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<BODY>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>
Graphics Muse
</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"
vlink="#fa3333" alink="#33CC33" link="#0000FA">
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>
"</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
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© 1996 by
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<!-- What is a Graphics Muse? -->
<FONT size=4><B>muse:</B></FONT>
<OL>
<LI><I>v;</I> to become absorbed in thought
<LI><I>n;</I> [ fr. Any of the nine sister goddesses of learning and the
arts in Greek Mythology ]: a source of inspiration
</OL>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/w.gif ALT="W" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="36" HEIGHT="28">elcome
to the Graphics Muse! Why a "muse"?
Well, except for the sisters aspect, the above definitions are
pretty much the way I'd describe my own interest in computer graphics:
it keeps me deep in thought and it is a daily source of inspiration.
<!-- Text based navigation -->
<P>
<CENTER>
<FONT size=2>
[<A HREF="#mews">Graphics Mews</A>]
[<A HREF="#musings">Musings</A>]
[<A HREF="#resources">Resources</A>]
</FONT>
<CENTER></td>
</table>
<TABLE width=560>
<tr>
<td>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="8" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1">
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/t.gif ALT="T" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="26" HEIGHT="28">his
column is dedicated to the use, creation, distribution, and dissussion of
computer graphics tools for Linux systems.
<BR clear=both>
Last month I introduced a new format to this column. The response was
mixed, but generally positive. I'm still getting more comments on the
format of the column rather than the content. I don't know if this
means I'm covering all the issues people want to hear about or people
just aren't reading the column. Gads. I hope it's not the latter.
<BR clear=both>
This month's issue will include another book review, a discussion on
adding fonts to your system, a Gimp user's story, and a review of the
AC3D modeller. The holiday season is always busy one for me. I would
have liked to do a little more, but there just never seems to be enough
time in the day.
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<BR clear=both>
<TABLE width=560 border=0>
<tr>
<td colspan=4>
<BR clear=both>
Disclaimer:
Before I get too far into this I should note that any of the news items I
post in this section are just that - news. Either I happened to run across
them via some mailing list I was on, via some Usenet newsgroup, or via
email from someone. I'm not necessarily endorsing these products (some of
which may be commercial), I'm just letting you know I'd heard about them in
the past month.
<BR clear=both>
I went wondering through a local computer book store this month
and scanned the graphics texts section. I found a few new tidbits
that might be of interest to some of you.
<tr>
<td width="50%">
<H4>3D Graphic File Formats: A Programmers Reference
</H4>
<A HREF="http://www.europa.com/~keithr/">
Keith Rule</A> has written a new book on 3D Graphics File Formats.
The book, which contains over 500 pages,
has been published by Addison-Wesley Developers Press
and is listed at $39.95. It includes a CD-ROM
with a software library for processing various 3D file formats
(both reading and writing), but the code is written for
MS systems. Keith states there isn't any reason why the code
shouldn't be portable to other platforms such as Linux. Any
takers out there? <BR>ISBN 0-201-48835-3
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<H4>OpenGL Programming for the X Window System </H4>
I noticed a new text on the shelf of a local book store
(Softpro, in Englewood, Colorado) this past month - Mark J. Kilgard's
<I>OpenGL Programming for the X Window System</I>. This book,
from Addison Wesley Developers Press, appears to have a very good
coverage of how to write OpenGL applications that make use of X Windows
API's. I haven't read it yet (or even purchased it - yet, but I
will) so can't say how good it is. Mark is the author of the GLUT
toolkit for OpenGL. GLUT is to OpenGL what Xt or Motif is to Xlib.
Well, sort of.
<tr>
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HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
<tr>
<td width="50%">
<H4>Fast Algorithms for 3D-Graphics</H4>
This book, by Georg Glaeser and published by Springer, includes
a 3.5" diskette of source for Unix systems. The diskette,
however, is DOS formatted. All the algorithms in the text are
written using pseudocode, so readers could convert the algorithms
to the language of choice.
