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From: jon@msunix.UUCP (Jonathan Hue)
Newsgroups: net.graphics
Subject: Re: Funding/Sponsors need for graphics project
Message-ID: <266@msunix.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Sep-86 03:20:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: msunix.266
Posted: Mon Sep 15 03:20:17 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Sep-86 01:45:55 EDT
References: <136@ndmath.uucp> <265@msunix.UUCP> <14918@onfcanim.UUCP>
Organization: Via Visuals Inc.
Lines: 61
Summary: other equipment and musings...

To further expand on Dave's well-made points...
In article <14918@onfcanim.UUCP>, dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale) writes:
> 
> If you want to do input at video resolution, you just need a good
> video camera and a frame grabber.  But to work at 2048 or 4096 pixels,
> about the only thing available is an Eikonix scanner that will cost you
> at least $30K.

Someone is selling a video camera that does 2600 x 2048 for about
$30K also, if you need a camera instead of a scanner.  I can't
recall the company's name.  I was under the impression the Eikonix
scanner was much more expensive.  For that price, people wouldn't
mind taking a picture of the image they want to scan in, then scan
the film on the scanner.

Jim Dunn of Dunn Instruments in San Rafael, CA builds an 8K x 8K
film recorder also.  I have seen some 8 x 10 transparencies from it, and 
to my untrained eye, it looked pretty good.  From talking to Jim
Dunn, it sounds like this film recorder is a real screamer.  His literature
mentions a "proprietary bicubic interpolation scheme" for interpolating
any size input up to the full 8K x 8K resolution of the tube.

> To get the resolution that you need for doing publishing-type work, and
> writing onto the large pieces of film used to make printing plates,
> none of the above-mentioned hardware is good enough.  The Scitex system
> uses a large rotating-drum laser scanner for its output device, and I
> believe uses another similar mechanism for input.  Regardless of what
> computer hardware is used in the Scitex system, those scanners are
> going to be a large chunk of the cost.

Scitex doesn't build a scanner, so most color separation houses seem
to be using Hell scanners from West Germany.  The Hell scanners I've
seen sort of look like lathes, you put the film in the transparent
plastic cylinder and it spins.  I'm pretty sure Crosfield builds scanners
also.  Scitex looks like they're based on HP1000s (A-[69]00s ?).

I would guess that the low-end slide making market will be taken over
by PC-ATs with TARGA boards, if it hasn't already.  Next year's NCGA
should tell us if this is happening.  If you're going to compete
at the high end, you've got to have a hook to position yourself above
the PCs, something to distinguish yourself from the low-end.  Being able
to do friskets (masks) with any object, hardware cylinder wrap (for people
designing soda cans), and transparency are a few of the things that seem
to distinguish the high-end from the low-end currently.

TV resolution slides with *good* anti-aliasing may look as good as 2K x 2K
with standard anti-aliasing, but 1) 656 x 486 doesn't look good in your
company's brochures, 2) if your output device doesn't interpolate,
you've got to output in some fixed size, usually 2K, 4K, or 8K.  Unrelated
to the discussion of the quality of a TV resolution slide is the amount of
resolution required by the graphic artist.  Often, the sale of a system
comes down to the artist staring through a loupe at a few slides on
a light table, intensely examining each one.  I don't know of any other
field that has an output resolution as high as that required by artists.


"If we did it like everyone else,	  Jonathan Hue
what would distinguish us from		  Via Visuals Inc.
every other company in Silicon Valley?"	  sun!sunncal\
						      >!leadsv!msunix!jon
"A profit?"				amdcad!cae780/