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Readme300
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1993-11-17
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AIM : ANOTHER IMAGE MANAGER
also known as
Atari Image Manager,
Archimedes Image Manager,
Amiga Image Manager.
The image processing program AIM was originally developed for the
ATARI-ST by Frans Groen and Robert de Vries. Since the first
version of AIM, the improvement of this public domain image
processing package has become a joint effort of a number of
people from the Delft University of Technology and the University
of Amsterdam. Especially Piet Verbeek supplied many linear and
non-linear filtering routines, Lucas van Vliet and Ben Verwer
developed the fast morphological operations. Also Gert van
Antwerpen, Damir Sudar and Igor Weber supplied a number of
routines to AIM.
AIM is *not* a demo version of the professional image processing
packages TCL-Image and SCIL-Image.
AIM is limited in functionality as well as in flexibility.
AIM has *no* support. However, you may like it.
AIM has been ported to the ARCHIMEDES (Arthur version) by Robert
Ellens, Damir Sudar and Alle-Jan van der Veen.
Ed Doppenberg was succesful in the port to RISC-OS.
The RISC-OS2 versions will de indicated by 'AIM/2'.
The RISC-OS3 versions will de indicated by 'AIM/3'.
AIM/3 runs best in mode 21 or 28 (multi-scan or VGA), although a
standard monitor in mode 15 may be applied too (limited quality).
AIM has been written in the C-language. The main purpose of the
program is to experiment with digital image processing.
The RISC-OS versions needs 2 Megabyte of memory at least, sorry.
*************** Remarks on version 3.00: ************************
Compared to the first official RISC-OS2 version 2.10, the
following changes were made:
- The menu command [Utils]>[Timer] is functioning again.
- The menu command [Utils]>[Display]>[didisplay] is removed (this
command was of no use for the Archimedes).
- The help text of command 'mcopy' was in error, this is fixed.
(The text in the manual was correct already).
- The display of the help text of a menu command can be switched
on and off when the HELP button is clicked ("toggle" button),
this allows the adjustment of the parameters and the later
execution of the command after reading the help text.
- A command handles parameters with values such as "automatic"
and "input-image" by replacing this human operator oriented
text during execution by the appropriate default value (being
the automatic calculated value or the image that was specified
as the input-image, respectively). Replacing a parameter by a
question-mark forces the command to prompt for an entry during
execution.
- The Command-window is 'active' all the time, thus not depending
on the location of the mouse-pointer anymore.
Additions (from 2.20 up):
- A new menu entry 'scaled' allows the selection/deselection of
automatic zooming of the display within a display-window.
- A command 'affine <inp_im> <outp_im> <ref_im> <mouse_clicks>'
is available. Type 'affine ?' to run this command.
Additions and Modifications (from 3.00 up):
Compared to AIM/2, the RISC OS 3 versions (starting at 3.00) have
some important additions and modifications:
- Any rectangular image size is allowed
- More (than the AIM) data filetypes are accepted:
AIM (type &004) with seperate header (type &010)
TCL (type &011), header included
Sprite import, 256-grey-level sprite (GreySprite) export
- A selected portion (rectangle) of an image can be applied and
saved as a new image
- A contrast stretch function is added
- Improved Help function
- Better interaction between AIM and RISC OS 3 applications
*****************************************************************
THE FOLLOWING TEXT CAN BE OF SOME HELP WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE THE
PRINTED DOCUMENTATION AVAILABLE. THIS TEXT IS NO MORE THAN A
FIRST AID. WHEN YOU ARE JUST PLAYING AROUND IN IMAGE PROCESSING
IT'S O.K. FOR YOU.
IF YOU DISCOVER SOME MORE INTEREST WHILE USING THIS PROGRAM, YOU
MAY LIKE THE IDEA THAT YOU CAN ORDER FOR A SET OF PRINTED
DOCUMENTATION, INCLUDING A FIRST INTRODUCTION IN THIS FIELD.
(ADDRESSES OF 'LINDIS' AND 'ECD' CAN BE FOUND AT THE END OF THIS
TEXT).
*********************** First aid manual ************************
User interface.
The user interface of AIM consists of:
-RISCOS interface. Operations and parameters can be selected by
means of pop-up menus. A choice from a menu results in a command
which is passed to the command interpreter. Image displays can be
moved and sized.
Drag the image to a Display-Window (A, B, C or D).
Drag the macro-file to one of the open AIM-Windows (including the
Command Line Window) to start the execution of the macro.
-Command Line interpreter. Commands may be entered by typing. The
location of the mouse-pointer is not critical anymore (v2.12 up).
Use lower case!
A history mechanism is provided. Type h. To execute a previous
command, type !# (# = history-number of a previous command).
-Sequences of commands can be given in a macro-file. A macro-file
may be called within another macro-file up to 16 levels deep.
Images in AIM.
Up to four image memories are available in AIM.
Standard AIM images have a size of 256 x 256 pixels (in AIM/3 all
sizes are accepted), and are stored line by line from top left to
bottom right.
These standard images have a size of 65536 pixels, and are 8 bits
deep - and are thus 64K in size.
These 'image memories' are displayed on the Archimedes screen in
windows designated ‘A’, ‘B’, 'C' and ‘D’, which can be moved and
sized. They are shown as 256 x 256 pixels in a limited number of
greyshades, but a 'sigma-delta technique' is used to improve the
representation of the original 256 grey values.
Be aware of the fact that a display in a window is no more than a
'as good as possible' (display-mode determined) representation of
an image in memory. (The image processing is always performed on
the images).
The 8 bitplanes of the grey-value images can also be used as 8
'binary images', on which 'Cellular Logic' and 'Bitplane Binary'
operations may be performed.
The bitplanes are numbered from 1(least) to 8(most significant).
When an image is read from disk, all 8 bitplanes are read simult-
aneously. The same holds when an image is written to disk.
Hence, a single bitplane must be copied to all 8, before writing
the image to disk (the command 'mcopy' can do this for you).
If an AIM image does not have the standard size, a headerfile is
needed - in order that it may be read correctly. This is a file
having the same name as the image file, with a "+" added, which
describes the image width and height. The header format used is
given in the Appendix of the Reference Manual.
When an image file is written in the AIM format, a header file is
always written.
In AIM/3 the use of a new format, the 'TCL data format' (which is
direct compatible with the professional image processing package
TCL-Image), is made possible and this format should be preferred.
Moreover, 'GreySprites' (having a palette of 256 grey levels) are
accepted.
A TCL image file (with a header included) has file-type &011. An
AIM imagefile has file-type &004, a headerfile has file-type &010
and a resource-file (in which the set-up is stored) has file-type
&012.
Installing and Running AIM/3
In this RISC OS 3 version of AIM, the files on the distribution
disk #1 are organized in a single application directory !aim.
The application directory !aim should be copied to a hard disk.
Double-clicking with 'Select' on the icons of both the source and
destination drives will open Filer windows. The aim directory may
then be 'dragged' from the source to the destination window.
Additional files are present on the accompanying disks, read the
'Readme' files on those disks.
AIM may be run by double-clicking with Select on the application
in the Filer window, to put an icon on the icon bar. Now, an AIM
imagefile may be dragged onto the icon or the application started
"empty" by clicking on the icon.
If a mode other than Mode 27 or Mode 28 (the default mode) is in
use, the best