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These changes to Image Alchemy v1.6.2 were made after the manual and addendum were printed: Viewing changes (MS-DOS version only) Support for additional 15 and 24 bit SVGA boards: Alchemy now supports 15 bit viewing for the following chipset equipped SVGA boards which have the appropriate amount of memory and DAC: Tseng 4000, S3, and NCR. Additionally, 24 bit viewing support is provided for 24 bit capable boards from: ATI, Genoa, Diamond, and Orchid. The best support for 15 and 24 bit viewing is for VESA driver equipped SVGA boards. Alchemy automatically picks the highest colour resolution which will fit the image you are trying to view. For example, if your SVGA boards supports 800x600x15 bit and 640x480x24 bit, Alchemy will use the 640x480x24 bit mode when viewing images which are 640x480 and smaller and the 800x600 mode when viewing larger images. You can of course override this by giving Alchemy a resolution parameter after the view command (for example, --v 640, to view in 640x480x24 bit mode). Offset view The -_ (dash underscore) option can now be used to position an image when viewing. The -_ option takes two parameters, the xoffset and yoffset (both in pixels). For example: -_ 0 -100 moves the image up 100 pixels, and -_ 200 0 moves the image to the right 200 pixels. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Formats Calcomp CCRF Alchemy now reads and writes Calcomp raster files for thermal transfer printers and CCRF files for electrostatic plotters. To write a Calcomp file, use --l[type], where type is: Thermal transfer printer files: 0: uncompressed 1: white space suppression 2: run length compression Electrostatic plotter files (CCRF): 6: 8 bit bytes, 8 bit compression units 7: 8 bit bytes, 16 bit compression units 8: 8 bit bytes, 32 bit compression units If the image is colour, the resulting file will be CMYK. If the image is grayscale or a -b is specified, the file will be black/white. In either case a UCR file may be used; see the -C option in the Alchemy Manual. Alchemy searches for files with .ccrf, .crf, and .prn extensions; it creates files with the .crf extension. MacPaint Alchemy is now compatible with MacPaint files. MacPaint files are black and white images used by Macintosh computers. To write a MacPaint file use the --t option. Since MacPaint images are always black and white the use of the -c2 and -b options is assumed. The --t1 option will cause Alchemy to create a MacPaint file with a MacBinary header. This is useful for transferring the resulting image to a Macintosh by modem. MacPaint images are always 576x720 pixels; if you are attempting to write a MacPaint file which is larger, Alchemy will report this as an error. If you write an image which is smaller Alchemy will pad the image with white space along the right-hand side and bottom. Alchemy searches for files with the extension .mac and writes files with the extension .mac. Puzzle Alchemy now supports Puzzle files used by the UNIX supplied Puzzle program. To write a Puzzle file use the --U option. Puzzle files are always paletted, so Alchemy assumes the use of the -8 option when writing a puzzle file. Alchemy searches for files with the extension .pzl, .puzzle, and .cm and writes files with the extension .pzl. OS/2 Alchemy now supports OS/2 bitmap files used by OS/2. Alchemy reads and writes 1, 4, 8, and 24 bit uncompressed and 4 and 8 bit RLE compressed files. To write a OS/2 Bitmap file use the -O[compression] (capital O), where compression is: 0:None 1:RLE (only allowed for 4 and 8 bit images) The default is 0. Alchemy searches for and writes files with the extension .bmp. Sun Icon Alchemy now supports Sun Icon files used by OpenLook. To write a Sun Icon file use the --N option. Sun Icon files are always black and white, so Alchemy assumes the use of the -c2 and -b options when writing a Sun Icon image. Alchemy searches for and writes files with the extension .icon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Changes to Existing Formats New IFF formats Alchemy can now read PBM type IFF files. New JPEG formats Alchemy can now read most multi-scan JPEG files. New PCL formats In addition to the Uncompressed and TIFF compressed PCL files which previous versions of Alchemy are able to read and write, Alchemy now supports RLE compressed, Delta Row compressed, landscape mode, and LaserJet 4 PCL files. To write an RLE compressed PCL file use compression type 1 after the -P command (e.g. -P1). To write a Delta Row compressed PCL file use compression type 3 after the -P command (e.g. -P3). Alchemy automatically recognizes RLE and Delta Row compression when reading PCL files. TIFF compression, which previous versions of Alchemy supported, is still available as option 2. Note that not all PCL compatible printers can print all types of compressed files. LaserJet II, IID, and earlier printers can print only uncompressed PCL files. The LaserJet IIp can print only uncompressed and RLE compressed files. LaserJet III, IIID, IIIp, IIIsi, and 4 printers can print all types of PCL compressed files. In general the higher the compression type the better the compression ratio. To write a Landscape PCL file add a 10 to the PCL compression type. For example, to write an uncompressed, landscape mode PCL file use -P 10. Because of changes in the PCL format, only LaserJet Series III and 4 printers can print Alchemy produced landscape PCL files. To write a PCL file which makes use of the LaserJet 4's 600 DPI resolution capabilities add a 100 to the PCL compression type. For example, to write an uncompressed, portrait mode PCL file use -P 100. Writing a LaserJet 