LSD Docs

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ LSD Docs / LSD Docs.iso / FILEZ / lsd21.dms / lsd21.adf / DigiView4.doc.pp / DigiView4.doc

Wrap

Text File | 1990-09-07 | 47KB | 892 lines

\ \\ \\\ \ \\ \ \\\ / \ _____ \\\\ / \ ____ \ \ \\\ \ / /\ ) / / \ \ \ \/ / \ / / / \ \ \ / \/ / / \ \ \ / / / \ \ \ / _________/ / \ \ \/ / ______ / \ \_________ / / / / \ \ / (_____/ / \_____________)(____________/[PAZZA] P R E S E N T DIGI-VIEW 4.0 USER'S MANUAL Typed by SIDEWINDER/LSD. Manual suppllied by JAZ. (Thanks Jace) WHAT'S NEW WITH DIGI-VIEW 4.0? - Dynamic HiRes Using newTek's new dynamic palette control all 4096 colours can be displayed in high resolution with overscan. - Dynamic HAM Dynamic palette control provides sharper HAM images, virtually eliminating HAM fringing. - LBJ Noise Reduction NewTek's LBJ technology allows the user to selectively filter background noise from the video signal for sharper, clearer images. - ARexx support Digi-View 4.0 can be controlled externally by other programs allowing remote or automated operation. - Digi-Port Captured images may now be displayed directly into Digi-Paint 3. HiRes images create super-bitmaps. - Change Resolution Resolutions may be changed from inside Digi-View 4.0 - Improved Multitasking Multitasking support has been improved including a toggle on/off drag bar and front/back gadgets. - 24 Bit Colour Support 24 bit RGB files may loaded and saved for further image processing or exporting to typesetters or frame buffers. - Enhanced memory management Digi-View 4.0 is more efficient with memory including optional Workbench open/close to save chip memory. - Smart-View File Requester New 'smart' file requester that lists all available volumes or devices alphabetically. - Dyna-Show Slide show program that supports IFF and Newtek's new Dynamic modes. - Accu-Droid New smooth servo controls for accurate Digi-Droid alignment. - TOLL FREE Support Line Extended-hours technical support. Our customer service staff is here to answer any questions you may have. - 68020 Support Fully supports the high speed 68020 processor. - and more... Many other enhancements have been added to Digi-View 4.0, allowing you to create images with ease. HOW TO USE THIS MANUAL Generally, this manual assumes some familiarity with computers and the Amiga in particular. If you are totally unfamiliar with the Amiga, we recommend you read the Amiga User's manual before using Digi-View. If you're familiar with the Amiga, you should find Digi-View quite easy to use. In this manual when referring to the software we will use the term Digi-View 4.0 and when referring to the Digi-View or Digi-View Gold hardware module we will use the term Digi-View module. This software is compatible with both Digi-View and Digi-View Gold hardware modules. For more information about setting up the Digi-View hardware, please refer to your hardware manual provided with the Digi-View module. GETTING STARTED HARDWARE INSTALLATION To install your Digi-View module or Digi-Driod Automated Filter Wheel, please refer to the manuals included with these products. SOFTWARE INSTALLATION You should make a back-up copy of Digi-View 4.0 before using (Digi- View 4.0 is NOT copy protected), in case your disk is damaged during use. If you have already started Digi-View 4.0, pull down the Project menu by holding down the right mouse button, then move the pointer to Project. Still holding down the right mouse button, move the pointer down to Quit, then release the button. You will be returned to the Workbench, where you should make a copy of your Digi-View 4.0 disk. From now on, always use a copy of Digi-View 4.0 instead of the original. Store the original in a safe place away from your computer. For more information regarding how to make a back-up disk, refer to your Amiga User's guide. Turn on your Amiga and insert the Digi-View 4.0 disk when the picture of the Workbench disk appears on the screen (if you have an Amiga 1000, first insert the Kickstart in the internal drive. When the screen shows a picture of the Workbench disk, then insert Digi-View 4.0 disk). When the Workbench screen appears, point to the Digi-View 4.0 icon and double click the left mouse button. The window will open. Double click on the Digi-View program icon. Digi-View 4.0 will then load into your Amiga. Once this is done, you will see the Digi-View 4.0 title screen, which will allow you to select the resolution that you want to digitize in. There are two ways to select a resolution: by clicking on one of the grey (orange when selected) 'on' or 'off' boxes in the middle of the screen, or by clicking in the 'height' and 'width' boxes on the right. Continuous clicking in one of these boxes cycles through all of the resolution modes available in that dimension, simply stop when you see the resolution you want. There are 2 levels of horizontal overscan available in Digi-View 4.0 which are accessed by clicking on either '1' or '2' instead of 'on'. The 'Colour' option is set 'on' in default and can only be unselected by clicking in the 'off' box next to it. When you have the resolution that you want, click inside the 'OK' box to get into Digi-View 4.0. If you want to quit the program at this point, click in the 'Cancel' box to get back to the Workbench screen. MENUS There are