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Info-Graphics Digest	Sun Jul 12 03:00:19 PDT 1987

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Today's Topics:

 UNIX(tm) Graphics DRAWING Systems
 Submission for comp-graphics-digest
 Re: PAL video boards
 Re: Info-Graphics Digest
 ADD TO MAILING LIST

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Path: whuts!cr
From: ihnp4!whuts!cr@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (RAMOS)
Subject: UNIX(tm) Graphics DRAWING Systems
Keywords: graphics, drawing
Date: 7 Jul 87 13:26:25 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 41


<*>

Hope you can help,

I am looking for Graphics Systems that allows the user to:

1) DRAW, not program (e.g. mouse/bit map, light pen/vector)
2) combine one or more graphics into an 11x17 inch fold-out sheet
3) use various font types and sizes (ala "troff")
4) runs on a UNIX machine or is "troff" compatible

Color graphics would be welcome, if feasible, but are not necessary.

Some packages/systems that I already know about and have evaluated
are below.  I am providing them along with "problems" to ensure
that you know the status of the search to date, and the impact
of the evaluation criteria:

1) "xcip" (including "aded" and "sdled")
PROBLEM: How to produce 11x17 fold-out graphics

2) "ped"
PROBLEM: How to produce 11x17 fold-out graphics

3) MAGIC
PROBLEM: Requires phototypesetting (chemical) facilities, including:
a) a small dark room for the phototypesetter
b) available water supply to the phototypesetter
c) chemical disposal and possible silver recovery
   of phototypesetter (C/A/T) waste, no imagen/XRX support
d) a full time operator at a technically proficient level (eg. STA)

Please let me know if you can give me any information
(affirmative or negative) regarding the problems above
and if you know of any graphics packages that fit some
of the specs outlined. I need the info by Thursday, so I
can provide a prelimary report to my sup by Friday. Thank you.

Catalina Ramos
{clyde|harvard|cbosgd|allegra|ulysses|ihnp4}!whuts!cr
1-201-386-2899 8-232-2899


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	Tue, 7 Jul 87 11:33:12 PDT
From: papa%uscacsc.USC.EDU@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Marco Papa)
Date: 7 Jul 87 18:28:58 GMT
Subject: Submission for comp-graphics-digest
Responding-System: uscacsc.UUCP

Path: uscacsc!papa
From: papa@uscacsc.UUCP (Marco Papa)
Subject: Re: PAL video boards
Date: 7 Jul 87 18:28:57 GMT
References: <8707070349.AA22852@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Distribution: world
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles
Lines: 11

I don't know about PC boards, but the Commodore Amiga computers sold in
Europe are PAL-compatible.  The Amiga gives you a choice of up to 16 colors
in high-res (640x400 NTSC, more om PAL), 32 colors in low-res (320x200 NTSC)
and a full 4096 colors in HAM mode (320x400 NTSC).  Since the output is PAL
compatible, it can be dumped directly onto video-tape of fed into a TV
studio input through an optional genlock.  I believe that now all three AMiga
models (500, 1000, and 2000) are sold in Europe.  

-- Marco Papa
   Felsina Software


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Date: Wed, 8 Jul 87 13:26:29 PDT
From: hplabs!bnrmtv!perkins@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Henry Perkins)
Subject: Re: Info-Graphics Digest

Advice to Willaim Lord Hayward re: graphics in games --

1. Get a faster computer, with a hard disk.  You'll have to put in
   thousands of edit-assemble-link-test cycles; the time spent
   waiting for a stock IBM PC with floppy disks will literally add
   up to months.  Almost any investment in high-performance gear
   (hardware or software) for development will pay for itself.

2. Watch out for IBM screen snow.  Your Hercules color card doesn't
   put noise on the screen when you access video memory at the same
   time as screen refresh, but the standard IBM card does.  You'll
   need an IBM card for testing, lest your program be unacceptable
   on IBM hardware.

3. Graphics texts won't be of great use to you, because the machine
   lacks the capability to do anything fancy in real time.  You'll
   need a book specific to IBM PC graphics with assembly-language
   examples [avoid the BASIC books], plus one regular text to learn
   the fundamentals -- Foley & Van Dam or Newton & Sproull (titles
   are Principals of Interactive Graphics & Fundamentals of I. G.).

4. You'll need to do most of your programming in assembly language.
   4.77 MHz 8088-based machines don't have the horsepower to do
   animation any other way, and even then you'll spend hundreds of
   hours optimizing your code and re-thinking your algorithms to
   make things more efficient.  Get a good reference for 8086
   assembly language -- either Intel's book or Rector & Alexy's
   "The 8086 Book".  You'll have memorized the cycle counts for
   most of the instructions by the time you get your animation code
   fast enough.

5. General tips -- do as much of your animation by table look-up as
   you can.  You've got about enough power to draw lines and circles
   on the fly (using fine-tuned Bresenham's routines), but most
   everything else needs to be pre-computed.  Hire a graphic designer
   (a specialized artist) with computer experience to do your images.
   Expect everything to take much longer than seems reasonable.


What makes me so opinionated?  I did the animation for "Championship
Golf", published by Activision's GameStar division.  It took me 3
years, half of that working full time on the program.  My co-author
spent even longer modeling the golf course.  You may want to check
our program out to get an idea of what's just barely possible on a
floppy-based IBM PC.

Real-time animation on a stock IBM PC is an exercise best suited to
highly talented masochists.
---
{hplabs,amdahl,3comvax}!bnrmtv!perkins        --Henry Perkins

It is better never to have been born.  But who among us has such luck?
One in a million, perhaps.

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Date:    09 JUL 87   14:29  CET
From: U16D%CBEBDA3T.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject: ADD TO MAILING LIST


Please add me to your mailing list.
Thanks!
                          J.S. Shiner










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