22 PICTURETHIS "SHAREWARE" VERSION RELEASE 2.00 MAY 1, 1989 TUTORIAL, PART 2 OF 2 PARTS Copyright 1988, 1989 by Patricia Y. Williams and Gregory Williams, All Rights Reserved. EXERCISE 11. OBJECTS AND CLIP ART 1. You have now finished drawing one leaf with filled areas this time, but the ultimate goal is to draw a leaf with three leaflets. To do this, you will group the trails of your leaf into an object that can be scaled down, saved as clip art, copied, and otherwise manipulated. An OBJECT is simply a group of trails and smaller objects that can be manipulated as a whole. To define your leaf as an object press: F7 to access the object menu. Then press: G for group. One of the trails on the screen will be dashed. Press "ENTER" to select the trail. It will become dashed-and- dotted and the other trail will be dashed. Press "ENTER" again to select this trail also. Since there are only two trails on the screen and you have selected them both, PictureThis will automatically stop the selection process and group the two trails into an object. If there were trails or objects on the screen that you did NOT want to include in the new object, you could select the trails/objects that you DID want to include in the usual manner (with "+," "SPACE," "-," and "ENTER") and then press "D" (for done). 2. Your new object (the leaf) is now ready to be scaled down into a leaflet, but first you should save it as clip art. To do this, press "F10" to access the files menu, and then press: E Since there is only one object on the screen, it is automatically selected for exporting, and you are asked for a file specification. Key in "LEAF.CLP." The object will be saved as a clip art file. 3. Since you have saved the object, it is now safe to erase it. Do this by pressing "F7," "E," and "Y." (The object was automatically chosen since it was the only one.) You should have a blank screen, so draw a large box somewhere in the 23 middle of the screen and fill it, just to have something on the screen. 4. Press "F10" to access the files menu, then press: I to import an object. Press "ENTER" to see the directory and choose "LEAF.CLP" to be imported. The curves of the leaf (without the endpoints) will be drawn on the screen in the positions they were when you saved them, and a prompt stating "OK? (Y/N)" will appear. Answer "Y," and the leaf will be redrawn with endpoints. 5. Look at the Quickshow screen. The leaf should be in front of the box, probably obscuring some or all of the box (depending on where and how large you drew the box). When you import clip art, it is placed at the FRONT of the drawing. Let's change the layering so that the box is in front of the leaf. To do this, press "F7"; then press: L An object on the screen will be dashed. Choose the box in the normal way and a layering menu will appear. Press "F" to move the box to the front of the drawing. Check with the Quickshow screen. Now repeat this process, but move the box to the rear by pressing "R." Note that trails (for example, the box) that are not part of objects can be treated like objects for most object manipulations, including erasing, layering, moving, copying, scaling, rotating, flipping, and inclining. (More about these manipulations later.) If there are several objects on the screen, you can move the chosen object "Ahead of" or "Behind" selected objects, thus putting it somewhere in the "middle" of the layering. To try this, first "ungroup" the leaf by pressing "F7," then "U." The leaf is automatically selected (it is the only object -- the box is a trail and cannot be ungrouped), and a prompt appears, asking if you want to ungroup the leaf. Answer "Y"; the leaf is now two separate trails again. Now the box should be at the rear, with the actual leaf in front of it and the stem in front of the leaf (check on the Quickshow screen). Try to put the stem in back of the leaf but in front of the box using the "Ahead" or "Behind" options. (There are a least two ways: "F7," "L," select the stem, "B," select the leaf, "D"; and "F7," "L," select the leaf, "A," select the stem, "D.") Now to continue with the drawing, relayer so that the stem is in front, and group the leaf and stem; erase the box. EXERCISE 12. MANIPULATING OBJECTS 1. You need to scale the leaf down so that three leaflets will fit on the screen. Press "F7"; then press: 24 S The leaf is automatically chosen (and dashed), since it is the only object on the screen. A prompt appears asking if you want to replace the original object. Answer "Y," since you only want a smaller leaflet. (If you answered "N" (or any character except "Y" and "y"), when you completed the operation, both the original large leaf AND the smaller scaled leaflet would remain.) A prompt will appear (assuming H+ is toggled; if it is not, toggle it on and press "Esc" twice, then start this