Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!teri.bio.uci.edu!mwu From: mwu@teri.bio.uci.edu (Matt Wu) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: EPS Message-ID: <276EE0A6.5907@orion.oac.uci.edu> Date: 19 Dec 90 03:38:14 GMT References: Reply-To: Matt Wu Organization: University of California, Irvine Lines: 54 Nntp-Posting-Host: teri.bio.uci.edu In article aberno@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Anthony Berno) writes: > Well, suppose you wrote a program that simulated an EPS file > printing out, but didn't send the results to the printer. > Instead, it intercepted them, and converted the print calls > into things like polygons or letters or bezier curves in some > common, sensible format. I suppose it's possible ... however, I think the result would be an application similar to Adobe Streamline, albeit one that creates images with greater fidelity. Since it is difficult to tell (without guessing) what lines you want grouped together (like eyes, nose, mouth as part of a face), the files that such a program would generate would probably not be as easily editable as you might want. This would not be an ideal solution, but it'd certainly be better than starting all over again. The easiest way to go about this would be to go through and try to figure out what all the full paths are and make them groups. Unfortunately, if an application you use produces highly inefficient or convoluted input (drawing colorless lines instead of starting a new rectangle) you might end up with kind of weird paths. Also, programs that are computation intensive (like doing lots of calculations to find out the placement of objects, especially text) could cause highly undesirable results. For example, the characters of a sentence that fits a curved line might appear as individual objects. I don't know. It sounds kind of inefficient. Does anybody know why the industry standard for page description is a computer language (based on Forth of all things to choose from)? I still think it would be much easier to represent everything as objects, especially where interchange is concerned. From my experience with postscript files, the language aspects just get in the way; I think it'd be much easier to describe a rectangle fifty times than it would be to have a loop that drew the same rectantle fifty times, especially if, in my draw program, I decide to move a few of them around, delete a few of them or transform a few of them. Anyway, compress it and the space efficiency might be similar. Fortunately (for me), though, the only stuff I tend to reuse is in Illustrator format, which should not be a problem when Illustrator for the NeXT comes out. Matt Wu mwu@teri.bio.uci.edu