three menus in Digi-View 4.0: Project, Digitize and Controls. All menus are activated by holding down the right mouse button, moving the pointer to the top of the screen and pointing at the menu you want, then moving the pointer down until the menu item you want is highlighted. Then release the button, and that menu item will be activated. This process is called 'pulling down a menu'. Whenever the term 'click' or 'click on' is used, it means that you should move the mouse pointer until the tip is resting on the object referred to in the text and press the left mouse button. The term 'drag' means to move the mouse pointer until the tip is resting on an object referred to in the text and then press the left mouse button and hold it while moving the mouse pointer; the slider you've 'grabbed' will move as you move the mouse pointer. Release the button when the slider is in the spot you want. For more information about the use of the mouse, please refer to your Amiga User's Guide. The menu bar on Digi-View 4.0 can be toggled on and off. This can be helpful if you wish to drag the window down to look at other tasks. To Toggle the menu bar, press and release the right mouse button without moving the pointer to the top of the screen. When the menu bar is activated, you can drag the window down or use the front/back gadgets. You can also toggle the screen from front to back with the F10 key. PROJECT MENU NEW: Pulling down this menu item clears the Amiga's memory of any images currently in Digi-View 4.0, which prepares you to start digitizing a new image. CAUTION: If you haven't saved the image on the screen before you use New, the image will be lost. LOAD: Pull down this menu item to bring in IFF (Interchange File Format) images that you've stored on a disk. (IFF files are a standard format on Amiga graphics programs. Any IFF image can be brought into Digi- View 4.0) When you activate this item, the Smart-View requester will appear. SMART-VIEW REQUESTER: Layout: The current action is defined at the top of the requester. In this case it should say 'Load IFF'. The list window is on the left side of the requester. If there are more than seven entries in the list window you may click on the arrow buttons to slide up or down and reveal more entries. You may also drag the slider or use the up and down arrow keys from your keyboard to show more entries. The control buttons for the requester are on the right side. To select one simply click on it. The path box is below the control buttons. It lists the name of the disk and directory (and file if one has been selected) currently shown in the list window. Choosing Disks: To select a floppy disk or hard drive, click on 'Volumes'. This will fill the list window with the currently mounted disks and volumes by name such as 'WorkBench:' or 'Devs:'. Clicking on an entry will list the contents of the top (root) directory of that volume. Clicking on 'Devices' will list all the disk drives and other devices such as 'DF0:' or 'RAM:' regardless of the name of the disk in them. (On A2000's en external floppy drive is 'DF2:'.) Clicking on an entry will list the contents of the top (root) directory of that device. Choosing Directories: Directory entries (sometimes called Drawers) are preceded by '(dir)' and at the top of the list. Clicking on a directory entry will display the subdirectories and files contained in that directory. Clicking on the 'Prior Dir' gadget will move up level to display the last (also called parent) directory (if there is one). Choosing a File: Clicking on 'List Files' will fill the list windows with entries from the directory shown in the path box. To select a file in the list window simply click on it. The filename will be added to the path box. Clicking 'OK' will exit Smart-View and load the file. Double clicking on the filename in the list window will select and load the file as one action. Optionally, you may type the drive, directory or filename desired in the path box at any time. The right and left arrow keys and the <DEL> and backspace keys move the cursor and edit within the path box. Press <RETURN> to enter the path or to load a file you've typed. Clicking 'Cancel' at any time will abort the Smart-View requester and exit. These are the functions key shortcuts for the control buttons: [F1] List Files [F2] Volumes [F3] Prior Dir [F4] Devices [F5] OK [F6] Cancel SAVE: This menu item allows you to save digitized images as an IFF file that can be read by other IFF compatable programs like Digi-Paint 3. The same requester that you saw in Load IFF appears. Follow the same procedure to select the drive where you want the image to be saved, and the name you want to use for the file. NOTE: When saving a picture, make sure that what you see on the screen is what you want to go onto the disk; the 'Save' option saves whatever is displayed on the screen. If you have been experimenting with the colour controls, use 'Display' to get the most current picture. SAVE RGB: Lo-Res RGB files are much larger in size than 32 colour IFF files. If you think that you'll want to re-adjust your image at a later date, save the image as an RGB file. You may want to save the image twice: once as an RGB file and once as an IFF file for use in other programs. The RGB files are 24 bit plane images that can be