Exercise again) stating "Move then F1 to set anchor point." The anchor point is the point around which the object will be scaled; it will not be moved when the scaling is done. In this case, the tip of the leaf is an appropriate anchor point, so press "Del," followed by "+," "SPACE," and "-" repeatedly until the cursor is at the tip of the leaf, then press "F1." A menu appears, asking if you want to scale by cursor movement or direct entry. Press "D" for direct entry. (To learn how to scale by cursor movement, see the user manual.) You will then be asked if you want uniform scaling (horizontal and vertical scaling by the same amount); answer "Y." Key in the scale factor by which the leaf will be scaled: .5 (to make the leaf half as big). Two more prompts about scaling line weights will appear; press "ENTER" twice to answer them negatively. (See the user manual for more details.) A leaflet is drawn on the screen without endpoints and you are asked: "OK? (Y/N)." Answer "Y"; the old (large) leaf is erased, and the new leaflet is drawn with endpoints. You might notice considerable "garbage" on the screen; this doesn't affect the PostScript output, but if it bothers, you press "D" to redraw the screen without the garbage. 2. You need two more leaflets. To make copies of the original leaflet, press "F7," and then press: C The leaflet is automatically be selected and dashed since it is the only object on the screen. A prompt appears: "Move then F1 to set start point." The cursor should be at the endpoint where the lower section of the leaf joins the stem (if it is not, move it there), which makes an appropriate start point, so just press "F1." Another prompt appears: "Move then F3 to set finish point." Now move the cursor to the right with the cursor key "6" until it is at approximately 5046, 2228. A dotted line follows from the start point. Press "F3." A copy of the leaflet appears (without endpoints) at the new location. (Notice that the start point of the original leaflet was copied to the finish point with the rest of the leaflet copied around it; this allows for precise placement of any part of an object.) A prompt asks if the copy is "OK?"; answer "Y." Another prompt asks if you want to copy again; answer "Y" here, too. Now make a second copy of the leaflet. The start point remains the same; a dotted line stretches from it to the cursor. Move the cursor to a new 25 finish point (approximately 4566, 3188) and press "F3." Another leaflet appears. Answer "Y" to the "OK?" prompt, but "N" to the "Again?" prompt. 3. You now have three leaflets, but they are not oriented correctly for joining together to make a leaf. To orient them correctly, first "flip" the upper leaflet. To do this, press "F7," then press: F This time you must actively choose the top leaflet, since there are now three objects on the screen; do so in the normal manner. Answer "Y" to the prompt about replacing the original object. Another prompt appears: "Move then F1 to set first flipline point." Press "F1" at the current cursor position (the cursor should be where the lower part of the leaf joins the stem). Another prompt appears: "Move then F3 to set second flipline point." Move the cursor to the tip of the leaflet (a dotted line follows) and press "F3." A mirror image of the leaflet, flipped over the dotted line, appears (without endpoints), and you see the "OK?" prompt (which you should answer with a "Y"). 4. Next, the top and bottom leaflets must be rotated so they can be attached to the stem of the original leaflet. Press "F7," then press: R Select the top leaflet and answer "Y" to the "Replace original object?" prompt. A prompt appears: "Move then F1 to set anchor point." The anchor point for rotation is the point about which the object will be rotated; it does not move during the rotation. In this case, the anchor point should be at the lowest endpoint of the stem. Move the cursor there and press "F1." Choose whether to enter a rotation angle by cursor movement or direct entry; in this case, press "C" to choose cursor movement. (See the user manual for details on how to rotate by direct entry.) A new prompt appears: "Move then F2 to set 0 degree direction." Move the cursor near the tip of the top leaflet, press "Del" to get exactly to the endpoint, and press "F2." A solid line will have followed from the anchor point; the angle of rotation will be measured at the anchor point from this line. A final prompt appears: "Move then F3 to set rotation angle." Move the cursor to the right. A dotted line is drawn from the anchor point to the cursor. Press "P" to turn on the relative position box (see Exercise 4, step 4). When you are rotating an object, the relative position box shows the rotation angle (the angle between the solid and dotted line). Move the cursor until the angle is about 