Newsgroups: alt.graphics.pixutils,alt.answers Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.kei.com!news.oc.com!news.unt.edu!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!jef From: jef@netcom.com (Jef Poskanzer) Subject: (28feb93) Welcome to alt.graphics.pixutils - automated posting. Message-ID: Followup-To: poster Reply-To: Jef Poskanzer Organization: Paratheo-Anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 16:04:17 GMT Approved: jef@netcom.com Expires: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 16:04:17 GMT Lines: 178 Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu alt.graphics.pixutils:3077 alt.answers:1987 Archive-name: pixutils-faq This message is automatically posted once a month to inform new readers and remind old readers of what alt.graphics.pixutils is about. It was last changed on 28feb93. If you don't want to see this posting every month, please add the subject line to your kill file. Thank you. --- Jef Jef Poskanzer jef@netcom.com jef@well.sf.ca.us "...Is this a trick question?" - - - - - - - - - - This newsgroup is for discussion of pixmap utilities. A pixmap is any image composed of pixels, whether it's a one-bit-deep bitmap, a grayscale image, colormapped, or full color. There are dozens of different file formats for storing pixmaps, and there are a number of software packages for converting between formats and displaying formats. Some of these packages are listed in the Frequently Asked Questions posting in comp.graphics - the relevant excerpts are appended below. Discussion of these packages and other similar ones will probably be the main topic here. Posting uuencoded sample pixmaps for some weird format you're trying to decipher is fine, especially if they are small, but mass posting of pixmaps is not welcome. - - - - - - - - - - [from the comp.graphics weekly posting] 7) Free image manipulation software. There are a number of toolkits for converting from one image format to another, doing simple image manipulations such as size scaling, plus the above-mentioned 24 -> 8, color -> gray, gray -> b&w conversions. Here are pointers to some of them: PBMPLUS, by Jef Poskanzer. Comprehensive format conversion and image manipulation package. The latest version is always available via anonymous FTP as ftp.ee.lbl.gov:pbmplus*.tar.Z, wuarchive.wustl.edu:graphics/graphics/packages/pbmplus/pbmplus*.tar.Z, and export.lcs.mit.edu:contrib/pbmplus*.tar.Z. IM Raster Toolkit, by Alan Paeth (awpaeth@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca). Provides a portable and efficient format and related toolkit. The format is versatile in supporting pixels of arbitrary channels, components, and bit precisions while allowing compression and machine byte-order independence. The kit contains more than 50 tools with extensive support of image manipulation, digital halftoning and format conversion. Previously distributed on tape c/o the University of Waterloo, an FTP version will appear someday. Utah RLE Toolkit. Conversion and manipulation package, similar to PBMPLUS. Available via FTP as cs.utah.edu:pub/urt-*, weedeater.math.yale.edu:pub/urt-*, and freebie.engin.umich.edu:pub/urt-*. Fuzzy Pixmap Manipulation, by Michael Mauldin . Conversion and manipulation package, similar to PBMPLUS. Version 1.0 available via FTP as nl.cs.cmu.edu:/usr/mlm/ftp/fbm.tar.Z, ftp.uu.net:pub/fbm.tar.Z, and ucsd.edu:graphics/fbm.tar.Z. Img Software Set, by Paul Raveling . Reads and writes its own image format, displays on an X11 screen, and does some image manipulations. Version 1.3 is available via FTP as export.lcs.mit.edu:contrib/img_1.3.tar.Z, and venera.isi.edu:pub/img_1.3.tar.Z along with a large collection of color images. Xim, The X Image Manipulator, by Philip Thompson, does essential interactive displaying, editing, filtering, converting images. Available in the X11R4 source tree. A more recent version is available via ftp from gis.mit.edu. Requires X11R4 and the OSF/Motif1.1 toolkit for the interface. This is not a paint package. Xim reads/writes gif, xwd, xbm, tiff, rle, xim, (writes level 2 eps) and other formats. Also has a library and command line utilities for building your owm applications. xloadimage, by Jim Frost . Reads in images in various formats and displays them on an X11 screen. Available via FTP as export.lcs.mit.edu:contrib/xloadimage*, and in your nearest