easily processed by Digi-View 4.0 into any display mode. LOAD PALETTE: This menu item loads the palette associated with an image. As you will see later in the Controls menu, you can display your image in 32 colours or less. You can also Freeze Palette in the Palette menu, then digitize in 32 colours, and Digi-View 4.0 will construct the picture in the loaded palette. Load Palette is useful for digitizing images to be combined with pre-existing pictures. PRINT: If you want to print your Digi-View 4.0 screen image, use this menu item. You will need to unplug the Digi-View module from the Amiga's parallel port to plug in your printer. If you have 2 MEGS of RAM, you can print from the RGB buffer by selecting RGB on the print requester. CAUTION: Make sure that the power is OFF before unplugging the Digi-View module. In order to print from Digi-View 4.0, save your image to disk, quit Digi-View 4.0, and turn off your Amiga. Unplug your Digi-View module and plug in your printer cable. Turn on the printer and then turn on your Amiga. Load Digi-View 4.0 and call up the image you want to print, then activate the Print function. Make sure you've set your Preferences on the Workbench disk to the correct printer. Additional information on Preferences is in your Amiga User's Guide. A Serial/RS-232 switch box can also be used to allow you to easily switch from Digi-View to the printer. WORKBENCH: This allows you to open and close the WorkBench screen. Digi-View 4.0 closes the WorkBench screen, if possible, to free memory. If you want to run another program, such as Digi-Paint 3, select Open from the sub-menu. When you've done, the Close selection will free the memory again. Click the front/back gadgets on the right end of the drag bar to move the Digi-View 4.0 screen to the back bringing WorkBench to the front. Pressing the F10 key performs the same action. NOTE: Digi-View 4.0 won't close the WorkBench if there is a CLI window open. HISTOGRAMS: The vertical axis represents the number of pixels, and the horizontal represents brightness (left to right is darkest to lightest). Typically used with a video processor in conjunction with Digi-View 4.0 to adjust the signal. Properly used, the histogram can tell you if you have enough light in the picture; the graph should cover 70% or more of the baseline on the raw data side in a well-lit picture. The adjusted histogram shows what Digi-View 4.0 is doing to try to correct that particular colour. SCREEN SIZE: Selecting this item will allow you to change the screen size of Digi-View 4.0 without having to exit the program. You'll be shown the same option screen that you used when you started Digi-View 4.0. CAUTION: The picture will be lost when you select another size or attribute. Select Cancel, if you do not want to use this function. ABOUT: Selecting this item will display information about the revision of Digi-View 4.0 and additional programming information. QUIT: Select this menu item to exit Digi-View 4.0 to return to the Workbench. If you haven't saved the image on the screen, it will be lost when you Quit Digi-View 4.0. RED: Pulling down this menu item digitizes the red component of the video image. Make sure the red filter is in front of the camera lens before you activate this item. The keyboard equivalent is to press the right Amiga key (immediately right of the space bar) and the 'r' key simultaneously. GREEN: Pulling down this menu item digitizes the green component of the video image. Make sure the green filter is in front of the camera lens before you activate this item. The keyboard equivalent is to press the right Amiga key and the 'g' key simultaneously. BLUE: Pulling down this menu item digitizes the blue component of the video image. Make sure the blue filter is in front of the camera lens before you activate this item. The keyboard equivalent is to press the right Amiga key and the 'b' key simultaneously. AUTO: Selecting the 'Auto' menu option tells the Digi-Droid Automated Filter Wheel to digitize all three colours one after another without any further menu selections. The keyboard equivalent is to press the right Amiga key and the 'a' key simultaneously. For more information, see your Digi-Droid manual or contact your local dealer. NOTE: If you want to digitize an image in Black & White or Line Art mode use the clear or green filter and turn off the colour from the Digi- View 4.0 title screen. CONTROLS MENU CONTROL: Activating this menu item brings up the control panel. This may also be done from the keyboard by pressing the right Amiga key and the 'c' key simultaneously. The Mode portion of the control panel determines how the digitized picture will appear. When you first bring up the control panel, '4096' is highlighted. This means that when you digitize an image and hit the display button in this control panel, the image will appear using all 4096 colours of the Amiga's palette. This display mode is known as Hold-And-Modify (HAM). The digitized image can also be displayed in 64 colours (labelled HBrite, and named HalfBrite because the extra 32 are always half as bright as the first 32; see the Palette menu); black & white (labelled BW); 32 colours (or less, see the Palette menu); 4096+(also called Enhanced Hold- And-Modify); or in the new Dynamic HAM and Dynamic HiRes (labelled