83 degrees, then press "F3." A rotated leaflet (without endpoints) and the "OK?" prompt appear; answer the prompt with "Y" and the rotation operation is complete. Similarly, rotate the bottom leaf about -50 degrees. (Degrees 26 in PictureThis are positive in the clockwise direction; a negative angle is measured counterclockwise.) EXERCISE 13. CONNECTING CURVES SMOOTHLY 1. You need to extend the original leaflet's stem. Since the stem is small, it will be easier to work on the 300% screen; first move the cursor to about 4740, 3084, then press "+" to zoom to the 300% screen centered on the cursor. Turn the relative position box off and the current position box on by pressing "P" twice, so you can see the important areas of the screen. 2. The stem extension should look just like the stem, so the curves that make up the extension should have line weight -1 (that is, they should be construction curves). We could draw them as regular curves and then change their weight to -1 later, but it is easier to change the current "default" line weight and draw them as construction curves in the first place. To do this, press: L A line parameter menu just like the one for trails appears. The only difference is that the state in the status box reads "NEWLNS" rather than "TRLNS" as it did before. The current values of the line parameters are on the second line of the menu. These are the values automatically assigned to all newly drawn curves. You can change any of these line parameters, just as you changed the line parameters of an individual curve or trail. Change the current line weight to -1. All curves drawn from now until you change the current line weight again will be construction curves. 3. It is desirable that the stem extension connect smoothly with the stem already there. This is easy to do with smoothing. To draw the stem extension, first move the cursor to the upper stem end and press "F1" to start a new curve. Now press: S to indicate that you want to connect the new curve smoothly with an existing curve. One of the curves emanating from the endpoint will be dashed; dash the side of the stem in the normal manner and press "ENTER." A guideline through the endpoint TANGENT to the side of the stem will appear. Move the cursor to the other end of the curve (at approximately 5252, 3540) and press "F1." Press "F2" to jump the cursor to the first control point; move the cursor ALONG the guideline. Since the cursor will move ONLY along the guideline (which is tangent to the existing curve), the two curves join smoothly at the endpoint and look like one continuous curve. Set the first control point at approximately 3936, 2584. Set the second control point at approximately 5060, 3460 (in the 27 normal manner -- it is not constrained by a guideline). Now press "F3" to establish the curve; the guideline disappears. 4. When you are drawing a continuous curve by connecting several curves smoothly, it is frequently desirable to smooth at EVERY successive endpoint. You can do this by pressing: A You will notice that the "A" at the left side of the status box now is followed by a "+" instead of a " ." This means that automatic smoothing is toggled on. Your cursor should still be at the second endpoint of the curve that you just drew. Press "F1" to start the next curve. A tangent guideline automatically appears tangent to the last curve drawn. Now move the cursor to approximately 5204, 3612 and press "F1." If you find the screen too crowded with guidelines, you can make them invisible by pressing: E (for [E]rase). All guidelines (for smoothing, ovals, and squares) will become invisible, but the cursor will still move along the invisible guidelines. You can toggle the guidelines back on by pressing "E" again. The "E" in the status box will be followed by a "+" if the guidelines are invisible, or a "-" if they are visible. Finish the curve by placing the first control point (smoothed) at approximately 5288, 3560, the second control point (not smoothed) at approximately 5276, 3636, and pressing "F3." Now press "F1" again; since automatic smoothing is still on, a tangent guideline appears (only momentarily if guidelines are toggled off). Move the cursor to the other stem end of the center leaflet and press "F1," followed by "S," and choose the stem side to smooth by. You are now smoothing on both ends of the curve. The control points should be set to approximately 4888, 3512 and 3832, 2560 (or whatever gives a good looking stem -- but be sure to move the control points a little away from the endpoints, or the curves won't join smoothly). 