<td bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
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<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
<td width="49%" valign=top>
<H4>ImageMagick 3.7.8 released, including a new set of image
library plug-ins
</H4>
A new release of ImageMagick has been released from
<A HREF="mailto:Alexander.Zimmermann@FMI.Uni-Passau.De">
Alexander Zimmermann</A>. This release includes a "Plug In"
library containing the various image libraries ImageMagick
needs to run. Alexander has uploaded this new release to
<A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/xapps/graphics">
Sunsite</A>
as well as
<A HREF="ftp://ftp.wizards.dupont.com/pub/ImageMagick/binaries">
ImageMagick's Web site.
<tr>
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<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
<tr>
<td width="50%">
<H4>MpegTV Player v0.9</H4>
A new version of the
<A HREF="http://www.mpegtv.com">
MpegTV Player</A>
has been released. This version now includes audio support.
<td bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
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<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
<td width="49%">
<H4> Imaging Technology Inc. IC-PCI frame grabber board driver </H4>
The
<A HREF="ftp://gandalf.expmech.ing.tu-bs.de/pub/driver/icpci-0.2.0.tar.gz">
second public release (v 0.2.0)</A>
of a kernel module for the
Imaging Technology Inc. IC-PCI frame grabber board (rev 1)
and the AM-VS acquisition module
has been released. This driver is maintained by
GOM mbH (Gesellschaft fuer optische Messtechnik)
TU Braunschweig, Institute for Experimental Mechanics.
A full motion video test program and a read function for
original camera files are included.
<BR>Author: <A HREF="mailto: matthias@expmech.ing.tu-bs.de">Matthias
Stein</A>
<BR>Maintained by: <A HREF="mailto: d.bergmann@tu-bs.de">Dirk Bergmann</A>
<BR>This software is not really free (see the LICENSE file).
<tr>
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<H4>Viewmol 2.0 released</H4>
I don't know much about this tool, but it appears to have alot
of graphics related features, so I thought I'd mention it here.
The LSM gives the following information:
<P>
Viewmol is a program for the visualization of outputs from
quantum chemical as well as from molecular mechanics programs.
Currently supported are Gaussian 9x, Discover, DMol/DSolid,
Gulp, Turbomole, and PDB files. Properties visualized include
geometry (with various drawing modes), vibrations (animated
or with arrows), optimization history/MD trajectories, MO
energy level diagram, MOs, basis functions, electron density.
Drawings can be saves as TIFF, HPGL, Postscript, input files
for Rayshade.
<P>
<A HREF="ftp://ftp.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de/pub/education/chemistry/viewmol-2.0.tgz">
ftp://ftp.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de/pub/education/chemistry/viewmol-2.0.tgz</A>
</td>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
VSPACE="5" HSPACE="10" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"></td>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
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VSPACE="5" HSPACE="10" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"></td>
<tr>
<td colspan=4>
<H4>Did You Know?</H4>
<A HREF="http://www.3dsite.com/3dsite">
3D Site (http://www.3dsite.com/3dsite)</A>
is a Web site devoted to everything 3D. There are
job postings, links to free repositories of 3D models and lots
of other valuable information.
<P>
<A HREF="http://156.46.199.2/3dcafe/">
3D Cafe (http://156.46.199.2/3dcafe/)</A>
is another Web site with various useful 3D information.
It also maintains a large collection of DXF and 3DS model
files.
<P>
<H4>An Important Survey</H4>
I've been talking to a couple of publishers about doing a book aimed at
Linux users. I'd like to write a User's Guide for the Gimp but the
publisher feels a more general text on doing Web-based graphics might have
a wider appeal (face it - the Linux audience just isn't the size of the MS
audience - yet - but the publishers are considering both types of books).
I told them I'd ask my readers which type of text
they'd like to see. The Gimp book would include details on how to
use each of the applications features as well as a number of tutorials for
doing various types of effects. The book on doing graphics for Web pages
would include discussions on using HTML, information on tools besides the
Gimp and a few case studies (including something on animation). However,
the Web book wouldn't go into as much detail for each of the tools.
That information would be more general in nature.
<BR clear="both">
I don't have a server to run any CGI scripts to register votes, so
simply <A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@csn.net">mail me</A> with your
opinions. Thanks!
