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   <TITLE>Graphics Muse Issue 22</TITLE>
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<H4>
&quot;Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>&quot;
</H4>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--===================================================================-->
&nbsp;<!-- =============================================================
		This Page Designed by Michael J. Hammel.
		Permission to use all graphics and other content for private,
		non-commerical use is granted provided you give me (or the 
		original authors/artists) credit for the work.

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     ============================================================= !-->&nbsp;<!--  The Button box as a client side imagemap --><MAP NAME="nav-main"><AREA SHAPE="rect" HREF="#mews" coords="20,18 185,40"><AREA SHAPE="rect" HREF="#webwonderings" coords="10,60 185,83"><AREA SHAPE="rect" HREF="#musings" coords="90,102 185,130"><AREA SHAPE="rect" HREF="#resources" coords="70,152 185,180"></MAP>
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" >
<TR>
<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/gm3.gif" ALT="Welcome to the Graphics Muse" NOSAVE HEIGHT=216 WIDTH=441 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>

<TD VALIGN=BOTTOM>
<CENTER><FONT SIZE=-1>Set your browser as wide as you'd like now.&nbsp;
I've fixed the Muse to expand to fill the aviailable space!</FONT></CENTER>

<CENTER><FONT SIZE=-2>&copy; 1997 by <A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@csn.net">mjh</A>&nbsp;</FONT></CENTER>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=10 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD WIDTH="10%" NOSAVE><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/muse-image-map.gif" ALT="Button Bar" USEMAP="#nav-main" HEIGHT=200 WIDTH=185 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>

<TD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="70%" NOSAVE><B><FONT SIZE=+1>muse:</FONT></B>&nbsp;
<OL>
<LI>
<I>v;</I> to become absorbed in thought&nbsp;</LI>

<LI>
<I>n;</I> [ fr. Any of the nine sister goddesses of learning and the arts
in Greek Mythology ]: a source of inspiration&nbsp;</LI>
</OL>
&nbsp;<IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/w.gif" ALT="W" HEIGHT=28 WIDTH=36 ALIGN=BOTTOM>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.&nbsp;
<CENTER><FONT SIZE=-1>[<A HREF="#mews">Graphics Mews</A>] [<A HREF="#webwonderings">WebWonderings</A>][<A HREF="#musings">Musings</A>]
[<A HREF="#resources">Resources</A>]</FONT></CENTER>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;
<BR><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/t.gif" ALT="T" HEIGHT=28 WIDTH=26 ALIGN=LEFT>his column
is dedicated to the use, creation, distribution, and discussion of computer
graphics tools for Linux systems.
<BR>&nbsp;
<BR>As expected, two months of material piled up while I was out wondering
the far reaches of the US in August.&nbsp; My travels took me to California
for SIGGRAPH, Washington DC for vacation (honest), Huntsville Alabama for
work (they kind that pays the rent) and just last week I was in Dallas
for a wedding.&nbsp; All that plane travel gave me lots of time to ponder
just where the Muse has come in the past year and where it should go from
here.&nbsp; Mixed with a good dose of reality from SIGGRAPH, I came up
with the topics for this month.<IMG SRC="./gx/hammel/gradients-film.jpg" HSPACE=10 VSPACE=10 HEIGHT=286 WIDTH=298 ALIGN=RIGHT>

<P>First, there are two new sections: <B><FONT COLOR="#006600">Reader Mail
</FONT></B>and <B><FONT COLOR="#006600">Web Wonderings</FONT></B>. Reader
Mail is an extension of Did You Know and Q and A.&nbsp; I'm getting much
more mail now than I&nbsp;did when I first started this column and many
of the questions are worthy of passing back to the rest of my readers.&nbsp;
I've also gotten many suggestions for topics.&nbsp; I&nbsp;wish I had time
to cover them all.

<P>Web Wonderings is new but may be temporary.&nbsp; I&nbsp;know that many
people are reading my column as part of learning how to do Web page graphics.&nbsp;
Its hard to deny how important the Web has become or how much more important
it will become in the future.&nbsp; I&nbsp;started reading a bit more on
JavaScript to see if the language is sufficient to support a dynamically
changing version of my Linux Graphics mini-Howto.&nbsp; Well, it is.&nbsp;
I'll be working (slowly, no doubt) on converting the LGH to a JavaScript
based set of pages.&nbsp; My hope is to make it easier to search for tools
of certain types.&nbsp; I&nbsp;can do this with JavaScript, although the
database will be psuedo static as an JavaScript array.&nbsp; But it should
work and requires no access to a Web server.

<P>Readers with Netscape 3.x or later browsers should notice a lot more
color in this column.&nbsp; The Netscape 4.x Page Composer makes it pretty
easy to add color to text and tables so I make greater use of color now.&nbsp;
Hopefully it will add more than it distracts.&nbsp; We'll see. I&nbsp;may
do a review of Netscape 4.x here or maybe for Linux Journal soon.&nbsp;
There are some vast improvements to this release of Netscape, although
the new reader (known as Collabra Discussions) is not one of them.
<BR>&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In this months column I'll be covering
...
<UL>
<LI>
Browser detection using JavaScript</LI>

<LI>
SIGGRAPH&nbsp;97 - what I saw, what I&nbsp;learned</LI>

<LI>
Designing Multimedia applications for Linux</LI>
</UL>
Oh yeah, one other thing:&nbsp; Yes, I know I spelled "Gandhi" wrong in
the logo used in the September 1997 Linux Gazette.&nbsp; I goofed.&nbsp;
I was more worried about getting the quote correct and didn't pay attention
to spelling.&nbsp; Well, I fixed it and sent a new version to our new editor,
Viki.&nbsp; My apologies to anyone who might have been offended by the
misspelling.&nbsp; Note:&nbsp; the logo has been updated at the SSC site.

<P><A NAME="mews"></A>
<BR>&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
<TR>
<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/mews.gif" ALT="Graphics Mews" HEIGHT=53 WIDTH=242 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 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>&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=3 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR>
<TD COLSPAN="3" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" HSPACE=30 VSPACE=2 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>

<TD></TD>
</TR>

<TR NOSAVE>
<TD WIDTH="50%">
<H3>
VRML 98</H3>
The third annual technical symposium focusing upon the research, technology
and applications of VRML, the Vritual Reality Modeling Language will be
held Feb 16-19, 1998 in Monterey, California.&nbsp; VRML 98 is sponsored
by ACM SIGGRAPH and ACM SIGCOMM in cooperation with the VRML Consortium.
Deadlines for submission are as follows:&nbsp;
<CENTER><TABLE BORDER COLS=2 WIDTH="60%" NOSAVE >
<TR BGCOLOR="#33CCFF" NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE>Papers</TD>

<TD>Mon. 22 Sep</TD>
</TR>

<TR BGCOLOR="#FFCC00" NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE>Panels</TD>

<TD VALIGN=CENTER ROWSPAN="3" NOSAVE>Fri. 3 Oct</TD>
</TR>

<TR NOSAVE>
<TD BGCOLOR="#FFCC00" NOSAVE>Workshops</TD>
</TR>

<TR NOSAVE>
<TD BGCOLOR="#FFCC00" NOSAVE>Courses</TD>
</TR>

<TR BGCOLOR="#33CC00" NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE>Video</TD>

<TD>Mon. 2 Feb</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE></CENTER>
Contact Information:&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER COLS=2 WIDTH="80%" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE>VRML 98 Main Web Site</TD>

<TD><A HREF="http://ece.uwaterloo.ca/vrml98">http://ece.uwaterloo.ca/vrml98</A></TD>
</TR>

<TR>
<TD>Courses</TD>

<TD><A HREF="mailto:vrml98-courses@ece.uwaterloo.ca">vrml98-courses@ ece.uwaterloo.ca</A></TD>
</TR>

<TR>
<TD>Workshops</TD>

<TD><A HREF="mailto:vrml98-workshops@ece.uwaterloo.ca">vrml98-workshops@
ece.uwaterloo.ca</A></TD>
</TR>

<TR>
<TD>Panels</TD>

<TD><A HREF="mailto:vrml98-panels@ece.uwaterloo.ca">vrml98-panels@ ece.uwaterloo.ca</A></TD>
</TR>

<TR>
<TD>Papers</TD>

<TD><A HREF="mailto:vrml98-papers@ece.uwaterloo.ca">vrml98-papers@ ece.uwaterloo.ca</A></TD>
</TR>

<TR>
<TD>Video Submissions</TD>

<TD><A HREF="mailto:vrml98-video@ece.uwaterloo.ca">vrml98-video@ ece.uwaterloo.ca</A></TD>
</TR>

<TR>
<TD>Demo Night</TD>

<TD><A HREF="mailto:vrml98-demos@ece.uwaterloo.ca">vrml98-demos@ ece.uwaterloo.ca</A></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;</TD>

<TD ROWSPAN="3" WIDTH="2" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>

<TD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="49%" NOSAVE>
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR>
<TD>
<H3>
Iv2Rib</H3>
Cow House Productions is please to present the first release of <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Iv2Rib</FONT></I></B>,
an Inventor 2.0 (VRML 1.0) to Renderman / BMRT converter. Source (C++)
and an Irix 5.3 binary are available at:&nbsp;

