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From: johnmac@fawlty.towers.oz (John MacLean)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: 3200 pics
Message-ID: <431@fawlty.towers.oz>
Date: 2 Aug 90 23:02:37 GMT
Reply-To: johnmac@fawlty.ips.oz (John MacLean)
Organization: Tower Technology, Lane Cove, NSW, Australia
Lines: 45

In article <26b4a100-582.3comp.sys.apple2-1@vpnet.chi.il.us> vortex@vpnet.chi.il.us (Jason J. Levit) writes:
>
>  If we've got this wonderful ability to create 3200 color pictures,
>  shouldn't someone write a paint program to paint them?  I don't think
>  it would be all that hard to do.

Apparently Dream Graphics is just that - but I'm yet to see anything but a
title page.
And you are wrong - it is very hard to do - just to display a 3200 color
picture you need almost all the CPU cycles.

>  Also, how did people *get* those 3200 color pics?  Is there a special
>  type of conversion program?  Is there a way to write one easily?

Apparently there are a couple of conversion programs already.
The Frech IFF (Amiga standard file format) converter for one.
I have now written a 3200 toolset for The Graphic Exchange - 
I just finished coding last night.
It can load and save Brooks format, French format, and Brain format images.

>  I hope you finish your UnGiffer for the GS, and include 3200 color
>  capabilites in it.  The pictures would come up 1,000 times better
>  than they come out now, and they already come out wonderfully.

I should be able to display GIFs in 3200 colors now - I havn't actually tried
it - I've been too busy with the 3200 load and save routines.
The thing about GIF is that you are limited to 256 colors, so 3200 colors is
not that great an advantage.
Once you are using all 16 palettes (and you are doing some good quantizing)
you are already using UP TO 256 colors.
In practice 256 color pictures tend to quantize down to less than 100 colors
(at least with the algorithm I am using anyway).
You do get a slight advantage; GIFs in 3200 colors have a seperate palette
for *EVERY* scanline.
Once I have done some tests I'll post some results - should be this weekend.

>Jason J. Levit - KB9BUU | A good planet is hard to find.  Let's save this one!
>vortex@vpnet.chi.il.us  |                  Apple II Forever

John MacLean.
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