5. Fill the trail that you just made (the stem extension) with the same gray value you used for the original stem (75% was suggested). Look at your drawing on the Quickshow screen at 300%, then zoom down to the 100% screen. The stem should appear smooth (within the limitations of the screen). EXERCISE 14. MOVING OBJECTS 1. You now need to move the two side leaflets so that their stems intersect the main stem realistically. You could cut the curves that form the main stem and then (after moving the side leaflets to approximately the correct positions) extend 28 their stem ends to meet those cut points, but that is not necessary in this case. It is easier to move the stem ends of the leaflets so that they completely overlap the main stem. Since they are all filled with the same gray and are not outlined, they will look fine this way. Move the cursor to approximately 4452, 2820 and zoom up to the 300% screen. All of the stem ends should be visible. 2. To move the leaflets, press "F7" followed by: M Select the lower leaflet first. Move the cursor to the lower endpoint of its stem end and press "F1" for the start point. Now move the cursor to approximately 3956, 2632 and press "F3" for the finish point. Watch closely as the new stem end is drawn; does it completely overlap the main stem and not stick out the other side? If it looks good, answer "Y" to the "OK?" prompt. (If not, answer "N" and move the finish point a little.) Move the other leaflet similarly, by setting the right endpoint of its stem end to the start point and moving the cursor to approximately 3986, 2626 for the finish point. Check your work on the Quickshow screen at both 300% and 100%. If it looks good, you are finished! 3. Actually, you're ALMOST finished. You should group the three leaflets and the main stem into an object and save it as clip art (see Exercise 11). You might also want to save your work as a drawing (see Exercise 7, step 3). If you are adventurous, you might want to scale down the leaf (with three leaflets) and combine several of them and some stems to make a poison ivy vine! The scaled-down leaves might not look very precise on the drawing screen or Quickshow screen, but they should look fine on the PostScript output. (In general, if you want something small, first draw it big, and then scale it down; very little accuracy will be lost.) You should also save your work as an Encapsulated PostScript file. See the user manual for the many ways you can further change your drawing for final output (including scaling from tiny to huge, the page orientation, and the drawing's position on the page(s)). 4. Deliver your resulting EPS file(s) to a laser printer or imagesetter. How you do this will depend on the particulars of your situation. Consult laser printer user manuals or typesetting service bureau personnel, as appropriate. Encapsulated PostScript files produced by PictureThis can also be imported into some page layout programs. EXERCISE 15. CAPTURING SCREENS FOR USE AS TEMPLATES 1. To install the memory-resident CaptureThis program used for capturing screens, at the operating system prompt (i.e., "A>") corresponding to the drive containing the disk with CAPTHIS.COM, key in: 29 CAPTHIS and then press: ENTER A message noting that CaptureThis has been installed should appear, and the DOS prompt should return. Now run PictureThis. If you get an "OUT OF MEMORY" error message, your computer doesn't have enough memory to run PictureThis with CaptureThis installed. If you have other memory-resident programs installed, remove them or reboot without them and try again. If you still cannot install CaptureThis and then run PictureThis, you should try capturing a screen using CaptureThis from a CGA graphics program that needs less memory than does PictureThis, or you should try Alternate CaptureThis with PictureThis (see below). As soon as the title screen is completely displayed (when it says "PictureThis" in script), press (simultaneously): SHIFT and PrtSc After these keys are pressed, CaptureThis checks your computer's BIOS to determine the current video mode; if, according to the BIOS, the mode is CGA text, NOT CGA graphics, then a warning message will appear at the top of the screen: NOT CGA GRAPHICS! Try Capture? (Y/N) ESC to exit This should NOT happen unless you pressed "SHIFT" and "PrtSc" too late -- when the copyright/ordering information screen (in text mode) is displayed. If you DO see this message, press "Esc." Exit from PictureThis and then try again. Occasionally, an applications program will program the video controller chip directly for CGA graphics, but fail to update the BIOS; if the screen looks like CGA graphics even though CaptureThis has determined (from the BIOS) that it DOESN'T seem to be, you could still try to capture the screen in a template file for importing into PictureThis by pressing: Y Then you would respond to the prompts which follow. We recommend that you use the extension ".TMP" for template files. If the captured screen isn't CGA graphics, its file will produce "garbage" when imported into PictureThis. 