<P><A HREF="http://www.cowhouse.com/Home/Converters/converters.html">http://www.cowhouse.com/
Home/Converters/converters.html</A>&nbsp;

<P>Additionally, new updates (V0.12, 30-Jul-97) of both <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Iv2Ray
</FONT></I></B>(the Inventor to Rayshade converter) and <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Iv2POV
</FONT></I></B>(the inventor to POVRAY converter) are also available on
the same page, as both source (C++) and binaries for Irix 5.3</TD>
</TR>

<TR NOSAVE>
<TD BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=1></TD>
</TR>

<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE>Crack released the Abuse source code to the public domain recently.
Abuse was a shareware and retail game released for DOS, MacOS, Linux, Irix,
and AIX platforms.&nbsp;

<P>The source is available at&nbsp;

<P>&nbsp; <A HREF="http://games.3dreview.com/abuse/files/abuse_pd.tgz">http://games.3dreview.com/abuse/files/abuse_pd.tgz</A>&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp; and&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp; <A HREF="http://games.3dreview.com/abuse/files/abuse_pd.zip">http://games.3dreview.com/abuse/files/abuse_pd.zip</A>&nbsp;

<P>If you don't know the 1st thing about Abuse,&nbsp;

<P>&nbsp; <A HREF="http://crack.com/games/abuse">http://crack.com/games/abuse</A>&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp; and&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp; <A HREF="http://games.3dreview.com/abuse">http://games.3dreview.com/abuse</A>&nbsp;

<P>Lastly, if you want to discuss the source (this is a just-in-case thing-it
may very well not get used), we put a small newsgroup up at <A HREF="news://addicted.to.crack.com/crack.technical">news://addicted.to.crack.com/crack.technical.
</A>That is also where we'll prolly host a newsgroup about Golgotha DLL's,
mods, editting, movies and stuff like that later on.&nbsp;
<BR>Dave Taylor</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;</TD>
</TR>

<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>

<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
</TR>

<TR NOSAVE>
<TD>
<H3>
Version 0.2.0 of DeltaCine</H3>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">DeltaCine </FONT></I></B>is a software implemented
MPEG (ISO/IEC 11172-1 and 11172-2) decompressor and renderer for GNU/Linux
and X-Windows. It is available from <A HREF="ftp://thumper.moretechnology.com/pub/deltacine">ftp://thumper.moretechnology.com/pub/deltacine</A>.&nbsp;

<P>This project aims to provide portable C++ source code that implements
the system and video layers of the MPEG standard.&nbsp; This first release
will interpret MPEG 1 streams, either 11172-1 or raw 11172-2, and render
them to an X-Windows display.&nbsp; The project emphasizes correctness
and source code readability, so the performance suffers. It cannot maintain
synchronized playback on a 166MHz Pentium.&nbsp;

<P>Still, the source code contains many comments about the quality of the
implementation and the problems encountered when interpreting the standard.&nbsp;
All of the executing code was written from scratch, though there is an
IDCT (Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform) implementation adapted from Tom
Lane's IJG project that was used during development.&nbsp;

<P>This is an ALPHA release which means that the software comes with no
warranties, expressed or implied.&nbsp; It is being released under the
GNU Public License for the edification of the GNU/Linux user community.&nbsp;

<P>Limitations:&nbsp;
<UL>
<LI>
Requires ix86</LI>

<LI>
No playback synchronization.&nbsp; Movies play as fast as the decoder can
render the frames.</LI>

<LI>
Requires X-Windows server in 16bpp mode.</LI>
</UL>
Features:&nbsp;
<UL>
<LI>
Full decode of Part 1 (System) and Part 2 (Video) specification for ISO/IEC
11172.&nbsp; Full implementation except for synchronization.</LI>

<LI>
Reference quality output as compared to the Stanford implementation.</LI>

<LI>
User-mode multi-threading implemented as part of the decoder.</LI>
</UL>
</TD>

<TD VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE>
<H3>
RenderMan Module v0.01 for PERL 5</H3>
This module acts as a Perl5 interface to the Blue Moon Rendering Tools
(BMRT) RenderMan-compliant client library, written by Larry Gritz:&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.seas.gwu.edu/student/gritz/bmrt.html">http://www.seas.gwu.edu/student/gritz/bmrt.html</A>&nbsp;

<P>REQUIREMENTS&nbsp;
<BR>This module requires Perl 5, a C compiler, and BMRT.&nbsp;

<P>EXAMPLES&nbsp;
<BR>Some extra code has been added to the examples directory that should
enable you to convert LightWave objects to RIB or to a Perl script using
the RenderMan binding.&nbsp; More useful examples will be provided in future
releases.&nbsp;

<P>Updates will hopefully be uploaded to PAUSE once I am authorized to
upload there, and will be posted to my personal home page at:&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.gmlewis.com/">http://www.gmlewis.com/</A>&nbsp;

<P>AUTHOR&nbsp;
<BR>Glenn M. Lewis | <A HREF="mailto:glenn@gmlewis.com">glenn@gmlewis.com</A>&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;</TD>
</TR>

<TR NOSAVE>
<TD HEIGHT="1" BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=1></TD>
</TR>

<TR>
<TD>Sven Neumann released two more GIMP scripts for the megaperls script
collection. You can find them as usual at:&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www-public.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de/ ~neumanns/gimp/megaperls">http://www-public.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de/
~neumanns/gimp/megaperls</A>&nbsp;

<P>You'll need to patch the waves-plug-in if you want to use the waves-anim
script. The patch was posted a while ago on the list but hasn't made its
way into any semi-official release yet. It is also available from the web-site
mentioned above.&nbsp;

<P>Ed. Note:&nbsp; Please note that the current release of the GIMP is
a developers only release and not a public release.&nbsp; If you plan on
using it you should be very familiar with software development and C.&nbsp;
A public release is expected sometime before the end of the year.&nbsp;

<P>Sven Neumann&nbsp;
<BR>&lt;<A HREF="mailto:neumanns@uni-duesseldorf.de">neumanns@uni-duesseldorf.de</A>></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;</TD>
</TR>

<TR>
<TD COLSPAN="3" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

<H3>
t1lib-0.3-beta</H3>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">t1lib </FONT></I></B>is a library for generating
character- and string-glyphs from Adobe Type 1 fonts under UNIX. t1lib
uses most of the code of the X11 rasterizer donated by IBM to the X11-project.
But some disadvantages of the rasterizer being included in X11 have been
eliminated. Here are the main features:
<UL>
<LI>
t1lib is completely independent of X11 (although the program provided for
testing the library needs X11)</LI>

<LI>
fonts are made known to library by means of a font database file at runtime</LI>

<LI>
searchpaths for all types of input files are configured by means of a configuration
file at runtime</LI>

<LI>
characters are rastered as they are needed</LI>

<LI>
characters and complete strings may be rastered by a simple function call</LI>

<LI>
when rastering strings, pairwise kerning information from .afm-files may
optionally be taken into account</LI>

<LI>
an interface to ligature-information of afm-files is provided</LI>

<LI>
rotation is supported at arbitrary angles</LI>

<LI>
there's full support for extending and slanting fonts</LI>

<LI>
new encoding vectors may be loaded at runtime and fonts may be reencoded
using these encoding vectors</LI>

<LI>
antialiasing is implemented using three gray-levels between black and white</LI>

<LI>
a logfile may be used for logging runtime error-, warning- and other messages</LI>

<LI>
an interactive test program called "xglyph" is included in the distribution.
This program allows to test all of the features of the library. It requires
X11.</LI>
</UL>
For X11-users a special set of functions exists which:
<UL>
<LI>
draw directly into X11 drawbles</LI>

<LI>
respect fore- and background color of the graphics context</LI>

<LI>
provide opaque and transparent drawing mode</LI>

<LI>
provide automatic colored antialiasing</LI>
</UL>
Author:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Rainer Menzner (<A HREF="mailto:rmz@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de">rmz@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de</A>)

<P>You can get t1lib by anonymous ftp at:
<BR><A HREF="ftp://ftp.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bocum.de/pub/software/t1lib/t1lib-0.3-beta.tar.gz">ftp://ftp.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bocum.de/pub/software/t1lib/t1lib-0.3-beta.tar.gz</A>

<P>An overview on t1lib including some screenshots of xglyph can be found
at:
<BR><A HREF="http://www.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/ini/PEOPLE/rmz/t1lib.html">http://www.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/ini/PEOPLE/rmz/t1lib.html</A>
<BR>&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE >
<TR>
<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=1></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

<H3>
&nbsp;GTK Needs A Logo!</H3>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">GTK</FONT></I></B>, the GIMP Toolkit (I think,
at least thats what it used to stand for) is looking a for a logo. Something
that defines the essence of GTK, something that captures its soul and personality.
A frozen image of everything that GTK stands for. Or maybe just something
cool.