Dynamic), which uses NewTek's new dynamic palette control to display more colour detail. Because 4096 mode is faster, use it to get all of your control settings just the way you want them, then display the image in the much sharper 4096+ or Dynamic modes for the best possible results. If not enough memory is available, the Dynamic button will be ghosted and not selectable. There is also a special display mode called Line Art (labelled Line) which is used for capturing high-contrast black and white artwork without any immediate shades of grey. Brightness, Contrast, and Sharpness are the only controls that work in this mode with typical values being 10 to 20, -5 to 5, and 0 to 5 respectively. Line Art is particularly useful for desktop publishing, animation pencil tests or rotorscoping. Dithering is the process of mixing colours to produce a new apparent colour. There are 3 ways to dither in Digi-View 4.0: Dither 1 and 2, and sharpness. Just below the Mode panel is the Dither control. Setting the Dither to '1' or '2' will instruct Digi-View 4.0 to mix pixels of different colours to produce intermediate shades. Try viewing an image with Dither on, and then turn Dither off and hit Display again. The difference should be readily apparant. You can use Dither along with sharpness, with the best result being a combination of the two. Typical values for sharpness might be 3-5. The Dither control gives a pebbly texture, with Dither 1 being less extreme and more subtle, and Dither 2 being more obvious and better for 8 or less colours. Digi-View 4.0 keeps track of over 2 million colours internally, but the Amiga can only display 4096; dithering helps to fill in intermediate colours for more realistic images. Typical pictures will contain tens of thousands of subjective shades. The panel directly right of Dither control has two buttons, Pos and Neg. The Pos button creates a normal digitized image. Activating the Neg button and then choosing display will create a negative version of the image, inverting all of the colours. This option is useful for digitizing photo-negatives which can be turned back into positives. There are eight sliders on the panel that controls Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Red, Green, Blue, Sharpness and Noise Reduction. These sliders adjust your digitized image for a better picture or just for special effects. To move the sliders, move the pointer onto one of the sliders and hold down the left mouse button. Drag the slider to the position you want and release the button. You'll notice that the number at the bottom of the slider changes from -47 to 48 with the exception of the Noise Reduction slider which has a setting from 0 to 15. You can record these settings for future reference. The best way to learn to use the controls is to experiment with their effects on an image. BRIGHTNESS: Like its namesake on a television set, this control increases the overall illumination of the image. Moving the brightness control even a little has a marked effect on the image. CONTRAST: Again, this control is similar to the control on your television set. Raising the control makes whites white, blacks blacker, and colours more intense. Lowering it makes blacks and whites more grey and colours washed out. SATURATION: This works like the colour control on a television set. At minimum, the image is converted to black and white. At maximum, the colours are abnormally intense and cartoon-like. RED: When set high, this increase the amount of red in the image; when reduced, the amount of red is diminished. At minimum, there is no red in the picture; at maximum, the picture is entirely in shades of red. GREEN: When set high, this increases the amount of green in the image; when reduced, the amount of green is diminished. At minimum, there is no green in the picture; at maximum, the picture is entirely in shades of green. BLUE: When set high, this increases the amount of blue in the image; when reduced, the amount of blue is diminished. At minimum, there is no blue in the picture; at maximum, the picture is entirely in shades of blue. SHARPNESS: Raising this control will sharpen the image but increase the amount of 'grain' or 'snow'. Lowering the control will reduce graininess but will increase the amount of 'contouring' or 'banding'. NOISE REDUCTION: NewTek's advanced LBJ Noise Reduction will help counteract grain, snow and high frequency noise in your video signal. It can also be very effective in low light situations. The results will be most apparant after increasing the Sharpness control. Noise Reduction will allow raising the Sharpness to increase detail without increasing the background noise. With Digi-View 4.0 pictures with sharp edges and intricate detail can be extremely crisp and sharp. DEFAULT: Clicking on this button returns all the sliders to the neutral setting. PALETTE: This button will take you directly to the Palette box. CAMERA: By selecting this button, you jump to the Camera control box. OK: This removes the control panel, but does not re-display the picture at any new settings. DISPLAY: When you've adjusted the control panel to your liking, this control will display the picture with the new settings. PALETTE This menu activates the Palette control. The palette shows the best 32 colours for displaying