANTEE, expressed or implied. USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK! USERS LICENSE UNREGISTERED USERS: Users who have not registered their copy of IMPROCES, are hereby granted permission to try IMPROCES for a period of two weeks before they must discontinue using the program or register a copy. This two week period starts from when the package is first received by the user. 45 REGISTERED USERS: Users who have registered IMPROCES may use the program on a single computer. The registered version of the program may reside on more then one computer at one time, provided it is not possible to use more then one copy at one time. MY PHONE # AND POLICY ON PHONE SUPPORT: First off, if you have a question and feel that you need to call me, please go through this manual and see if your question is answered somewhere. If you are calling to tell me that your "supported" card is having trouble with a certain video mode, try a new mouse driver. The best drivers come from Microsoft and Logitech. Mouse drivers have been causing me a lot of grief. Try a new one, you'll be surprised! Here is my policy on phone calls: I like them! Please call at a reasonable hour, Las Vegas is PST and I'm a late sleeper on the weekends (actually, I'm a late sleeper regardless of the day of week). Let's say that 12 noon to 9 pm is a good time to call. Weekends are fine as well, same hours. I support all users, registered as well as unregistered. I DO NOT ACCEPT COLLECT CALLS! Yes, someone tried to call me collect! If I'm not busy, I'll bring up my computer in host mode and let you download the latest version of IMPROCES if you ask. I have a 2400 baud modem. I will try to solve any problem you are having on the spot. If I can't I'll give you a good time to call back and see what I can do. Can't ask for much more! As of June of 1992, I live in Las Vegas and my voice phone number is: (702) 647-9687 46