<P>The Prize

<P>The prize for submitting the winning logo is a very cool yourname@gimp.org
email alias. Thats right, if you win, you can be the envy of your friends
with your sparkling @gimp.org email alias.

<P>See <A HREF="http://www.gimp.org/contest.html">http://www.gimp.org/contest.html
</A>for more details.
<BR>&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" HEIGHT="1" BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=1></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE>
<H3>
Announcing MpegTV SDK 1.0 for Unix</H3>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">MpegTV SDK 1.0</FONT></I></B> is the first
toolkit that allows any X-windows application to support MPEG video without
having to include the complex code necessary to decode and play MPEG streams.&nbsp;

<P>MpegTV SDK 1.0 is currently available for:&nbsp;
<UL>
<LI>
Solaris 2.5 SPARC</LI>

<LI>
Solaris 2.5 x86</LI>

<LI>
IRIX 6.2</LI>

<LI>
Linux x86</LI>

<LI>
BSD/OS 3.0</LI>
</UL>
MpegTV also announces more good news: <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">MpegTV
Player 1.0</FONT></I></B> for Unix is now free for non-commercial use!&nbsp;
<BR>For more information on MpegTV products and to download MpegTV software,
please visit the MpegTV website:&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.mpegtv.com">http://www.mpegtv.com</A>&nbsp;

<P>Regards,&nbsp;
<BR>Tristan Savatier - President, MpegTV LLC&nbsp;</TD>

<TD WIDTH="1" BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=3></TD>

<TD NOSAVE>
<H3>
</H3>

<TABLE BORDER=0 CELLPADDING=5 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE>
<H3>
Announcing MpegTV Plug-in 1.0 for Unix</H3>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">MpegTV Plug-in 1.0 </FONT></I></B>is a streaming-capable
Netscape Plug-in that allows you to play MPEG movie embedded inside HTML
documents.&nbsp;

<P>Unlike other similar Netscape Plug-ins (e.g. the Movieplayer Plug-in
on SGI), MpegTV Plug-in is capable of streaming from the network, i.e.
you can play a remote MPEG stream immediately, without having to wait for
the MPEG file to be downloaded on your hard disk.&nbsp;

<P>MpegTV Plug-in 1.0 is currently available for:&nbsp;
<UL>
<LI>
Solaris 2.5 SPARC</LI>

<LI>
IRIX 6.2</LI>

<LI>
Linux x86</LI>

<LI>
Solaris 2.5 x86 (coming soon)</LI>

<LI>
BSD/OS 3.0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (coming soon)</LI>
</UL>
Get it now at <A HREF="http://www.mpegtv.com/plugin.html">http://www.mpegtv.com/plugin.html
</A>!&nbsp;
<BR>Regards, -- Tristan Savatier (President, MpegTV LLC)&nbsp;

<P>MpegTV:&nbsp;&nbsp; <A HREF="http://www.mpegtv.com">http://www.mpegtv.com</A>&nbsp;
<BR>MPEG.ORG: <A HREF="http://www.mpeg.org">http://www.mpeg.org</A>&nbsp;</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;
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<H3>
USENIX 1998 Annual Technical Conference</H3>
The 1998 USENIX Technical Conference Program Committee seeks original and
innovative papers about the applications, architecture, implementation,
and performance of modern computing systems. Papers that analyze problem
areas and draw important conclusions from practical experience are especially
welcome. Some particularly interesting application topics are:&nbsp;

<P>&nbsp;ActiveX, Inferno, Java, and other embeddable environments&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Distributed caching and replication&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Extensible operating systems&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Freely distributable software&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Internet telephony&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Interoperability of heterogeneous systems&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Nomadic and wireless computing&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Privacy and security&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Quality of service&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Ubiquitous computing and messaging&nbsp;

<P>A major focus of this conference is the challenge of technology: What
is the effect of commodity hardware on how we build new systems and applications?
What is the effect of next-generation hardware? We seek original work describing
the effect of hardware technology on software. Examples of relevant hardware
include but are not limited to:&nbsp;

<P>&nbsp;Cheap, fast personal computers&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Cheap, large DRAM and disks&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Flash memory&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Gigabit networks&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Wireless networks&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Cable modems&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;WebTV&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Personal digital assistants&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;Network computers&nbsp;

<P>The conference will also feature tutorials, invited talks, BOFs,&nbsp;
<BR>and Vendor Exhibits.&nbsp;

<P>For more information about this event:&nbsp;

<P>* Visit the USENIX Web site:&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp; http://www.usenix.org/events/no98/index.html&nbsp;

<P>* Send email to the USENIX mailserver at info@usenix.org.&nbsp; Your
message should contain the line:&nbsp; "send usenix98 conferences".&nbsp;

<P>* Or watch comp.org.usenix for full postings&nbsp;

<P>The USENIX Association brings together the community of engineers, system
administrators, scientists, and technicians working on the cutting edge
of computing. Its technical conferences are the essential meeting grounds
for the presentation and discussion of the most advanced information on
new developments in all aspects of advanced computing systems.&nbsp;</TD>

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<H3>
Ra-vec version 2.1b - convert plan drawings to 3D vector format</H3>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Ra-vec </FONT></I></B>is a program which can
convert plan drawings of buildings into a vector format suitable for the
creation of 3D models using the popular modelling package AC3D. It is freely
avalible for linux from&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/aspinr/ra-vec.html">http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/
computing/users/aspinr/ra-vec.html</A>&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;</TD>
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<H3>
xfpovray 1.2.4</H3>
A new release of the graphical interface to the cool ray-tracer POV-Ray
called <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">xfpovray </FONT></I></B>is now available.&nbsp;
It requires the most recent (test) version of the XForms library (0.87),
and supports most of the numerous options of POV-Ray.&nbsp; Hopefully 0.87
will migrate from test release to public release soon.&nbsp;

<P>This version of xfpovray adds a couple nice features, such as POV-Ray
templates to aid in writing scene files. Binary and source RPMs are also
available.&nbsp; Since xforms does not come in rpm, you may get a failed
dependency error.&nbsp; If you get this, just use the --nodeps option.&nbsp;

<P>You can view an image of the interface and get the RPMs and source code
from&nbsp;
<CENTER><A HREF="http://cspar.uah.edu/~mallozzir/">http://cspar.uah.edu/~mallozzir/</A></CENTER>


<P>There is a link there to the XForms home page if you don't yet have
this library installed.&nbsp;

<P>Bob Mallozzi &lt;<A HREF="mailto:mallozzir@cspar.uah.edu">mallozzir@cspar.uah.edu</A>>&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;</TD>
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<H3>
WSCG'98 - Call for Papers and Participation</H3>
Just a reminder:&nbsp;

<P>The Sixth International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics
and Visualization 98, in cooperation with EUROGRAPHICS and IFIP working
group 5.10 on Computer Graphics and Virtual Worlds, will be held in February
9 - 13, 1998 in Plzen at the University of West Bohemia close to PRAGUE,
the capital of Czech Republic&nbsp;

<P>Information for authors: <A HREF="http://wscg.zcu.cz">http://wscg.zcu.cz</A>
select WSCG'98&nbsp;
<BR>Contribution deadline:&nbsp; September 30, 1997</TD>
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<H3>
ivtools 0.5.7</H3>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">ivtools </FONT></I></B>contains, among other
things, a set of drawing editors written in C++ for Unix/X11.&nbsp; They
extend idraw with networked export/import, multi-frame flipbook editing,
and node/graph topology editing.&nbsp; A new release, 0.5.7, is now available.

<P>Source code at:
<BR><A HREF="http://www.vectaport.com/pub/src/ivtools-0.5.7.tar.gz">http://www.vectaport.com/pub/src/ivtools-0.5.7.tar.gz</A>
<BR><A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/draw/ivtools-0.5.7.tar.gz">ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/draw/ivtools-0.5.7.tar.gz</A>

<P>Linux elf binaries at:
<BR><A HREF="http://www.vectaport.com/pub/src/ivtools-0.5.7-LINUXx.tar.gz">http://www.vectaport.com/pub/src/ivtools-0.5.7-LINUXx.tar.gz</A>
<BR><A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/draw/ivtools-0.5.7-LINUX.tar.gz">ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/draw/ivtools-0.5.7-LINUX.tar.gz</A>

<P>Web page at:
<BR><A HREF="http://www.vectaport.com/ivtools/">http://www.vectaport.com/ivtools/</A>

<P>Vectaport Inc.
<BR><A HREF="http://www.vectaport.com">http://www.vectaport.com</A>
<BR><A HREF="mailto:info@vectaport.com">info@vectaport.com</A>
<BR>&nbsp;
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<H3>
Pixcon &amp; Anitroll 1.04</H3>
New features since version 1.04:
<UL>
<LI>
added DOS binaries to the distribution</LI>

<LI>
3DSMAX import/export plugin for Pixcon data files</LI>

<LI>
25% increase in rendering speed</LI>
</UL>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Pixcon </FONT></I></B>3D rendering package
that creates high quality images by using a combination of 11 rendering
primitives.&nbsp; <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Anitroll </FONT></I></B>is
a forward kinematic hierarchical based animation system that has some support
for some non-kinematic based animation (such as flock of birds, and autonomous
cameras).&nbsp; These tools are based upon the Graph library which is full
of those neat rendering and animation algorithms that those 3D faqs keep
mentioning.