the image out of the 4096 possible. If you want to have less than 32 colour image, move the slider in the box labelled 'Use 32 colours'. You'll see the number of colours change as you move the slider. You'll also see a U-shaped outline move on the coloured squares immediately above, showing the last colour in the range you've selected. Hit the Display button and exit the Palette control. If the Display control was set to 4096, 4096+ or Dynamic mode, call up the Display control and hit the 32 colour button (which, you'll note, has changed to reflect the new number of colours you're asking for). The image will now be displayed with the new number of colours. If you select HalfBrite from the colour control menu you'll see an additional 32 colour palette next to the original 32. These additional colours are exactly half as bright as the first 32 palette colours and can only be altered by changing one of the colours in the original 32 colour palette. For example: to change the colour in row 1, column 3 of palette 2, you must change the colour in row 1, column 3 of palette 1. HalfBrite mode always has exactly 64 colours and cannot be made to have any less by re- sizing the palette. NOTE TO AMIGA 1000 USERS: Not all Amiga 1000's are capable of displaying graphics in the Extra-halfBrite mode. If the colours in the second palette are exactly the same as those in the first, then you have an Amiga that is not capable of HalfBrite display. You can alter the individual colours in the palette to create interesting special effects. Point at the colour you want to change and press the left mouse button. The coloured square is now highlighted. If you move one of the Red, Green, or Blue sliders to the right, you'll see the colour change. When you've adjusted the colours to your liking, click on the Freeze Palette button, and hit Display. The image will be redisplayed using the palette of colours you've chosen. If you turn off the Dither control in the Controls, you can get some very interesting effects. Other buttons on the Palette box are to easily jump to the other menu selections. If you select Camera or Control, you will jump to the Camera or Control box respectively. By turning off Colour 0, you can force Digi-View 4.0 not to use that colour when processing the image. This can be helpful if you will be importing the images into programs that reserve colour 0 or genlock devices. CAMERA This menu controls the various camera settings. This menu has no effect after you've already digitized a picture; it's used to adjust the camera before digitizing. CAPTURE MODE: The three boxes at the top right of the Camera Control are the different scan times you can use with Digi-View 4.0: fast, normal and slow. Use the fast scan mode for a quick test scan of the subject. This is especially useful when you have a live subject that you think might fidget during a longer scan. The picture quality can be quite good with a short scan. The normal scan is useful for every-day digitizing, especially with a static subject. The best images are obtained with Slow/Colour Camera. If you're using a colour video camera, you should use this setting every time. Consumer colour video cameras have less resolution than black and white cameras. Use the slow scan mode so that Digi-View 4.0 can do its best job on the image. Even if you have a black and white camera we recommend using slow scan for important work. The slow scan takes four video samples of each pixel and averages them in order to eliminate random noise and capture a better image. SIZE: The Full, Half, and 1/4 buttons directly below the scan time buttons give you the options of creating your image in different sizes. The Full button is the normal picture size; the Half button gives you an image with half the dimensions of the normal image; and the 1/4 button gives you an image with one-fourth the dimensions of the normal image. If you already have an image on the screen from a previous digitizing effort, use the New command in the Project menu to clear the screen before creating a smaller than normal size picture. TRACKING: This control, at the upper left of the Camera Control, is used to synchronize the camera signal with Digi-View 4.0. If you get a vertical stripe of 'jaggies' approximately 1 inch wide on your screen, use the Tracking slider to eliminate it. Adjust the slider until the stripe has moved off the screen. WIDTH: This slider adjusts the width of the picture that results when you digitize. This is useful for slight adjustments to get a picture to fit a certain size. Large movements of this control will give you interesting special effects. POSITION: This will select the overall position of the camera viewport. PALETTE: By selecting this button, you will jump to the Palette box. CONTROL: This button is the same as selecting this from the menu. OK: When you've set the Camera Controls the way you like, click on the OK button to return to Digi-View 4.0. MOTOR CAL: This menu item brings up the display for calibrating Digi-Droid Automated Filter Wheel motor as detailed in Digi-Droid's instruction sheet. DIGIPAINT: This links your Digi-View to the best-selling Digi-Paint 3 program. Select this after processing the image and it will be transferred directly onto Digi-Paint's canvas for retouching, compositing