<P>
<H4>A Call for Help</H4>
I plan on covering more 3D tools in the future, but I have to learn
to use them first. The next tool I'm going to look into is BMRT.
If you use BMRT and want to help me get started
<A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@csn.net">drop me a line</A>. I'd like to
do an introduction to BMRT in the March issue if possible but I want to make
sure I know what I'm talking about first. Thanks!
<tr>
<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
VSPACE="5" HSPACE="10" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"></td>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="0" WIDTH="0" HEIGHT="0"></td>
<tr>
<td colspan=4 bgcolor="#ffffff" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
VSPACE="5" HSPACE="10" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"></td>
</table>
<P>
<A NAME="musings">
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/musings.gif ALT="Musings" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="247" HEIGHT="52">
</td>
</table>
</A>
<BR clear=both>
<TABLE width=560>
<tr>
<td valign=top>
<H4>A Gimp User's Story (or "Why I Use the Gimp")</H4>
The following piece was posted on the Gimp User's Mailing
list by <A HREF="mailto: mike@lawlib.wm.edu"> Mike Phillips</A>.
<P>
At work, we have a "Library News Network", which is actually a 386 pc
running a TV via a video converter in a continual slideshow with
information about upcoming events in the law library and the law school.
Last year, my boss did some stuff in Freelance Graphics which, quite
frankly, was rather limited in effect.
<BR clear=both>
This year, it's my baby, and I'm making the slideshow (640x480x256 GIF
files, run by a simple DOS program and looped by a batch file) in the
GIMP. Here are some things I've done to make the text more readable
and make the display reasonably eye-catching. Nothing fancy, but
hopefully the tricks will give other people ideas to play with on their
own.
<BR clear=both>
First, don't use a plain background. The blend tool is very nice for
this, and shaded green or blue with bright text is rather nice looking.
Start with a color and add some noise Create a blend image of the
same size and multiply by the image with noise. This creates a
<I>very</I> cool background for a slide. Better yet, if there's an
appropriate photograph, use it! (I used a gorgeous picture of Yosemite
Park to announce an environmental law symposium, and a decent photo of
the U.S. Supreme Court justices to announce our Supreme Court Preview.)
<BR clear=both>
On the subjects of backgrounds, since I don't remember seeing this tip,
here's a quickie for clouds: Make a plasma of the appropriate size,
grayscale it, convert it back to color, and Brightness/Contrast/Gamma it
into submission. I usually knock the brightness up about 75-100, and the
blue up to around 5 and the green to about 2. Instant pretty sky
(Obviously, skies from other planets could be done with reds and greens
and whatnot.)
<BR clear=both>
For the text, nothing beats some good fonts. Hit a
<A HREF="ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/fonts/">font archive</A>,
or buy
a $10-$15 CD filled with fonts. Granted, I have the Caldera Network
Desktop, so I can use some fonts that (I think) XFree can't, thanks to
the font server, but it's worth a shot. I got a CD with 1250 fonts for
$13.
[Ed. Next month I'll cover how to add fonts to your system so you
can use them with the Gimp. mjh]
<BR clear=both>
Here's a variation on the
<A HREF="http://abattoir.cc.ndsu.nodak.edu/~nem/gimp/">rounded-text tips</A>:
work out your
text, then Duplicate it once and Offset it once (say 4x4). Edge Detect
then Invert the duplicate and Gaussian Blur the offset twice. Multiply
the resulting images, and use the original as a mask to composite
something else over the image resulting from the multiplication.
Very nice, edged & floating/shadowed
text. Shows up great on a TV monitor.
<BR clear=both>
For the text, use any appropriate single color. Bright colors and high
contrast work very well for what I do, although I've played with
textures, rippled blends, plasma clouds, and what-not.
<BR clear=both>
Of course, it can be spiced up with all sorts of clipart (I heartily
recommend
<A HREF="http://www.barrysclipart.com">
Barry's Clipart Server (www.barrysclipart.com)</A>,
from which I shamelessly borrow, and voila, instant slideshow!