<P>Why Pixcon &amp; Anitroll?&nbsp; Well, systems like Alias, Renderman,
3DS/3DSMAX, Softimage, Lightwave, etc are too expensive for average users
(anywhere from $1000 - $5000 US)&nbsp; and require expensive hardware to
get images in a reasonable amount of time.&nbsp; Conventional freeware
systems, such as BMRT, Rayshade, and POV are too slow (they're raytracers...).
Pixcon &amp; Anitroll is FREE, and doesn't take a long time to render a
frame (true, its not real time... but I'm working on it). It also implements
some rendering techniques that were presented at Siggraph 96 by Ken Musgrave
and was used to generate an animation for Siggraph '95.

<P>The Pixcon &amp; Anitroll Home page is at: <A HREF="http://www.radix.net/~dunbar/index.html">http://www.radix.net/~dunbar/index.html</A>

<P>Comments to <A HREF="mailto:dunbar@saltmine.radix.net">dunbar@saltmine.radix.net</A>
<BR>Availabe from:&nbsp; <A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/incoming/Linux/pixcon-105.tgz">ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/incoming/Linux/pixcon-105.tgz</A>
<BR>and will be moved to:
<BR><A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/rays/pixcon-105.tgz">ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/rays/pixcon-105.tgz</A>
<BR>&nbsp;
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<H3>
Glide 2.4 ported to Linux</H3>
Glide version 2.4 has now been ported to Linux and is available free of
charge. This library enables Linux users with 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics based
cards such as the Orchid Righteous 3D, Diamond Monster 3D, Canopus Pure
3D, Realvision Flash 3D, and Quantum Obsidian to write 3D applications
for the cards. The Voodoo Rush is not yet supported. The library is available
only in binary form.

<P>To quote 3Dfx's web page:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Glide is an optimized rasterization library that serves as
a software 'micro-layer' to the 3Dfx Voodoo accelerators. With Glide, developers
can harness the power of the Voodoo to provide perspective correct, filtered,
and MIP mapped textures at real-time frame rates - without having to work
directly with hardware registers and memory, enabling faster product development
and cleaner code.</BLOCKQUOTE>
As a separate effort, a module for Mesa is also under development to provide
an OpenGL like interface for the Voodoo Graphics cards.

<P>For more information on Glide please see:
<BR><A HREF="http://www.3dfx.com/download/sdk/index.html">http://www.3dfx.com/download/sdk/index.html</A>
<BR>For more download informtion for Glide see:
<BR><A HREF="http://www.3dfx.com/download/sdk/index.html">http://www.3dfx.com/download/sdk/index.html</A>
<BR>For more information on Mesa see:
<BR><A HREF="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~brianp/Mesa.html">http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~brianp/Mesa.html</A>
<BR>For an FAQ on 3Dfx on Linux see:
<BR><A HREF="http://www.gamers.org/~bk/xf3D/">http://www.gamers.org/~bk/xf3D/</A>
<BR>Finally, if you need to discuss all this, try the 3Dfx newsgroup:
<BR><A HREF="news://news.3dfx.com/3dfx.glide.linux">news://news.3dfx.com/3dfx.glide.linux</A>
<BR>&nbsp;
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<P><!--
		  -- Did You Know Section
		  -->
<H4>
Did You Know?</H4>
<!--
		  -- Q and A Section
		  -->
<H4>
<B><FONT SIZE=+0>Q and A</FONT></B></H4>
<I>Q:</I> Let me ask a graphic related question: is there a software which
converts GIF/JPEG file to transparent GIF/JPEG file?&nbsp; Raju Bathija
&lt;<A HREF="mailto:bathija@sindhu.theory.tifr.res.in">bathija@sindhu.theory.tifr.res.in</A>>

<P><I>A</I>: JPEG, to my knowledge, doesn't support transparency.&nbsp;
You have to use GIF (or PNG).&nbsp; GIF files can have a transparency added
by picking the color you want to be transparent.&nbsp; One of the colors,
and only one, can be specified as transparent.&nbsp; You can use xv to
pick the color.&nbsp; Then you can use the NetPBM tools to convert the
image to a transparent GIF.&nbsp; You would do something like
<CENTER><B><FONT SIZE=-1>giftopnm file.gif | ppmtogif -transparent rgb:ff/ff/ff
> newfile.gif</FONT></B></CENTER>


<P>Check the man page for ppmtogif for how to specify the color to use.
<BR>&nbsp;
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<H3>
Reader Mail</H3>
Chris Bentzel &lt;<A HREF="mailto:cbentzel@rhythm.com">cbentzel@rhythm.com</A>>
wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>At the end of your gamma correction discussion of graphics
muse issue 17, you mention that you were unable to find contact info for
Greg Ward. He is at <A HREF="mailto:gregl@sgi.com">gregl@sgi.com</A> (he
is now Greg Ward Larson-> believes in reciprocating on the maiden-married
name thing).However, a better link is to the radiance page: a high-end,
physically correct ray-tracing/radiosity renderer used mostly for architectural
design (and runs on Linux! Free source!)&nbsp; <A HREF="http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/HOME.html">http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/HOME.html</A></BLOCKQUOTE>
Jean Francois Martinez &lt;<A HREF="mailto:jfm2@club-internet.fr">jfm2@club-internet.fr</A>>
wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>I had just finished reading your article in LJ about Megahedron
and I was reading some of the examples and playing with them.&nbsp; I looked
in mhd/system/smpl_prims and found the following:
<CENTER><B><FONT SIZE=-1>coord_system=right_handed;</FONT></B></CENTER>
so you can do this
<CENTER><B><FONT SIZE=-1>picture smokey_train_pic with</FONT></B></CENTER>

<CENTER><B><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; coord_system=left_handed;</FONT></B></CENTER>
Notice than I put it just under the declaration of the top level object
(the one called by do). Of course if you use this for the examples provided
you will notice that now the camera is not focusing on the subject.</BLOCKQUOTE>
John P. Pomeroy &lt;<A HREF="mailto:pomerojp@ttc2.lu.farmingdale.edu">pomerojp@ttc2.lu.farmingdale.edu</A>>
wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Usually I skip over the Graphics Muse, (I'm a bit head, not
a graphic artist) but something drew me in this time.&nbsp; Perhaps it's
because I'm investigating the development of a Linux based Distance Learning
platform for for use in my networking classes.Anyway, one of the&nbsp;
least expensive resources I've found over time has been the <B>Winnov Videum-AV</B>.&nbsp;
An outstanding card but near as I can tell, there are no Linux drivers
.&nbsp; I contacted Winnov a while back and they're not interested in Linux
at all, but after reading about the efforts of the QuickCam folks I was
wondering if you could just mention that the Videum card exists, perhaps
simply asking if anyone is working on a driver?&nbsp; (And, no, I don't
own stock in Winnov nor know anyone that does.)Perhaps some of the programmers
out there are working on something, or maybe Winnov will take the hint.&nbsp;
I'm certain that a Videum card on Linux would outperform the same card
under NT.&nbsp; Imagine a streaming video service (Either Java based or
using the just released 60 stream Real Video Linux server) with a live
feed under Linux. Sure wish the folks at Winnov could!Anyway, thanks. The
'Muse has a good balance of technical material and artistic issues.&nbsp;
I'll be reading the 'Muse a lot more often, but first...... the back issues!</BLOCKQUOTE>
<I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'<B>Muse</B></FONT>:&nbsp; Well?&nbsp; Anyone
working on a driver for this?</I>

<P>Jim Tom Polk&nbsp; &lt;<A HREF="mailto:jtpolk@camalott.com">jtpolk@camalott.com</A>>&nbsp;
<A HREF="http://camalott.com/~jtpolk/">http://camalott.com/~jtpolk/ </A>wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Reading your column I noticed that you state that you don't
know of any animated GIF viewers for Linux. I use xanim.&nbsp; I usually
use gifmerge to create the image, and then load up the image and step through
it with xanim.&nbsp; I also find it useful to see just how some animations
are composed / created.&nbsp; The version I have installed is: <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">XAnim
</FONT></B>Rev 2.70.6.4 by Mark Podlipec (c) 1991-1997 I only found it
out by accident when I loaded an animated GIF by accident (I was clicking
on an mpeg file and missed it). You can start/stop/pause.&nbsp; Go forward
and backwards one frame at a time, and speed up or slow down the entire
sequence.&nbsp; You still have to use another utility to create the GIF,
but I use it all the time.Really enjoy your column.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: I got a number of replies
like this.&nbsp; I never tried xanim for animated GIFs.&nbsp; Sure enough,
it works.&nbsp; It just goes to show how much this wonderful tool can do.

