Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Another problem of high resolution and lots of colors
Message-ID: <12643@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 13 Jun 90 17:44:48 GMT
References: <04778.AA04778@sosaria.imp.com>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 30

In article <04778.AA04778@sosaria.imp.com> wizard@sosaria.imp.com (Chris Brand) writes:

>Hear this: I rendered a complex SA4D scene with 1280 x 1024 pixel and 24
>bit color. First of all it took my 2620-equipped machine 30 hours to render
>one picture. Then the raw data used nearly 4 megs. Even after converting it
>to a (naturally compressed) IFF file, it still took 2.3 megs. How does this
>work on systems who use such high resolution with lots of colors? Is it
>simply done with big, big storage devices or do they have better
>compression algorithms that can shrink these incredible numbers? Imagine a
>100 frame animation with such data!

Most non-Amiga (eg, expensive) Animation systems don't attempt to run their
animations in real-time to the system display.  Instead, they work in 
conjunction with hard disks and/or single frame video recorders.  The real
high-end stuff, of course, would record on film rather than video equipment,
and chances are, most of the images aren't stored on disk once they're
recorded.  Probably dumped to tape or discarded.

Good software compression schemes don't lend themselves to real-time video
on most computer systems.  Some new hardware based devices and/or fast DSP
chips with good algorithms can manage 10-100 times compression of 24 bit
images with good decompression times.  But they don't come cheap.

>Chris Brand - wizard@sosaria.imp.com


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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	"I have been given the freedom to do as I see fit" -REM