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1994-03-15
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Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet
From: oahvenla@vinkku.hut.fi (Osma Ahvenlampi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: SURVEY: Amiga picture viewers, version 2
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Date: 15 Mar 1994 15:41:37 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Lines: 479
Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <2m4kvh$mf7@menudo.uh.edu>
Reply-To: oahvenla@vinkku.hut.fi (Osma Ahvenlampi)
NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu
Keywords: graphics, viewer, IFF, JPEG, GIF, freeware, shareware
PRODUCT NAMES, AUTHOR INFORMATION, AVAILABILITY
AIVE 1.0 by Laurent Vivier
ALook 3.1 by Trevor Andrews
Bview 1.06 by Joeri Alberty
FastJPEG 1.10 by Christoph Feck
FastView 2.01 by "KRUEMELMONSTER2000"
GIF.datatype 39.3 by "Steve the G"
GIF_view 4.4 by Lorenzo Musto
HAMGIF 2.5 by Steven Bennett
ILBM.datatype 40.2 by Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
JPEG.datatype 39.1 by Steve Goddard
Mostra 2.0 by Sebastiano Vigna
MUGiff 1.4 by Mark Rose
PPShow 4.0 by Nico Francois
ShowGIF 1.01 by Christophe Passuello *
ViewJpeg 1.0 beta by <unknown>
Viewtek 1.05 by Thomas Krehbiel
VirtGIF 1.0 by Patrick Maloney
VJPEG 0.01 by David Blevins
ZGif 0.4 by Michael Zucchi
ZGIF.datatype 39.7 by Michael Zucchi
* ShowGIF is the CLI counterpart of FastGIF, a better known, GUI
driven GIF viewer. ShowGIF is is distributed with FastGIF.
All of the software in this review, with the exception of
ILBM.datatype (a part of the AmigaDOS from version 3.0 upwards) is available
on Aminet, the world wide network of ftp sites for Amiga software. For
further information on Aminet, ftp to ftp.wustl.edu, directory /pub/aminet,
and read the README file available there.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
After getting a considerable amount of response from the quick and
dirty picture viewer test I made a while ago, I decided a more thorough test
would be in order. For this, a friend of mine was nice enough to loan me an
A1200 so that I could include AGA specific software also. Thanks, Pekka!
[MODERATOR'S NOTE: The original test was posted in c.s.a.reviews
on 23 February 1994, and is found in our ftp archives in the
file software/graphics/PictureViewerSurvey. - Dan]
Only public domain, shareware, freeware and similar software is
included, simply because I do not have access to enough commercial software,
nor the time to learn to use it well enough to get a fair view of the
capabilities. I felt that to avoid biasing, it would be better to restrict
the test to freely available software.
SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
For more detailed information about the specific requirements of any
of the programs, see their documentation.
HARDWARE
Some of the programs require the AGA chipset found on Amiga
models A1200, A4000 and later. A few of the programs
require a 68020 CPU or better.
SOFTWARE
Some of the programs require AmigaDOS version 2.0 or later,
or, most notably in the case of the Datatypes, even AmigaDOS
version 3.0 or later.
MACHINE USED FOR TESTING
Amiga A1200
Microbotics 1230XA, 50MHz 68030 board
2MB Chip RAM, 4MB Fast RAM
130MB hard drive
Kickstart version 39.106, Workbench version 40.23
BACKGROUND
The hardest part was deciding what to test. For reasons described
above, I left all commercial software out of the test. None would have
actually fit into the description of a "picture viewer" anyway, being
complicated and feature-laden image conversion and manipulation software.
Next, I decided, partly for the same reasons, to leave out all
programs specifically made for image conversion and manipulation. So you
won't find ADPro, ImageFX, ImageMaster, HamLabPlus, NETPBM, or any other
similar programs here. Sorry.
What was left after this was the relatively simple programs meant
for displaying pictures in various formats. Note that most, if not all, of
these programs sacrifice quality for speed, unlike the dedicated converter
programs.
This time, AGA modes were used where applicable, and if the program
supported them. No extra ECS-specific tests were made. If a program had
two versions, an AGA specific and an ECS specific, the AGA specific one was
used.
Most programs in the review have a command line interface only, with
perhaps the capability to read the options from icon tooltypes also. All
tests were made using the command line interface, except in the case of
ViewJpeg, which had a GUI interface only (and a horrible file requester,
something that was quite common in the AmigaDOS 1.3 days).
Originally, I intended to test AIVE 1.0 also. During the testing,
it produced lots of alerts and even crashes, and thus I had to leave it
out. From what I did find out, it was exceptionally slow and supported a
subset of IFF ILBM only, so I don't think dropping it from the review changed
the results too much.
TABLE OF FEATURES
Program IFF IFF24 PCHG GIF JPEG Mode DT Multi Slide FReq AGA
==============================================================
ALook O - O - - - - O O O -
Bview O - - - - - - - - O O
FastJPEG - - - - O O - O O O *
FastView O - - - - - - O - O -
GIF.dt - - - O - NA NA NA NA NA O
GIF_view - - - O - - - - - - -
HAMGIF - - - O - - - O O - -
ILBM.dt O - - - - NA NA NA NA NA O
JPEG.dt - - - - O NA NA NA NA NA X
Mostra O - O - - O - O O O O
MUGiff O - - - - - - O - O -
PPShow O O O O O O O O O O O
ShowGIF - - - O - - - O O - O
ViewJpeg - - - - O - - - - O -
Viewtek O O O O O O O O O O O
VirtGIF - - - O - - - - - - -
VJPEG - - - - O - - - - - -
ZGif - - - O - - - O - - *
ZGIF.dt - - - O - NA NA NA NA NA X
Key:
O The program has this feature.
- The program does NOT have this feature.
* A separate version of the program has this feature.
X AGA is required to run this program.
NA Not applicable. In particular, datatypes do not
have a user interface of their own, but require a
viewer that supports datatypes (such as MultiView)
as a front-end.
Explanation of the columns:
- IFF, IFF24, GIF and JPEG are picture formats. PCHG is an
extension of the IFF ILBM format with a multipalette chunk mostly
usable for HAM pictures.
- DT means the program can use Datatypes to display pictures.
- Mode means support for manual screenmode selection from the
Display Database.
- Multi means capability of showing multiple files on one
invocation.
- Slide means basic slideshow support, such as looping through
the pictures, showing a picture for a specified time, and
hidden decompression while showing another picture.
- FReq means the pictures can be selected from a file requester.
- AGA means the program supports AGA modes.
PICTURES USED IN TESTING
Two pictures were used in the testing. For a color picture, I
decided to use a 597x796x24 scan of a Boris Vallejo painting, available on
ftp.funet.fi as /pub/pics/art/BorisVallejo/bv9.jpg. This picture was
downscaled and converted with the NETPBM image conversion package to all the
formats used in the test, with the exception of the HAM6 version, which was
converted with HamLabPlus as a PCHG HAM (using 12 color registers in the
slicing). For black and white, I used a 600x787x1 clip art collage GIF which
I also converted to IFF.
Pic# Description
1 597x796x24 color JPEG
2 597x796x8 grayscale JPEG
3 298x796x6 lores/laced sliced (12) PCHG HAM6
4 597x796x8 hires/laced HAM8
5 299x398x4 16 color IFF
6 299x398x8 256 color IFF
7 600x768x1 B/W IFF
8 299x398x4 16 color GIF
9 299x398x8 256 color GIF
10 600x768x1 B/W G