<P>Alf Stockton &lt;<A HREF="mailto:stockton@acenet.co.za">stockton@acenet.co.za</A>>
wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>I have a number of JPEGs that I want to add external text to.
ie Comments on photographs I have taken with my QV-10 digital camera. Now
I don't want the text to appear on the picture. It must appear either next
to or below same. So in other words I want to create a large JPEG consisting
of some text and my picture. Of course it does not necessarily have to
be a JPEG but it must be something that a web browser can display as I
intend uploading same to my ISP.The thought was that I would create a HTML
document for each image and this would work but now I have a large number
of images &amp; I don't want to create an equal amount of HTMLs.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: I'm a little confused
here.&nbsp; Do you want the text visible at all?&nbsp; Or just include
the text as unprintable info (like in the header of the image)? If you
want the text in the header I'm not sure how to do this.&nbsp; I'm pretty
sure it can be done, but I've never messed with it.

<P>If you want the text visible but not overlapping the original image
there are lots of ways to get it done.&nbsp; I highly recommend the GIMP,
even though you feel its overkill - once you've learned to use it you'll
find it makes life much easier.&nbsp; However, if you just want a shell
script to do it you can try some of the NetPBM tools.&nbsp; NetPBM is a
whole slew of simple command line programs that do image conversion and
manipulations.&nbsp; One of the tools is pnmcat.&nbsp; To use this you'd
take two images and convert them to pnm files.&nbsp; For GIFs that would
be like
<CENTER><B><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>giftoppm file1.gif > file1.pnm</FONT></TT></B></CENTER>


<P>Then you use pnmcat like this:
<CENTER><B><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>pnmcat -leftright file1.pnm file2.pnm > final-image.pnm</FONT></TT></B></CENTER>


<P>This would place the two images side by side.&nbsp; You could then convet
this back to a GIF file for placing on the Web page.&nbsp; pnmcat has other
options allowing you to stack the images (-topbottom) and specify the way
to justify the smaller image if the images are not the same width/height.
There is a man page for pnmcat that comes with NetPBM.

<P>Note that the NetPBM tools do not have tools for dealing with JPEG images.
However, there are some tools called jpegtoppm and ppmtojpeg available
from the JPEG web site (I think).&nbsp; I'm not positive abou that.&nbsp;
I don't use these specific tools for dealing with JPEGs.

<P>If you want, you can always read in the JPEG with xv first and save
it as a PPM/PNM (these two formats are essentially the same) file first,
then use the NetPBM tools.

<P>Jeff Taylor &lt;<A HREF="mailto:jeff@adeno.wistar.upenn.edu">jeff@adeno.wistar.upenn.edu</A>>
wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>1)&nbsp; You mentioned [in your review of Megahedron in the
September issue of Linux Journal]some difficulty in writing the model information
to a file for rendering with an alternative renderer.&nbsp; This is important
to me as I would like to use PVMPOV for the final rendering.&nbsp; It wasn't
clear from what you wrote, is it difficult to do or impossible?</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: Difficult, but not impossible.&nbsp;
I think you can get model information via polygon data (vectors), but you'll
have to do the work of getting that out to the file format of interest.
I'm no expert, however.&nbsp; I used it only for a little while, to get
modestly familiar with it.&nbsp; The best thing to do is write to them
and ask the same question.&nbsp; It will get a better answer (one would
hope, anyway) and also show that the Linux community is interested in supporting
commercial products.
<BLOCKQUOTE>2)&nbsp; Does the modeller allow 2D images to be printed?&nbsp;
I'm thinking of CAD type 3-angle-view drawings.&nbsp; I'd like to use it
for CAD applications where a model is created and scale drawing can be
printed.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: There isn't a print function
for the 2D images, but you can save the images to a file and then print
them using some other tool, like xv or the GIMP. The manual has a section
on how to save the images.&nbsp; BTW, I'm assuming you mean the images
that have been rendered.&nbsp; These images can be saved in RAW&nbsp; or
TGA format using functions provided in the SMPL language.

<P>Daniel Weeks &lt;<A HREF="mailto:danimal@blueskystudios.com">danimal@blueskystudios.com</A>>
wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>I just want to start of by telling you that you are doing a
great job with the Graphic Muse and on the current article in the Linux
Jornal on Megahedron.&nbsp; This is where my questions come from.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: Thanks for the compliments!
<BLOCKQUOTE>First, with Megahedron I noticed that it is a progamatic/procedural
language for modeling (interestingly enough the language itself is not
that dissimilar to our cgiStudio language in structure and function {except
for that wierd commenting style}, in fact I already have a perl script
that translates most of SPML to cgiStudio :).&nbsp; The question here is
does Megahedron have any sort of interface over the demo mode, I guess
I mean something like (but it doesn't have to be as fully functional or
bloated as) SoftImage or Alias|Wavefront.&nbsp; Second can Megahedron support
NURBS patches and deforming geometry.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: Megahedron is a programming
API - actually a scripting API.&nbsp; The CD I got (which is the $99 version
they sell from their web pages) wasn't a demo, although it had lots of
demos on it.&nbsp; There is no X interface to the language (ie no graphical
front end/modeler).&nbsp; I suppose if there was enough interest they'd
look into it.&nbsp; Best thing to do is check their web page and get an
email address to ask for it.&nbsp; There might be a non-Unix graphical
front end, but I didn't check on that. As for Nurbs, there wasn't any mention
of support for it on the disk I got. In fact, I don't think I've come across
<I><B>any</B> </I>modellers (or modelling languages) aside from BMRT that
has support for NURBS on Linux.&nbsp; But Linux is just beginning to move
into this arena anyway, so its just a matter of time.
<BR>BTW:&nbsp; for those that don't know it, Blue Sky Studios is the special
effects house that is doing, among other things, the special effects for
the upcoming <B><U>Alien Resurrection</U></B> movie.&nbsp; Yes, it appears
Ripley may live forever.

<P>Hap Nesbitt &lt;<A HREF="mailto:hap@handmadesw.com">hap@handmadesw.com</A>>,
of Handmade Software wrote in reply to my review of <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Image
Alchemy</FONT></B>:
<BLOCKQUOTE>A very nice review thanks.&nbsp; BTW we do 81 formats now.&nbsp;
The new formats are documented in addendum.pdf. The Mews seems quite ambitious.&nbsp;
Is this all your work or do you get some help?</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: Its all mine, although
I've had a couple of people write articles on two separate occassions.&nbsp;
And Larry Gritz offered lots of help when I did the BMRT write ups.&nbsp;
I still owe the readers an advanced version of that series.
<BLOCKQUOTE>We've found a tool for porting Mac libraries to X. Our Mac
interface is beautiful and we should get it ported sometime in the next
6 months or so.&nbsp; I'll keep you posted. BTW people don't really buy
much Image Alchemy, they buy Image Alchemy PS to RIP PostScript files out
to large format inkjet plotters in HP-RTL format. If you give me your mailing
address I'll send you a poster done this way. I think you might enjoy it.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: Sounds great.&nbsp; Thanks
for the info Hap!

<P>G. Lee Lewis &lt;<A HREF="mailto:GLLewis@ecc.com">GLLewis@ecc.com</A>>
wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Your web pages look really nice.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: Thanks.
<BLOCKQUOTE>Did you use Linux software to create your web pages?</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: Yes.&nbsp; In fact, thats
all I use - Linux.&nbsp; I don't use MS for anything anymore.&nbsp; All
the software used to create the graphic images on my pages runs on Linux.
<BLOCKQUOTE>Can you say what you used?.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: Mostly the GIMP, a Photoshop
clone for Unices.&nbsp; "GIMP" stand for GNU Image Manipulation Program,
but the acronym kinda stinks (IMHO, of course).&nbsp; Its quite a powerful
program though. I also use xv quite a bit, along with tools like the NetPBM
toolkit (a bunch of little command line programs for doing various image
processing tasks), MultiGIF (for creating GIF animations) and Netscape's
4.x Page Composer for creating HTML.&nbsp; I just started using the latter
and not all my pages were created with it, but eventually I'll probably
switch from doing the HTML by hand (through vi) to only using the Page
Composer. For 3D images I use POV-Ray and BMRT.&nbsp; These require a bit
more understanding of the technology than a tool like the GIMP, but then
3D is at a different state of development than 2D tools like the GIMP.
<BLOCKQUOTE>What flavor of Linux do you like, redhat, debian, etc..??</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: Right now two of my 3
boxes at home are WGS Linux Pro's (which is really a Red Hat 3.x distribution)
and one is a Slackware (on my laptop).&nbsp; I like the Red Hat 4.2 distribution,
but it lacks support for network installs using the PCMCIA ethernet card
I have for my laptop.&nbsp; I plan on upgrading all my systems to the RH4.2
release by the end of the year.

<P>I've not seen the Debian distribution yet.&nbsp; Slackware is also quite
good. I liked their "setup" tool for creating packages for distribution
because it used a simple tar/gzip/shell script combination that was easy
to use and easy to diagnose.&nbsp; However, its not a real package management
system like RPM.&nbsp; "Consumers" (not hackers) will probably appreciate
RPM more than "setup".