<BR clear=both>
I have left our Fall Break edition of the LNN at:
<A HREF="http://www.lawlib.wm.edu/LNN-old/">
http://www.lawlib.wm.edu/LNN-old/</A>.
if you want to see some of what can be done with it. You might be better
off watching the show when the graphics aren't resized to 320x240.
Also, the latest version of these is available at
<A HREF="http://www.lawlib.wm.edu/LNN/">
http://www.lawlib.wm.edu/LNN/</A>.
<P>
<BR clear=both>
[Ed. Later Mike posted another message that included some
interesting effects. I thought it might be appropriate to include them
with his other posting.]
<P>
<BR clear=both>
Recently, while wandering through the plug-ins available, I found the
charcoal plug-in. Compiled it, added it, used it. Rather nifty, actually.
However, it got me thinking and experimenting, and I produced two
potentially interesting effects:
<P>
(1) Pastel sketch: Take a color (RGB) image, Edge-detect it, Invert, and
(optionally) contrast autostretch. On many images, this will produce a
nifty pastel sketch. If the image is too high of detail, degrade the
color or pixelize it first, otherwise you may end up with too many
extraneous lines.
<P>
(2) Watercolor sketch: Take a color (RGB) image, make a grayscale of it.
Edge Detect the grayscale (this will give you the sketch lines); this can
be hard to balance the way you want, so you may want to threshold it or
pixelize the image first. Then, pixelize and degrade the main image to
32 colors (16 or 20 works even better). Eliminate the background you
don't want, Gaussian blur it a few times, and brighten it some.
Multiply the edging onto it. Voila; (nearly) instant watercolor,
akin to the court sketches on news shows.
<P>
<A HREF="mailto: mike@lawlib.wm.edu">Mike Phillips, mike@lawlib.wm.edu</A>
</td>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0 valign=top>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
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<TABLE width=560>
<tr>
<td valign=top width="44%">
<H4><I>Jim Blinn's Corner - A Trip Down the Graphics Pipeline</I></H4>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="8" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1">
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/i.gif ALT="I" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="13" HEIGHT="34">
am not formally trained in computer graphics
(<A HREF="#fn1">1</A>).
Everything I know
I've learned in the last year or so by reading, examining source
code, and through the kind assistance of many members of the Net.
So my ability to understand some of the more formal texts on
computer graphics is limited.
<BR>
Given this limitation, I found I was still able to read and
comprehend a good portion of Jim Blinn's book
<I>Jim Blinn's Corner - A Trip Down the Graphics Pipeline</I>, which
is a collection of articles taken from his column in the <I>IEEE Computer
Graphics and Applications</I> journal. This book is the first of what may
be two books, assuming there is sufficient interest in the first book. The
second will cover a set of pixel arithmetic articles taken from the same
column.
<BR>
In the preface Jim describes how he used a writing style that is
"certainly lighter than a typical SIGGRAPH paper, both in depth and in
attitude." I can't agree more. Computer graphics should be a fun
subject and, despite the math, this book does provide a giggle here
and there.
<BR>
Don't get me wrong, though. There is plenty of the technical details
on how to compute positions in 3D space, perspective shadows, and
subpixelic particles. Hefty stuff for the beginner. Nearly
incomprehensible to the person who hasn't used matrix arithmetic in the
past 8 years. Still, chapters like <B>The Ultimate Design Tool</B>
(which talks about how an idea should start), and <B>Farewell to
Fortran</B> (which talks about using various languages in computer
graphics) provided enough non-mathematical discussions to let my brain
recover while still keeping my interest peaked.
<BR>
I haven't read the book front to back yet. I'm saving whats left
(about half the book) for my 16 days of freedom scheduled to start later
this month. Its first on my reading list. Second will be my college
Linear Algebra text. The first half of Jim's book reminded me about how
much I'd forgotten in 8 years. Like the saying goes, one must strive
for the impossible before they know what is possible.
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<UL>
<LH>
<B>More Musings...</B>
</LH>
<LI>
<A HREF="more-musings.html#ac3d">
Review: The AC3D Modeller
</A> - An introduction to the very nifty 3D modeller
from Andy Colebourne.