or other modifications. HiRes images will be transferred into a Digi-Paint 3 HAM super-bitmap. This allows capturing and modifying a HiRes overscan 4096 colour image for the first time ever on the Amiga. Digi-Paint 3 includes several extremely powerful tools for working on digitized images such as transparency, anti-aliased texture mapping and soft-edge rubthru. For more information, please see Appendix H. APPENDIX A: OPTIONAL EQUIPMENT NewTek sells several products that make digitizing with Digi-View easier and more professional. For more information about these products and Newtek Demo Reels, NewTek Times and 'Cool Friends of NewTek Club' write to us at: 115 W. Crane Street; Topeka, KS; 66603 or for orders only call (800)843-8934, 9-6 central time Monday thru Friday. PANASONIC WV-1410 CAMERA: This camera features very high resolution (more than 550 lines), a durable vidicon tube which resists burn-in, and a mechanical focus adjustment for a full range of macro focusing. Convenient mounting holes for the filter wheel bracket and our CS-1L copy stand makes this camera the most complete solution for digitizing needs. Lens and all necessary cables included. $279.95 CS-1L COPY STAND: The best way to mount your camera for digitizing flat subjects (like photographs). Our CS-1L copy stand gives you 2 fully adjustable lights holders and vertical mount with adjustable brackets for your camera. Set-up is easy and adjustments are a snap. $74.95 DIGI-DROID: Automate your Digi-View system with Digi-Droid. This special computer controlled motor and filter wheel combination automatically drives your filter wheel while you capture the red, green and blue images. $79.95 DIGI-PAINT 3: The best selling Amiga paint program. Digi-Paint 3 takes full advantage of the Amiga's HAM (Hold-And-Modify) mode giving you more advanced features than any other, incuding: Anti-aliased texture mapping, variable transparancy, anti-aliased fonts, ARexx support and Super Bitmaps with AutoScrolling. AMIGA WORLD says,'Competitors may want to head back to the drawing board, because Digi-Paint 3 is hard to beat!'. $99.95 One way to monitor the live video from your camera for easy focusing is with the Radio Shack (#15-1103) 1X3 Baseband Distribution Amp and the Amiga monitor. Plug the video camera into the video output jack on the amp and plug the monitor and the Digi-View into one video output jack each. Then simply switch the monitor between composite (to view the live video) and RGB (to see the digitized image). APPENDIX B: INSTALLING DIGI-VIEW 4.0 ON A HARD DRIVE Installing Digi-View 4.0 on your hard disk drive can be done in one of two ways: 1. From the Workbench screen open the Digi-View 4.0 disk icon and drag the icons from the Digi-View 4.0 window into any empty drawer in your hard disk. OR 2. From CLI copy the files from the Digi-View 4.0 disk to any empty drawer in the hard drive. APPENDIX C: CUSTOMER SERVICE You've just become one of the most important people in the world, a NewTek customer. Our technical support staff is on hand to answer your questions and assist you in any way possible. You may write or call us on our toll free help line. When you write please include your daytime phone number and the best hours to reach you. If appropriate please send an image or a printout to illustrate your problem. When calling it's helpful if you're at your Amiga with Digi-View running. Our technician will try to duplicate the problem and give you an answer on the spot. We'd like to hear from you even if you don't have any questions. Send us examples of your work and let us know how you're using Digi-View. We have dozens of Digi-View success stories posted in our office building. We look forward to hearing from you. NewTek Digi-View Tech Support 215 E. Eigth Street Topeka KS 66603 (800) 736-7617 Monday-Friday 8 a.m. - 7 p.m. Central Time APPENDIX D: DYNA-SHOW The Dyna-Show information is provided on disk in the DS_README file. Dyna-Show will display IFF and NewTek's new Dynamic modes. APPENDIX E: AN EXPLANATION OF HAM MODE The Hold And Modify (HAM) display mode on the Amiga uses six bit planes to display images. This means that each pixel (PICture ELement - one dot on the screen) uses 6 bits to determine its colour. If the first 2 bits are '00', the remaining 4 bits (given a value of 0 to 15 in binary) are used to look up the pixel's colour in the colour table. This gives you 16 values from the possible 4096 colours available, which Digi-View 4.0 uses to choose the best 16 colours in the Colour Palette to reduce the amount of 'fringing'. Each colour has 4 bits worth of red, green, and blue information; thus, each colour has a Red value from 0 to 15, a Green value from 0 to 15, and a Blue value from 0 to 15. This is Enhanced HAM or 4096+ mode. If the first two bits of a given pixel are 01, the pixel has the same colour as the pixel to its immediate left, except that the last four bits can be used to replace the red value of that pixel. If the first two bits are '10', the last four bits replace the green value, and if the first two bits are '11', the last four bits replace the blue value. The effect of all this is that you can display all 4096 colours on the screen at once, though you can't go from black (red 0, green 0, blue 0) to white (red 15, green 15, blue 