<P>I also use commercial software for Linux when possible.&nbsp; I run
Applixware, which I like very much, and Xi Graphics AcceleratedX server
instead of the XFree86 servers.&nbsp; The Xi server is much easier to install
and supports quite a few more video adapters.&nbsp; However, it doesn't
yet support the X Input Extension unfortunately.&nbsp; The latest XFree86
servers do, and thats going to become important over the next year with
respect to doing graphics.
<BLOCKQUOTE>What do you think of Caldera OpenLinux?</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>:&nbsp;I haven't had a
chance to look it over.&nbsp; However, I fully support the commercial distributions.&nbsp;
I'm an avid supporter of getting Linux-based software onto the shelves
of software reseller stores like CompUSA or Egghead Software.&nbsp; Caldera
seems the most likely candidate to be able to get that done the quickest.&nbsp;
After that, we'll start to see commercial applications on the shelves too.&nbsp;
And thats something I'd love to see happen.&nbsp; I did buy the Caldera
Network Desktop last year but due to some hardware limitations decided
to go back to the Slackware distributions I had then.

<P>Of all the distributions Caldera probably has a better understanding
of what it takes to make a "product" out of Linux - something beyond just
packing the binaries and sticking them on a CD.&nbsp; A successful product
will require 3rd party products (ones with full end-user quality, printed
documentation and professional support organizations) and strategic alliances
to help prevent fragmentation.&nbsp; Fragmentation is part of what hurt
the early PC Unix vendors (like Dell and Everex) and what has plagued Unix
workstation vendors for years.

<P>So, in summary, I strongly support the efforts of Caldera, as well as
Red Hat, Xi Graphics, and all vendors who strive to productize Linux.

<P>&lt;<A HREF="mailto:veliath@jasmine.hclt.com">veliath@jasmine.hclt.com</A>>&nbsp;wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Is there some documentation available on GIMP - please, please
say there is and point me towards it.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#990000">'Muse</FONT></I></B>: No, not yet.&nbsp; A
couple of books are planned, but nothing has been started officially.&nbsp;
No online documentation exists yet.&nbsp; Its a major flaw in free software
in general which annoys me to no end, but even in commercial organizations
the documentation is usually the last thing to get done.

<P>There will be a 4 part series on the GIMP in the Linux Journal starting
with the November issue.&nbsp; I wrote this series.&nbsp; It is very introductory
but should help a little. I also did the cover art for that issue.&nbsp;
Let me know what you think!

<P>You can also grab any Photoshop 3 or Photoshop 4 book that covers the
basics for that program.&nbsp; The Toolbox (the main window with all the
little icons in it) is nearly exactly the same in both programs (GIMP and
Photoshop).&nbsp; Layers work the same (with some minor differences in
the way the dialog windows look).&nbsp; I taught myself most of what I
know based on "The Photoshop 3 Wow! Book" and a couple of others.

<P>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<BR><A NAME="webwonderings"></A>
<BR><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/webwonderings.jpg" HEIGHT=57 WIDTH=246>
<BR>&nbsp;
<H3>
Browser Detection with JavaScript</H3>
I recently started reading up on the latest features that will be supported
in the upcoming releases of the Netscape and MSIE Web browsers through
both the C|Net web site known as <A HREF="http://www.builder.com">Builder.com
</A>and another site known as <A HREF="http://www.developer.com">Developer.com</A>.&nbsp;
A couple of the more interesting features are <I><FONT COLOR="#006600">Cascading
Style Sheets</FONT></I>, which you'll often see referred to as <I><FONT COLOR="#006600">CSS</FONT></I>,
and layers.&nbsp; CSS will allow HTML authors to define more definitive
characteristics to their pages.&nbsp; Items such as the font family(Ariel,
Helvetica, and so forth), style (normal, italic, oblique), size, and weight
can be specified for any text on the page.&nbsp; Browsers will attempt
to honor these specifications and if they can't do so they will select
appropriate defaults.&nbsp; CSS handles most of the obvious characteristics
of text on a page plus adds the ability to position text in absolute or
relative terms.&nbsp; You can also clip, overflow, and provide a z-index
to the position of the text.&nbsp; The z-index positioning is useful because
it provides a means of accesing text and graphics in layers.&nbsp; By specifying
increasing values of z to a position setting you can effectively layer
items on a page. Builder.com and Developer.com both have examples of these
extensions to HTML that are fairly impressive.&nbsp; There is a table of
the new CSS features available at <A HREF="http://www.cnet.com/Content/Builder/Authoring/CSS/table.html">http://www.cnet.com/Content/Builder/Authoring/CSS/table.html.</A>&nbsp;&nbsp;
You will need Netscape 4.x to view these pages.

<P>CSS is about to make web pages a whole lot more interesting.

<P>The down side to CSS is that its new.&nbsp; Any new technology has a
latency period that must pass before the technology is sufficiently distributed
to be useful to the general populace.&nbsp; In other words, the browsers
aren't ready yet, or will just be released at the time this goes to print,
so adding CSS elements to your pages will pretty much go unnoticed for
some time.&nbsp; I would, however, recommend becoming familiar with them
if you plan on doing any serious Web page design in the future.&nbsp; In
the meantime we still have our JavaScript 1.1 and good ol' HTML 3.0.

<P>Ok, enough philosophizing, down to some nitty gritty.

<P>I just updated <A HREF="http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel/gimp/gimp.html">my
GIMP pages </A>to reflect the fact that the 0.54 version is pretty much
dead and the 0.99 version is perpetually "about to become 1.0".&nbsp; What
that means is I've dropped most of my info and simply put up a little gallery
with some of the images I've created with the GIMP.&nbsp; Along with the
images, including a background image that was created using nothing more
than a set of gradients created or modified with the gradient editor in
the GIMP, I've added some Javascript code to spice up my navigation menus
and a couple of simple animated GIFs.&nbsp; It was probably more fun to
do than it is impressive.&nbsp; If you check out these pages you'll find
its a little more attractive with Netscape 4.x since I'm using a feature
for tables that allows me to specify background images for tables, rows
and even individual cells.&nbsp; Netscape 3.x users can still see most
of the effects, but a few are lost.

<P>I had added some JavaScript code to the <A HREF="http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel/nav-top.html">main
navigation page of my whole site </A>some time back.&nbsp; I sent email
to my brother, who does NT work at Compaq, and a Mac-using friend asking
them to take a look at it and see what they thought.&nbsp; It turned out
MSIE really disliked that code and the Netscape browser on the Mac didn't
handle the image rollers correctly (image rollovers cause one image to
be replaced by another due to some user initiated action - we'll talk about
those in a future Web Wonderings).&nbsp; Shocking - JavaScript wasn't really
cross platform as was first reported.&nbsp; Well, its a new technology
too.&nbsp; The solution is to add code to determine if the rest of the
code should really execute or not.&nbsp; I needed to add some browser detection
code.

<P>That was .... a year ago?&nbsp; I&nbsp;can't remember, its been so long
now.&nbsp; Well, while scanning the CSS and other info recently I ran across
a few JavaScript examples that explained exactly how to do this.&nbsp;
I now take this moment to share it with my readers.&nbsp; Its pretty basic,
so I'll show it first, then explain it.&nbsp;&nbsp; Note:&nbsp; the following
columns might be a little hard to read in windows less than about 660 pixels
wide.&nbsp; Sorry 'bout that.
<BR>&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 CELLPADDING=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH="60%" NOSAVE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&lt;SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1"></FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&lt;!--
<FONT COLOR="#993399">// Activate Cloaking Device</FONT>&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1><FONT COLOR="#993399">//***************************************</FONT>&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1><FONT COLOR="#993399">//
Browser Detection - check which browse</FONT>&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1><FONT COLOR="#993399">//
we're working with.</FONT>&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1><FONT COLOR="#993399">//
Based loosely on code from both Tim&nbsp;</FONT>&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT COLOR="#993399"><FONT SIZE=-1>//
Wallace and the Javascript section of</FONT></FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1><FONT COLOR="#993399">//
www.developer.com.</FONT>&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1><FONT COLOR="#993399">//***************************************</FONT>&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1></FONT></TT><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>browserName
= navigator.appName;&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>browserVersion
= parseInt(navigator.appVersion);&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>browserCodeName
= navigator.appCodeName;&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>browserUserAgent
= navigator.appUserAgent;&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>browserPlatform
= navigator.platform;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1></FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1><FONT COLOR="#993399">//
Test for Netscape browsers</FONT>&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>if
( browserName == "Netscape" &amp;&amp;&nbsp;<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp; browserVersion
>= 4 )&nbsp;&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; bVer =
"n4";&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>if ( browserName == "Netscape"
&amp;&amp;&nbsp;<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp; browserVersion == 3 )&nbsp;&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;
bVer = "n3";&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>if ( browserName ==
"Netscape" &amp;&amp;&nbsp;<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp; browserVersion == 2 )&nbsp;&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;
bVer = "n1";&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1><FONT COLOR="#993399">//
Test for Internet Explorer browsers</FONT>&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>if
( browserName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer" &amp;&amp;&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
browserVersion == 2 ) bVer = "e2";&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>if
( browserName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer" &amp;&amp;&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
browserVersion == 3 ) bVer = "e3";&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>if
( browserName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer" &amp;&amp;&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
browserVersion >= 4 ) bVer = "e4";&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1><FONT COLOR="#993399">//
Deactivate Cloaking</FONT>&nbsp; -->&nbsp;</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&lt;/SCRIPT></FONT></TT></BLOCKQUOTE>
</TD>

