Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!jonabbey From: jonabbey@cs.utexas.edu (Jonathan David Abbey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Intuition Image structure rendering utilities Keywords: rendered intuition image PostScript IFF Message-ID: <270@atacama.cs.utexas.edu> Date: 26 Mar 91 19:22:02 GMT References: <1214@muleshoe.cs.utexas.edu> <768@tnc.UUCP> <1991Mar26.154335.16403@fwi.uva.nl> Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas Lines: 115 robbel@fwi.uva.nl (Robert Belleman) writes: >[...] > >I have this strange feeling in the stomach, guys ... I think this scheme >is a VERY BAD IDEA ... read on ... > > >I have a couple of observations: > > > >How about generalising it to a conversions utility. One of the good > >features of the Mac is that it has such a thing built into its > >clipboard; you can clip something out of one program, and paste it > >into another, usually without worring about it. > >And do you know _why_ you don't have to worry about it ?? Because Apple >designed QuickDraw; a Picture Definition format that covers just about >everything that anyone would ever like to do with graphics. Most Mac- >program only supports ONE renderer : QuickDraw. Yes. And look at the hassles you get when dealing with PostScript or TIFF files. The strength of this idea is that any format imaginable could be used in any progam, provided that it makes sense for such an image to be rasterized in the first place. >>If implemented as an independent task (perhaps with a support >>library), the conversions module could be made even more flexable. >>Properly implemented, the conversions facility would be able to >>support most (or all?) of the current amiga standards (including >>internal formats, like the Intuituion Image), and be extensible, so >>that by adding some modules to a drawer somewere, the user could >>install support for tomorrows formats as well. > >Just think about this; for every ~new~ format that comes into existence >a new conversion utility has to be written to convert into ANY other format >that exists to that date !! How long do you think software developers can >keep that up ??! It shouldn't be necessary to write more than one rasterizer/renderer. If you can convert your graphic into an intuition image, it should be possible to, if desired, make a converter to take it from an intuition image to any bitmapped format. So if you have a new format, you'd have one to take it to an intuition image, and one to take it from an intuition image. And if this conversion can be done at a program's behest, during execution, then wonderful things become possible. I am not myself in favor of overextending the concept to mandate direct conversion routines from any two standard formats. I liked Lou Cavallo's (I hope I am correct as to attribution here) proposal for its simplicity, even as much as its power. I'd personally like to see it also support whichever gfxbase structure is required to allow for the renderer to support the Amiga printer drivers, but that I suspect that one could go from an Intuition image to a bitmap quite easily. (I don't recall, but I suspect that the printer drivers take a bitmap, and that the Intuition image structure has a pointer to a bitmap.) >>Sorry for the long post, but this is a good Idea, and we need to get >>working on implementing this thing. The Amiga has been without it for >>far too long. > >I agree on that last point; I think the Amiga needs something that the Mac >has had from the beginning. I believe it's a better idea to work on a Amiga >version of the QuickDraw library and MAYBE design converters to THIS format. >Who knows; the format you come up with might even be so good that it will be >an Amiga standard ... > >If you like, look at it as a intermediate graphic format, I don't care ... The real power of Lou's idea is that any program could support any graphics format in a very straightforward manner. An Amiga version of object oriented QuickDraw would have great advantages where you don't want to go about rasterizing your image at the Amiga level, and would prefer to send it out for PostScript. This would be a much more extensive piece of work to perform, however, and is something that could be put into place if such a program-independent rendering scheme was in place. My preferences, as I mentioned before and above, would be for their to be a class of rendering devices which could be mounted as graphics engines for printing, but which also have non-standard i/o functions for providing bitmap/intuition image rendering for programs. Preferences could be set to control whether sending a GIF file to the gif: device would open up a custom screen and show the image, or whether it would go to the default printer. Things that come to me off the top of my head for parameters for such a thing would include color depth, desired image quality (approximate rendering time/quality weighting -- draft, better, best? 8-), image size, predefined palette/number of palette colors available for allocation, aspect ration, dot pitch, source of image (file, clipboard, pointer to in-memory image). In addition, I suspect it would prove prudent to allow a mechanism for additional information for such things as view point, etc. if heavy duty rendering support is to be added to this. Something like an extended IOStdReq structure or something. Of course, this would go over wonderfully with AREXX, as you could have your program AREXX over to a screen grabber or a Video Toaster, or a digitizer or what have you, which would then create a file or save a clip, which your program could then have rendered. I'll have to go home and look up the printer device in my RKM's, as well as intuition image structure, etc. to get a bit more familiar with some of these details. >-- >Robert Belleman, University of Amsterdam. >(robbel@fwi.uva.nl) -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jonathan David Abbey \"Take your place on the great Mandela" P,P&M the university of texas at austin \ jonabbey@cs.utexas.edu "Love me, love computer science/math?/psychology? \ (512) 472-2052 my Amiga" -Me