15) in one pixel; it takes three pixels to make that transition, since you can only modify one of the RGB values for each pixel. The transition would take four pixels on the screen. The first pixel is RGB 0-0-0 (black); the second pixel is RGB 15-0-0; the third pixel is 15-15-0; the fourth pixel is 15-15-15 (white). APPENDIX F: DYNAMIC MODES Digi-View has always been known for it's exceptional image processing capabilities. By using the previously mentioned techniques, Digi-View has created the highest quality 4,096 colour HAM images on the Amiga. NewTek's new Dynamic HAM eliminates most if not all of the HAM side effects mentioned above. By taking the Enhanced HAM mode (4096+) one step further, we can make an even sharper picture without the typical HAM fringe effect. Dynamic HAM also uses the 16 colour palette, but changes it on each line, as opposed to the use of the same palette for the whole screen (as in 4096+). Dynamic HiRes brings new colour depth to the Amiga's HiRes mode. Sharp, crisp detail never seen before on an Amiga is now possible. By combining the HiRes mode with the Dynamic display technology, we change the 16 colour palette on each scan line to provide up to 4,096 colours on a HiRes screen, including Overscan mode. Due to the way Dynamic display technology works, the most startling results will be obtained with images that have more vertical colour range. Digi-View 4.0 uses all the Amiga's power to maintain a Dynamic Mode and therefore the image cannot be held stable when the mouse is moved or menus are pulled down. While NewTek fully supports and strongly believes in the multitasking philosophy of the Amiga, Digi-View 4.0 must take complete control of your Amiga's 68000 processor and other co-processors for Dynamic displays. While in Dynamic mode Digi-View 4.0 shuts down all other tasks to gain the horsepower required. As soon as Dynamic Mode is exited all other tasks will resume undisturbed. We hope our customers will understand that when pushing the Amiga to the very edge some rules will be broken. APPENDIX G: The heart of the Digi-View module is a precision analog to digital converter. Instead of the high speed 4-bit flash converters found in many video digitizers, Digi-View uses a more accurate successive-approximation type converter along with a low-noise sample-and-hold amplifiers. The result is an extremely faithful conversion of the original analog video signal into an array of 7 bit samples. All 7 bits are stored in RAM throughout the manipulation process. In colour, each pixel is 7 bits per primary colour, or 21 bits, for over 2 million shades. This extra accuracy is necessary for processing the image for display, for example to enhance contrast, sharpness or colour. This information is available for use outside the Digi-View software via the RGBIFF or IP files. RGBIFF files are similar to standard IFF ILBM files. An extra chunk, called DGVW, contains the control panel settings at the time the image was saved. Note that the settings have NO EFFECT on the data stored in the body of the file. These numbers are always the exact samples as recieved from the digitizer. If you examine the file header, you will notice that the image depth is specified as 24 planes. All 24 planes of each scan line are stored together before proceeding to the next lower line. The order of the planes is as follows; Red 0 to Red 7, Green 0 to Green 7, Blue 0 to Blue 7, then the next line. Standard ByteRunl run encoding is used to compress the RGBIFF files. See 'EA IFF 85 Standard for Interchange Format Files' available from Commodore-Amiga. IP files use a simplified file structure for those who want to manipulate the picture data without the overhead of decompressing and converting bitplane to byte-per-pixel format. To save an image in the IP format, press function keys F1 or F2. F1 saves only the red array, for monochrome. F2 saves all three arrays in the following order: Red, Green, Blue. Format is byte-per-pixel starting with the upper left corner and going to the right. In the case of 320x200 images, the first 320 bytes in the file represent the Red component of the top line of the image. The second 320 bytes represent the Red component of the second line of the image. The first 64,000 bytes contain the entire Red array. Byte 64,001 would be the Green component of the upper left pixel, and so on. Note: the LSB of each byte is zero. IP files can get rather large. A 640x400 IP file requires 768k or almost one entire disk. HiRes overscan files can be too large to even fit on one disk! APPENDIX H: DIGI-PORT TO DIGI-PAINT 3 By combining the powerful features of Digi-View 4.0 with the best- selling Digi-Paint 3, we have created a package that will allow you, for the first time ever on an Amiga, to digitize and manipulate 4,096 colour HiRes super-bit mapped images. The Digi-Paint 3 package can be accessed in one of two ways depending on the memory available. If you are working with a machine with less than 3 megabytes of RAM (or less than 1 meg Chip RAM), you can quit Digi-View 4.0, load Digi-Paint 3, and then work with the image. For users who been looking for something to fully take advantage of the multitasking nature of the Amiga with image manipulation, we introduce the Digi-Port. By selecting the Digi-Paint menu selection (under Controls), Digi-View 4.0 will check to see if Digi-Paint 3 is loaded, and if so, will output the image into the Digi-Paint 3 screen to be manipulated. It is recommended that you start Digi-View 4.0, then open the Workbench (if not already open) and start Digi-Paint 3. Set Digi-Paint 3 to accept super-bit map size. Return to Digi-View 4.0 and you are set to port the images. This will save you from having to save and load images over and over again. If you are controlling Digi-View 4.0 from ARexx, you can tell Digi- View 4.0 to use the Digi-Port via the PANT command. Adding the power of Digi-View 4.0, Digi-Paint 3 and ARexx can provide unlimited uses of the Amiga. APPENDIX I: AREXX SUPPORT ARexx is an inter-process communication protocol. It allows complete control of an ARexx compatible application through another program or with a user written program. NewTek fully supports our users access to the Digi-View technology and has included ARexx support in the release of Digi-View 4.0 to allow unattended or remote operation. We expect many vertical market applications to use this feature in exciting ways from medical imaging to telecommunications. The ARexx port name is 'Digi-View'. ARexx commands in Digi-View 4.0: PRNT Print Picture PRNT 1 Prints Picture from RGB buffer SIFF (name) Saves an IFF file SRGB (name) Saves a 24-bit RGB file LIFF (name) Loads a IFF file PANT Sends image to Digi-Paint 3 CLRS Clear screen and RGB buffers QUIT Quit Digi-View 4.0 LDPA (name) Load Palette DISP Display picture AUTO Auto-digitize mode DIGR Digitize Red DIGB Digitize Blue DIGG Digitize Green DTH0 Dither off DTH1 Dither mode 1 on DTH2 Dither mode 2 on MLIN Selects Line Drawing mode MBAW Selects Black and White mode MCOL Selects Normal Colour mode MHAM Selects 4096 colour mode MHAP Selects 4096+ colour mode MDYN Selects Dynamic mode SARP (value) Sets Sharpness value (-47 to 48) CONT (value) Sets Contrast (-47 to 48) BRIT (value) Sets Brightness (-47 to 48) SATT (value) Sets Saturation (-47 to 48) NOIS (value) Sets Noise Reduction (0 to 15) CRED (value) Sets Red value (-47 to 48) CBLU (value) Sets Blue value (-47 to 48) CGRN (value) Sets Green value (-47 to 48) FREZ Freeze palette NPAL (value) Sets number of colours for the palette to use (2 to 32) APPENDIX J: DIGI-VIEW 4.0 SPECIFICATIONS SCREEN RESOLUTION: NTSC +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | NUMBER OF COLOURS SCREEN RESOLUTION IN PIXELS | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | 2-32, 64, 4096, Dynamic HAM (320 or 352 or 384)x(200 or 240) | | (320 or 352 or 384)x(400 or 480) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | 2-16 (640 or 704 or 768)x(200 or 240) | | (640 or 704 or 768)x(400 or 480) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Dynamic HiRes (640 or 704)x(200 or 240) | | (640 or 704)x(400 or 480) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ PAL: +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | NUMBER OF COLOURS SCREEN RESOLUTION IN PIXELS | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | 2-32, 64. 4096, Dynamic HAM (320 or 352 or 384)x(256 or 296) | | (320 or 352 or 384)x(512 or 592) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | 2-16 (640 or 704 or 768)x(256 or 296) | | (640 or 704 or 768)x(512 or 592) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Dynamic HiRes (640 or 704)x(256 or 296) | | (640 or 704)x(512 or 592) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ NOTE ON MEMORY REQUIREMENTS: Hi-Res, overscan and/or Interlace and Dynamic modes require up to 2 megabytes of memory. Exporting super- bitmaps to Digi-Paint 3 may require up to 3 megabytes of memory. DIGITIZING: 21 bits per pixel (2.1 million colours) resolution FILE FORMAT: Read and write NewTek IP files Read and write IFF files Read and write 24-bit RGBIFF files IMAGE PROCESSING USED IN DIGI-VIEW 4.0: Enhanced HAM Mode (high quality 4,096 colour HAM images) Dynamic HAM (fringe elimination extra-sharp HAM images) Dynamic Hi-Res (high resolution overscan 4,096 colour images) Control red, green, blue, contrast, brightness, saturation, and sharpness Infinitely Adjustable Hi-Pass and Low-Pass Spatial Filtering (Convolution) Automatic Histogram Slide and Stretch Advanced LBJ Noise Reduction Automatic Colour Temperature Compensation Adaptive Palette Selection Edge-detection Convert images between resolutions Interstitial Line and Pixel Synthesis and/or Pixel and Line Averaging Digitize to specific palette Dither control Positive or negative images Control numbers of colours in image APPENDIX K: KEYBOARD EQUIVALENT TABLE KEY ACTION MENU Amiga + N New Project Amiga + L Load Project Amiga + S Save Project Amiga + X Save RGB Project Amiga + O Print Project Amiga + Q Quit Project Amiga + R Red Digitize Amiga + G Green Digitize Amiga + B Blue Digitize Amiga + A Auto Digitize Amiga + C Control Controls Amiga + P Palette Controls Amiga + H Camera Controls Amiga + D Display Controls Amiga + T Digi-Paint 3 Export Controls F1 Save IP file (RED/Monochrome) F2 Save IP file (RGB) F10 Show Workbench SMART-VIEW FILE REQUESTER: [F1] List Files [F2] Volumes [F3] Prior Dir [F4] Devices [F5] OK [F6] Cancel For all the letters that have Amiga preceding them, press the right Amiga key, and while holding it down, press the letter key following it. End.