<TD VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>The first line tells browsers that a script is about
to follow.&nbsp; The LANGUAGE construct is supposed to signify the scripting
language, but is not required. If the LANGUAGE tag is left off browsers
are supposed to assume the scripting language to be JAVASCRIPT.&nbsp; The
only other language available that I'm aware of currently is VBSCRIPT for
MSIE&nbsp;&nbsp; Browsers that do not understand this HTML element simply
ignore it.&nbsp; The next line starts the script.&nbsp; All scripts are
enclosed in HTML comment structures.&nbsp; By doing this the script can
be hidden from browsers that don't understand them (thus the comment on
"cloaking").&nbsp; Note that scripts can start and stop anywhere in your
HTML document.&nbsp; Most are placed in the &lt;HEAD> block at the top
of the page to make debugging a little easier, but thats not required.&nbsp;

<P>Comments in scripts use the C++ style comment characters, either single
lines prefixed with // or multiple lines that start with /* and end with
*/.&nbsp; I placed the comments in the example in a purple color for those
with browsers that support colored text, just to make them stand out from
the real code a little.&nbsp;

<P>The next five lines grab identification strings from the browser by
accessing the <B>navigator </B>object.&nbsp; The first two, which set the
browserName and browserVersion variables,&nbsp; are obvious and what you
will use most often to identify browsers in your scripts.&nbsp; The <B>appCodeName
</B>is "Mozilla"&nbsp;for Netscape and may not be set for MSIE.&nbsp; The
<B>appUserAgent </B>is generally a combination of the appCodeName and the
appVersion, although it doesn't have to be.&nbsp; Often you can use grab
this string and parse out the information you are really looking for.&nbsp;
The last item, the <B>platform </B>property for the navigator object, was
added in Javascript 1.2.&nbsp; Be careful - this code tries to access a
property that not all browsers can handle!&nbsp; You may want to embed
the browserPlatform assignment inside one of the IF statements below it
to be safe.

<P>Now we do some simple tests for the browsers our scripts can support.
Note that the tests are fairly simply - we just test the string values
that we grabbed for our browserName and browserVersion variables.&nbsp;
In the first set of tests we check for Netscape browsers.&nbsp; The second
set of tests test for MSIE browsers.&nbsp; We could add code inside these
tests to do platform specific things (like special welcome messages for
Linux users!) but in practice you'll probably want this particular script
to only set a global flag that can be tested later, in other scripts where
the real work will be done.&nbsp; Remember - you can have more than one
script in a single HTML&nbsp;page and each script has access to variables
set in other scripts.
<BR>&nbsp;</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
Why is it important to test for browers versions?&nbsp; Simple - JavaScript
is a new technology, introduced in Netscape's 2.0 release of their Navigator
browser.&nbsp; Microsoft, despite whining that JavaScript isn't worth supporting,
added support for the language in their 3.0 browser.&nbsp; The problem
is that each version, for either browser, supports the language to different
extents.&nbsp; For example, one popular use of the language is "image rollovers".&nbsp;
These allow images to change in the display based when the mouse is placed
over the image.&nbsp; Various versions of Netscape from 2.0 handled this
just fine.&nbsp; The Mac version had a bug in 3.0 that would not clear
the original image before updating with the new image.&nbsp; MSIE 2.0 and
3.0 didn't like this bit of JavaScript at all, popping up error windows
in protest.&nbsp; Knowing the browser and platform information can help
you design your JavaScript to work reasonably well on any platform.&nbsp;

<P>
<HR WIDTH="100%">

<P><A NAME="musings"></A>
<BR>&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
<TR>
<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/musings.gif" ALT="Musings" HEIGHT=52 WIDTH=247 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;
<H2>
SIGGRAPH 97</H2>
Unfortunately I'm not able to bring you my experiences at SIGGRAPH&nbsp;this
month.&nbsp; On my trip I&nbsp;took notes in my NEC Versa notebook (running
Linux, of course).&nbsp; Unfortunately I left the power supply and power
cable in my motel room and by the time I&nbsp;realized it after I returned
the motel could not find it.&nbsp; Its probably on some used computer resellers
shelves now.&nbsp; Anyway, I&nbsp;just ordered a replacement.&nbsp; I'll
have my SIGGRAPH&nbsp;report for you next month.&nbsp; Sorry about that.&nbsp;
I&nbsp;am, of course, taking donations to cover the cost of replacement.&nbsp;
&lt;grin>
<BR>&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=1></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=3 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD WIDTH="50%" NOSAVE>
<H2>
Designing Multimedia Applications</H2>
I&nbsp;recently picked up a copy of <B>Design Graphics</B> from my local
computer bookstore.&nbsp; This is a monthly magazine with a very high quality
layout that covers many areas of computer graphics in great detail.&nbsp;
The magazine is rather pricey, about $9US, but so far has proven to be
worth the price.&nbsp; If you are into Graphic Design and/or User Interface
Design it might be worth your time and money to check out this magazine.

<P>The July issue focused on <B>MetaCreations</B>, the company that was
created from the merger of <B>MetaTools </B>and <B>Fractal Design</B>.&nbsp;
MetaTools founders include<B><I><FONT COLOR="#993300">Kai Krause</FONT></I></B>,
a unique designer and software architect, the man responsible for the bold
interfaces found in MetaTools products like <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Soap
</FONT></I></B>and <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">GOO</FONT></I></B>.&nbsp;
This issue also included very detailed shots of the interface for Soap.&nbsp;
It was while reading this issue and studying the interface for Soap that
I realized something basic:&nbsp; Multimedia applications can look like
anything you want.&nbsp; You just have to understand a little about how
Graphical Interfaces work and a lot about creating graphical images.

<P>Graphical Interfaces are simply programs which provide easily recognizable
displays that permit users to interact with the program.&nbsp; These interfaces
are event driven, meaning they sit in a loop waiting for an event such
as a mouse click or movement and then perform some processing based on
that event.&nbsp; There are two common ways to create programs like this.&nbsp;
You can use a application programming interface, often referred to as an
API, like Motif or OpenGL.&nbsp; Or you can use a scripting interface like
HTML&nbsp;with Java/JavaScript or VRML.&nbsp; Which method you choose depends
on the applications purpose and target audience.

<P>So, who is the target audience?&nbsp; My target audience for this column
is the multitudes of Linux users who want to do something besides run Web
servers.&nbsp; Your target audience will either be Linux/Unix users or
anyone with access to a computer no matter what platform they use.&nbsp;
In the first case you have a choice:&nbsp; you can use either the API's
or you can make use of HTML/VRML&nbsp;and browser technology.&nbsp; If
you are looking for cross-platform support you will probably go with browser
technology.&nbsp; Note that a third alternative exists - native Java which
runs without the help of a browser - but that this is even newer than browser
technology.&nbsp; You'll have about a year to wait till Java can be used
easily across platforms.&nbsp; Browser technology, although a little shakey
in some ways, is already here.
<BR><P>In order to use an API&nbsp;for your multimedia application you
need to choose a widget set.&nbsp; A&nbsp;widget set is the part of the
API that handles windowing aspects for you.&nbsp; Motif has a widget set
that provides 3D buttons, scrollbars, and menus.&nbsp; Mutlimedia applications
have higher demands than this, however. The stock Motif API cannot handle
MPEG&nbsp;movies, sound, or even colored bitmaps.&nbsp; It must be used
in conjunction with OpenGL, <A HREF="http://www.mpegtv.com">MpegTV</A>'s
library, the <A HREF="http://www.4front-tech.com">OSS </A>sound interface
and the XPM&nbsp;library to provide a full multimedia development environment.&nbsp;
The advantage to the API&nbsp;method is control - the tools allow the developer
the ability to create applications that are much more sophisticated and
visually appealing than with browser based solutions.&nbsp; An API solution,
for example, can run in full screen mode without a window manager frame,
thus creating the illusion that it is the only application running on the
X server.&nbsp; In order to get the effects you see in MetaTool's Soap
you will need to create 2D and 3D&nbsp;pixmaps to be used in Motif label
and button widgets.&nbsp; If you do this you should turn off the border
areas which are used to create Motif's 3D button effects. You will also
need to write special <I>callbacks </I>(routines called based on an event
which you specify) to swap the pixmaps quickly in order to give the feeling
of motion or animation.