comp.sources.x archive. TIFF Software, by Sam Leffler . Nice portable library for reading and writing TIFF files, plus a few tools for manipulating them and reading other formats. Available via FTP as ucbvax.berkeley.edu:pub/tiff/*.tar.Z or ftp.uu.net:graphics/tiff.tar.Z xtiff, an X11 tool for viewing a TIFF file. It was written to handle as many different kinds of TIFF files as possible while remaining simple, portable and efficient. xtiff illustrates some common problems with building pixmaps and using different visual classes. It is distributed as part of Sam Leffler's libtiff package and it is also available on export.lcs.mit.edu, ftp.uu.net and comp.sources.x. xtiff 2.0 was announced in 4/91; it includes Xlib and Xt versions. ALV, a Sun-specific image toolkit. Version 2.0.6 posted to comp.sources.sun on 11dec89. Also available via email to alv-users-request@cs.bris.ac.uk. popi, an image manipulation language. Version 2.1 posted to comp.sources.misc on 12dec89. ImageMagick, an X11 package for display and interactive manipulation of images. Includes tools for image conversion, annotation, compositing, animation, and creating montages. ImageMagick can read and write many of the more popular image formats. Available via FTP as export.lcs.mit.edu:contrib/ImageMagick.tar.Z. Khoros, a huge (~100 meg) graphical development environment based on X11R4. Khoros components include a visual programming language, code generators for extending the visual language and adding new application packages to the system, an interactive user interface editor, an interactive image display package, an extensive library of image and signal processing routines, and 2D/3D plotting packages. Available via FTP as ftp.eece.unm.edu:pub/khoros/*. LaboImage, a SunView-based image processing and analysis package. It includes more than 200 image manipulation, processing and measurement routines, on-line help, plus tools such as an image editor, a color table editor and several biomedical utilities. Available via anonymous FTP as ftp.ads.com:pub/VISION-LIST-ARCHIVE/SHAREWARE/LaboImage_4.0.tar.Z The San Diego Supercomputer Center Image Tools, software tools for reading, writing, and manipulating raster images. Binaries for some machines available via anonymous FTP in sdsc.edu:sdscpub. The Independent JPEG Group has written a package for reading and writing JPEG files. FTP to ftp.uu.net:graphics/jpeg/jpegsrc.v?.tar.Z Don't forget to set binary mode when you FTP tar files. For you MILNET folks who still don't have name servers, the IP addresses are: ftp.ads.com 128.229.36.25 cs.utah.edu 128.110.4.21 export.lcs.mit.edu 18.24.0.12 freebie.engin.umich.edu 141.212.68.23 ftp.ee.lbl.gov 128.3.112.20 ftp.uu.net 192.48.96.9 gis.mit.edu 18.80.1.118 nl.cs.cmu.edu 128.2.222.56 ftp.eece.unm.edu 129.24.24.119 sdsc.edu 132.249.20.22 ucbvax.berkeley.edu 128.32.133.1 venera.isi.edu 128.9.0.32 weedeater.math.yale.edu 130.132.23.17 wuarchive.wustl.edu 128.252.135.4 Please do *not* post or mail messages saying "I can't FTP, could someone mail this to me?" There are a number of automated mail servers that will send you things like this in response to a message. See item 13 below for details on some. 8) Format documents for GIF, TIFF, IFF, BIFF, WHIFF, etc. You almost certainly don't need these. Read the above item 7 on free image manipulation software. Get one or more of these packages and look through them. Chances are excellent that the image converter you were going to write is already there. But if you still want one of the format documents, many such files are available by anonymous ftp from zamenhof.cs.rice.edu (128.42.1.75) in directory pub/graphics.formats. These files were collected off the net and are believed to be correct. This archive includes pixel formats, and two- and three-dimensional object formats. Other file format descriptions are welcome, send to Mark Hall . 13) How to FTP by email. There are a number of sites that archive the Usenet sources newsgroups and make them available via an email query system. You send a message to an automated server saying something like "send comp.sources.unix/fbm", and a few hours or days later you get the file in the mail. In addition, there used to be some FTP-by-mail servers, which would accept FTP commands by mail and then mail back the results. Unfortunately, the services were abused, and have been shut down.