Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!swatsun!gessel From: gessel@cs.swarthmore.edu (Daniel Mark Gessel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: color NeXTstation (and Weight of Monitor!) Keywords: color NeXTstation 16 bit Message-ID: Date: 24 Sep 90 14:59:22 GMT References: <34@brazos.cs.utexas.edu> <5582@mace.cc.purdue.edu> <1990Sep24.053046.5143@wrl.dec.com> Distribution: na Organization: Swarthmore College, PA, USA Lines: 36 In <1990Sep24.053046.5143@wrl.dec.com> kent@decwrl.dec.com (Christopher A. Kent) writes: >With Display PostSCript, you don't deal with lookup tables any more. >You pick from a fixed pallete -- the RGB (or CMYK) color space, and >the interpreter renders your chosen color as closely as the hardware >can do so. On a 16-bit NeXT, you get 4096 distinct colors in the >destination color space. On a 32-bit, you get 2^24. >Chris Kent Western Software Laboratory Digital Equipment Corporation >kent@decwrl.dec.com decwrl!kent (415) 853-6639 And remember, postscript does some pretty nice dithering. Whenever you ask for a color on the 16 bit NeXT that isn't exactly an available color, it should dither for you, like on the ancient two bit cubes (although I haven't seen this, it'd be a shame if it wasn't true.) I would suspect that the 24 bit's o'color (+ 8 alpha) there's no dithering, since I think it's a rare few who can tell the difference between rgb = 100,20,150 and rgb = 101,20,150. If all this is true, if you squint, have bad eyesight, or stand 10-15 feet from the monitor, you probably can't tell the difference between the two, since the pixels are so nice and small. Somebody who's seen all this care to comment? BTW, anybody know about implementing a z-buffer on the NeXTdimension, since the i860 can do this at a blinding speed? It'd make the color cube a competitor with loaded IBM R6000, or personal Iris, (although I haven't heard about them for a while), both of which are, I think, significantly more expensive. Dan -- Internet: gessel@cs.swarthmore.edu UUCP: {bpa,cbmvax}!swatsun!gessel