<P>Even with the use of 3D&nbsp;pixmaps in Motif you still won't have the
interactivity you desire in your multimedia application.&nbsp; To add rotating
boxes and other 3D effects with which the user can interact you will need
to embed the OpenGL&nbsp;widget, available from the <A HREF="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~brianp/Mesa.html">MesaGL&nbsp;</A>package,
into your Motif program.&nbsp; By creating a number of OpenGL&nbsp;capable
windows you can provide greater 3D&nbsp;interactivity than you can by simply
swapping pixmaps in Motif labels and buttons.&nbsp; The drawback here is
that you will be required to write the code which registers events within
given areas of the OpenGL&nbsp;widget.&nbsp; This is not a simple task,
but it is not impossible.&nbsp; Using OpenGL&nbsp;with Motif is a very
powerful solution for multimedia applications, but it is not for the faint
of heart developer.

<P>Using browser technology to create a multimedia application is a little
different.&nbsp; First, the browser will take care of the event catching
for you.&nbsp; You simply need to tell it what part of a page accepts events,
which events it should watch for and what to do when that event happens.&nbsp;
This is, conceptually, just like using the API&nbsp;method.&nbsp; In reality,
using a browser this way is much simpler because the browser provides a
layer of abstraction to simplify the whole process.&nbsp; You identify
what parts of the page accept input via HTML&nbsp;markup using links, anchors,
and forms and then use JavaScript's <I>onEvent </I>style handlers, such
as onClick or onMouseOver, to call an event handler.&nbsp; Formatting your
application is easier using the HTML&nbsp;markup language than trying to
design the interface using the API.&nbsp; You can have non-rectangular
regions in imagemaps, for example, that accept user input.&nbsp; API's
can also have non-rectangular regions, but HTML&nbsp;only requires a single
line of code to specify the region.&nbsp; An API&nbsp;can use hundreds
of lines of code.
<CENTER><A HREF="#next-column">-Top of next column-</A></CENTER>
</TD>

<TD WIDTH="3" BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=1></TD>

<TD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="50%" NOSAVE>
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR>
<TD><LH><A NAME="next-column"></A><B>More Musings...</B>&nbsp;</LH>&nbsp;
<BR>No other musings - what?&nbsp; This wasn't enough for you?&nbsp; &lt;grin>
<BR>&nbsp;</TD>
</TR>

<TR NOSAVE>
<TD BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=1></TD>
</TR>

<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE><P>
<BR>Ok, since we know using API's can be complex, and because I'm going
to run out of room long before I can cover how to use an API&nbsp;to do
a multimedia application, lets look at creating an application using browser
technology.

<P>Creating web pages is pretty easy.&nbsp; If you haven't had a chance
yet, take a look at <B>Netscape 4.0</B>.&nbsp; It includes a tool called
the <B>Page Composer</B> which allows for WYSIWYG creations of web pages.&nbsp;
This column was created using Page Composer.&nbsp; Web pages are not enough,
of course.&nbsp; We need graphics, animations and sound.&nbsp; Not to mention
interaction with files on disk.

<P>Graphics, animations and sound can easily be embedded in a web page
with links.&nbsp; Your application will probably need to provide players
for any animations or sounds you provide unless you feel really confident
users will already have players.&nbsp;&nbsp; For animations on Linux systems,
other than animated GIFs which are supported natively in most browsers
these days, you can try <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">xanim</FONT></I></B>.&nbsp;
Your installation process will have to explain how to install the players.&nbsp;
JavaScript does permit you to query what players and plug-ins are available
but doesn't appear to give you the ability to automatically launch them
without having first registered them with the browser.

<P>Sound can be added just like the graphics and animations.&nbsp; You
simply have links to the sound files.&nbsp; Not all Linux systems will
have sound available.&nbsp; You might want to consider writing a plug-in
which checks for the sound devices before trying to play sounds and having
this plug-in installed for your sound files.&nbsp; Security issues may
prevent a plug-in from opening a device file.&nbsp; You should check the
Netscape plug-in API&nbsp;to find out what files you can and cannot open.

<P>You might be wondering how you can use a browser for a multimedia application
on a CD.&nbsp; Don't forget - both MSIE&nbsp;and Netscape allow you to
view HTML documents on the native system.&nbsp; On Netscape you can just
use something like <B><FONT SIZE=-1>file:/cdrom/start.html</FONT></B> to
open up the main page of the application.&nbsp; Any links - sound, graphics,
or animations - can be displayed or played when the page is first loaded
using JavaScript's <I>onLoad </I>event handler.&nbsp; Graphics, animations,
sound and Java applets do not have to be served via a Web server to be
viewed or run by the browser.&nbsp; And JavaScript is embedded in the HTML&nbsp;page
so it doesn't require a Web server either.&nbsp; As long as you use relative
links (relative to the directory where your applications start page is
located) your users won't need access to a Web server to use your HTML-based
multimedia application.

<P>Well, we've covered just about all the things you'll want to do in your
program except how to access files.&nbsp; Security in browsers and with
Java has traditionally been rather zealous - the systems were secure by
denying all access to your hard drives.&nbsp; Thats still the case even
with JavaScript 1.2.&nbsp; There are no real file I/O&nbsp;commands in
the JavaScript language.&nbsp; In order to place data in your application
you will need to place it all in static arrays embedded in JavaScript code
in a page.&nbsp; Fortunately you can place this data in separate files
and link to them when the page is loaded.&nbsp; To do this you would use
the <B>SRC=</B> attribute of the <B>SCRIPT&nbsp;</B>tag.&nbsp; Netscape
3.0 or later browsers will read this and load the script file as if it
were embedded at the SCRIPT&nbsp;tag of the original page.&nbsp; This will
not work for pre-3.0 browsers, some of the beta 4.0 browsers or (apparently)&nbsp;any
of the MSIE browsers.

<P>The SCR attribute&nbsp; provides some level of control for maintaining
your data files, but it also means your data is in user readable files
on the CD. If you use Java applets instead you have the ability to compile
this data into an object file but you still don't have access to your file
system.&nbsp; It may be possible to read data from files using plug-ins
in order to perform some interactive operations but I'm not familiar with
the Netscape or MSIE&nbsp;plug-in API's and suspect they also have some
measure of security that may prevent this.&nbsp; Reading files seems harmless
enough, but there are reasons to disallow this practice. There is a way
to get read/write access to the users filesystem from a JavaScript or Java
application - <I>certificates</I>.&nbsp; This is a new technology and I'm
not that familiar with its use yet.&nbsp; <B><U>The Official Netscape JavaScript
1.2 Book </U></B>describes certificates and how to obtain and create them.&nbsp;
I&nbsp;suggest taking a look at this book (at the end of chapter 14) if
you are interested in this.

<P>As I reread this article I&nbsp;realize what is so crystal clear in
my mind now is probably still a muddy swamp to my readers.&nbsp; Don't
fret.&nbsp; I&nbsp;covered a lot of material in a rather short space.&nbsp;
What you should do is first pick a method - API&nbsp;or browsers.&nbsp;
Then pick one part of that method and start reading all you can about it.&nbsp;
Personally, I&nbsp;understand the API&nbsp;methods better since I'm a programmer
by trade.&nbsp; The browser technology is interesting in that it provides
the User Interface (UI) that is filled in by the developer with images
and sound.&nbsp; Abstrasting the UI&nbsp;in this manner is the future of
applications but its still in its early days of development.&nbsp; In either
case you still need an understanding of what each piece of the puzzle does
for you. The API&nbsp;method will give you more control and access to databases
without the need for servers (you can embed the database code in the application).&nbsp;
The browser method is easier to prototype and develop but has limited access
to the system for security reasons. Either method can produce stunning
effects, if you understand how all the pieces fit together.&nbsp; And when
you look at MetaCreations products, like Soap and GOO, you can see the
kinds of effects that are possible.</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE >
<TR>
<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=1></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;<A NAME="resources"></A>
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
<TR>
<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/resources.gif" ALT="Resources" HEIGHT=57 WIDTH=246 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
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>&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE><A HREF="http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel/linux/lgh.html">Linux
Graphics mini-Howto</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel/ugu/ugu.html">Unix Graphics Utilities</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.digiserve.com/ar/linux-snd/">Linux Multimedia Page</A>&nbsp;

<P>Some of the Mailing Lists and Newsgroups I keep an eye on and where
I get alot of the information in this column:&nbsp;

<P><A HREF="http://www.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/~gimp/">The Gimp User and Gimp
Developer Mailing Lists</A>.&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.irtc.org">The IRTC-L discussion list</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing">comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.graphics.rendering.renderman">comp.graphics.rendering.renderman</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.graphics.api.opengl">comp.graphics.api.opengl</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.os.linux.announce">comp.os.linux.announce</A>&nbsp;</TD>

<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/gmuse.jpg" HSPACE=10 HEIGHT=270 WIDTH=190></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>


<P><A NAME="future"></A>
<H2>
Future Directions</H2>
Next month:
<UL>
<LI>
Web Wonderings - Adding JavaScript Rollovers to simulate dynamic images</LI>

<LI>
My SIGGRAPH&nbsp;notes, if I can get my notebook running again.</LI>

<LI>
Maybe a look at libgr, if I&nbsp;have time.</LI>
</UL>
<A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@csn.net">Let me know what you'd like to hear about!</A>

<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P> 
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1997, Michael J. Hammel<BR> 
Published in Issue 22 of the Linux Gazette, August 1997</H5></center>

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