Warning: lots of images on this page!
<LI>
<A HREF="png.html">
History of the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format
</A> - A detailed look at how
an Internet-based cooperative effort
brought about this graphics file format specification.
</UL>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
VSPACE="5" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1">
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WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1"></td>
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<td valign=top cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="8" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1">
<BR>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="8" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1">
<H4>The IRTC - A raytracing competition for the fun of it</H4>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif ALT="indent" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="8" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1">
<IMG SRC=./gx/hammel/f.gif ALT="F" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="23" HEIGHT="29">or
the past few months, I've been
helping to administer an Internet-based competition for users of
raytracing software. This competition, the Internet Ray
Tracing Competition or
<A HREF="http://www.povray.org/irtc/">IRTC</A>,
is open to anyone interested in creating 3D images using
software on any platform as long as the software falls
within a few
<A HREF="http://www.povray.org/irtc/mail/rules.html">basic guidelines</A>.
It is based on another competition started back in 1994 by Matt
Kruse. Matt eventually had to close down the contest due to
the enormous amount of time it takes to run such a contest. At the
time, he was more or less doing all the work himself.
<BR>
Earlier this year Chip Richards started to organize the contest
once again. A group of interested individuals signed up to help
out. In the end, most of us (myself included) provide only
organizational input - ideas for rules or input on rulings regarding
cheating (yes, there has been some of that), helping to select topics, and
so forth. Most of the real work has been done by Chip, Bill Marrs,
and Jon Peterson (although Jon has since had to move on to other
things).
<BR>
The contest is made up independent rounds that last 2 months. Each
round has a topic which entrants must use as the basis for their
images. Entries are supposed to be new images, created during the
span of the contest, however most people use bits and pieces of older
models that they or someone else has created. The tools allowed
vary but raytracing tools are preferred and no post processing is
allowed (for example, you can't add a lens flare after the image
has been rendered). Anyone is allowed to vote (currently) on the
images and winners receive small prizes like CDs and prints of their
images.
<P>
<CENTER>
<A HREF="more-musings.html#irtc">more IRTC...</A>
(same page as AC3D review)
</CENTER>
</td>
</table>
</td>
</table>
<P>
<A NAME="resources">
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<IMG SRC=../gx/hammel/resources.gif ALT="Resources" ALIGN="left"
HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="246" HEIGHT="57">
</td>
</table>
</A>
<BR clear=both>
The following links are just starting points for finding more information
about computer graphics and multimedia in general for Linux systems. If
you have some application specific information for me, I'll add them to my
other pages or you can contact the maintainer of some other web site. I'll
consider adding other general references here, but application or site
specific information needs to go into one of the following general
references and not listed here.
<BR clear=both>
<P>
<A HREF="http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel/linux-graphics-howto.html">
Linux Graphics mini-Howto
</A>
<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel/povray/povray.html">
Unix Graphics Utilities
</A>
<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.digiserve.com/ar/linux-snd/">
Linux Multimedia Page
</A>
<br>
<P>
<A NAME="future">
<H2>Future Directions</H2>
</A>
Next month:
<UL>
<LI>TkPOV - a POV-Ray scene file editor
<LI>Book Review: 3D Graphic File Formats by Keith Rule
<LI>Adding fonts to your system
<LI>Gimp Tips
<LI>...and lots more!
</UL>
<BR>
<A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@csn.net">
Let me know what you'd like to hear about!</A>
<P>
<HR>
<OL>
<LI><A NAME="fn1">
<FONT size=2>
Anyone having an extra, unclaimed scholarship in computer graphics
is encouraged to contact me. I give preference to those
who have them within commuting distance of Denver, where I live.
</FONT>
</A>
</OL>
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H4>Previous ``Graphics Muse'' Columns</H4></center>
<P>
<A HREF="../issue11/gm.html">Graphics Muse #1, November 1996</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue12/gm.html">Graphics Muse #2, December 1996</A>
<P><HR><P>
<center><H5>Copyright © 1997, Michael J. Hammel <BR>
Published in Issue 13 of the Linux Gazette</H5></center>
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