30 Or, if you wanted a normal screen dump to a printer, you would press: N Caution: If a printer is not connected, or if it is turned off, your computer might hang up. For a graphics mode screen dump, you must have installed a memory-resident graphics printer driver program appropriate for the graphics mode (such as GRAPHICS.COM, supplied with PC-DOS for dumps of CGA graphics screens to IBM-compatible dot matrix printers) PRIOR to installing CaptureThis. Alternatively, to proceed without capturing or dumping the screen, you would press: Esc If, according to the BIOS, the current video mode IS CGA graphics, a different message will appear: Perform Screen Capture? (Y/N) ESC to exit This is the message you should be seeing now. To capture the screen in a template file for importing into PictureThis, press: Y Now key in: PTTITLE.TMP and press: ENTER Directory specifications can be used for files (this might be necessary, to write the file on a different disk, if you get a "disk full" error message). Each template file takes about 16 KB. Again, we recommend that you use the extension ".TMP" for template files. If, instead, you wanted a normal screen dump to a printer, you would press: N Caution: If your printer is not connected, or if it is turned off, the computer may hang up. For a CGA graphics screen dump, you must have installed an appropriate memory-resident graphics printer driver program (such as GRAPHICS.COM, supplied with PC-DOS for screen dumps to IBM-compatible dot matrix printers) PRIOR to installing CaptureThis. Alternatively, to proceed without capturing or dumping the 31 screen, you would have pressed: Esc If CaptureThis doesn't work correctly with your computer (an example is the Zenith Z-100 running ZPC) or with particular programs (examples are those which "take over" the keyboard), you should try the Alternate CaptureThis program instead. Once installed, this program doesn't require any keyboard input other than "SHIFT" and "PrtSc" (pressed simultaneously) to capture CGA graphics mode screens, and thus will work even with programs that "take over" the keyboard (unless they take over the Print Screen interrupt; to date, we've found only one program that does this: The Newsroom Pro). To install Alternate CaptureThis, reboot your computer; then, at the DOS prompt corresponding to the drive containing the disk with ACAPTHIS.COM, key in: ACAPTHIS and then press: ENTER A message noting that Alternate CaptureThis has been installed should appear, and the DOS prompt should return. Now run PictureThis. As soon as the title screen is completely displayed (when it says "PictureThis" in script), press (simultaneously): SHIFT and PrtSc If Alternate CaptureThis determines (from your computer's BIOS) that the current video mode is NOT CGA graphics, it will perform a normal screen dump to a printer. This should NOT happen unless you pressed "SHIFT" and "PrtSc" too late -- when the copyright/ordering information screen (in text mode) is displayed. Caution: If a printer is not connected, or if it is turned off, your computer might hang up. For a graphics screen dump, you must have installed a memory-resident graphics printer driver program appropriate for the non-CGA graphics mode PRIOR to installing Alternate CaptureThis. If you get a normal screen dump, or your computer hangs up, try again. If, according to the BIOS, the current video mode IS CGA graphics, Alternate CaptureThis will capture the screen in a file named "A0.TMP" (in the current directory). Subsequently captured screens will be saved in files having the following sequence of names: 32 A1.TMP, ..., A9.TMP, B0.TMP, ..., B9.TMP, ..., C0.TMP, ... Caution: Each time ACAPTHIS is installed it will save screens in files (beginning with A0.TMP) WRITING OVER ANY EXISTING FILES IN THE CURRENT DIRECTORY WITH THE SAME NAMES WITHOUT WARNING -- so after saving a series of files with ACAPTHIS, you should rename them before installing ACAPTHIS again, to guard against overwriting, and to provide more descriptive names. 2. Press "F10" to access the file operations menu, then press "R" and key in the name of the file you just saved (i.e., "PTTITLE.TMP" if you used CaptureThis, or "A0.TMP" if you used Alternate CaptureThis), with a directory specification if necessary. And there's the template! Now that you've completed this tutorial, we recommend that you explore PictureThis and CaptureThis on your own, referring to the user manual to learn more about the details of how these programs work. The user manual contains more details and examples on areas covered by this tutorial AND also information on how to use the many features not covered in this tutorial (working in different units, changing the cursor speed, using a grid, scaling the drawing, noting points, measuring distances, etc.) Have fun!