Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!gatech!prism!loligo!pepke
From: pepke@loligo.cc.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: PD Ray Tracers for Mac
Message-ID: <674@loligo.cc.fsu.edu>
Date: 4 May 89 14:20:55 GMT
References: <4YHragy00W0-MAilU2@andrew.cmu.edu> <12625@reed.UUCP>
Reply-To: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Organization: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Lines: 23

I am working on an implementation of Paul Heckbert's median cut algorithm
for displaying RGB files using any number of colors in a color lookup 
table.  This algorithm does a pretty good job of choosing good colors
to represent an image, even when only a small number of colors are
available.  I ported it to the Mac yesterday, and it can now convert MTV
raytracer files to NCSA Image files (as an MPW tool).  In a few days I
should have a Mac user interface version with on-screen displays and variable
number of colors, and later I may add tweakable partitioning criteria, 
editable visual response curves, locally optimizing perturbations, etc.  I 
will try to get a Mac Tutor article out of the source, but I will try to 
make the binaries available anyway.

If you want to see the program be able to support other kinds of input 
and output files, send me their specifications, including file type and
creator and preferred suffix (such as MTV's .pic).

Eric Pepke                                     ARPA:   pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute  MFENET: pepke@fsu
Florida State University                       SPAN:   pepke@scri
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052                     BITNET: pepke@fsu

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