4 PCL file will allow the DPI value in the file to be either 75, 100, 150, 200, 300, or 600 (the 200 and 600 DPI values are not allowed for other LaserJet printers). If you do not specify a DPI value Alchemy will automatically select the smallest DPI value which will allow your image to fit on the page. Use -D dpi dpi to specify the DPI value (e.g. -D 600 600 to specify 600 DPI). For example, to write a LaserJet 4, delta row compressed, landscape PCL file at 200 DPI use -P113 -D200 200. It is now possible to write a PCL file directly to a HP LaserJet or compatible printer. If you use the name of the device as the output file name Alchemy will redirect output to that device. For example, use prn: as the output file name if your LaserJet is attached to the prn: port ("alchemy madonna.gif -P prn:", for example). You can of course combine this command with wildcarding and other Alchemy commands (for example, "alchemy *.gif -P -Xb2400 -Yb3300 -+ prn:" will print large copies of all your gif files on the LaserJet). New PICT format The -m1 option will cause Alchemy to create a PICT file with a MacBinary header. This is useful for transferring the resulting image to a Macintosh by modem. New PictureMaker format The --P1 option will cause Alchemy to write out a PictureMaker image which is exactly 512x488. If either the X or Y dimension is larger than 512 or 488, respectively, that dimension will be truncated. If either dimension is smaller than 512 or 488, the image will be padded on the right-hand side or bottom, as necessary, with black. This feature was added because Cubicomp PictureMaker does not work with images which are not of this exact size. The default is --P0, which is no truncating or padding. In this case, the output image will be converted to exactly the same dimensions as the original image, unless scaling has been requested. New RTL formats Alchemy can now write single plane RTL files if you specify a -b option in the conversion. In addition, three new types have been added. They are: 6: on the fly uncompressed 7: on the fly rle 10: NovaJet The first two are equivalent to types 1 and 2 except they tell the plotter it may plot the data as received instead of waiting for the entire image. This is useful on the DesignJet plotters which have small buffers compared to the imageable area. The NovaJet option cause Alchemy to create RTL files which are compatible with NovaJet plotters. New XPM formats Alchemy now reads and writes two new styles of XPM files. The different type XPM files can be identified as follows: Type 0: #define type0_format 1 ... static char *type0_colors[] = { "a", "#000000", ... Type 1: /* XPM */ static char * type1[] = { "32 20 12 1", "a c #000000", ... Type 2: ! XPM2 32 20 12 1 a c #000000 ... To write the appropriate type XPM file use the corresponding type number as a parameter to the --x command (--x0, --x1, or --x2). Also, the UNIX version of Alchemy now searches for the rgb.txt file which some XPM images require. The search path is as follows: . /usr/lib/X11 $OPENWINHOME/lib /usr/openwin/lib New XWD formats Alchemy can now read and write 4 and 8 plane XY type XWD files. To write a XY type XWD file use an option of 1 after the --w (to write a Z type use a 0). The default is a Z type XWD file. Changes to TIFF When writing TIFF files using any of the fax compression types (Group III, Group IV and CCITT RLE), Alchemy uses a photometric interpretation of minIsWhite instead of minIsBlack. New PCX formats Alchemy can now read and write PCJ variations PCX files. These are old style 256 colour PCX files which have the palette in a separate file. The palette file has the extension .p13. Alchemy will automatically look for the palette file in the same directory as the PCJ file when reading. To write a PCJ file use the PCX output type 2 (e.g. -p2). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Changes Changes to UCR files When using a UCR file while creating a black and white image, the density maps are now interpreted in a manner consistent with the application to CMYK images. New spiff type Type 'c' spiffing has been added to the spiff option. This is similar to type 'a' spiffing, except that the colours absolute black and absolute white are ignored in the image. This option is useful if an image has a caption or a border which is black or white, since type 'a' spiffing would treat these as part of the image and not perform any spiffing. Flip images The -^ option will cause the image to be flipped vertically (i.e. turned upside-down). File list You can now supply a list of filenames to Alchemy in a file. This is useful to get around the command length limitations of MS-DOS. The file list command is @, which is immediately followed by the name of the list file. For example, assuming the file "images" contains a list of files to be processed by Alchemy you would use @images on the command line. Multiple instance of the file list command may be used, and the file list may contain wildcards and other file lists (preceded by an @ sign). The list file should contain each name on a single line. Blank lines and lines starting with a # are ignored. Input file type override The -= type option overrides the input type, so you may force Alchemy to treat a file as if it's a certain type if it fails to correctly identify the file. The parameter type should be one of: Adex 24 AlphaMicro 42 ART 46 Autologic 28 AVHRR 43 BIF 31 Calcomp CCRF 50 CALS 41 Cubicomp PictureMaker 44 CUT 45 Erdas 19 GEM 22 GIF 1 GOES 40 HP PCL 15 HSI JPEG 30 HSI Palette 3 HSI Raw 5 IBM PictureMaker 48 IFF 7 JPEG 2 Macintosh PICT 10 MacPaint 49 MTV 17 OS/2 BitMap 55 PBM/PGM/PPM 13 PCX 9 PDS 37 Pictor 29 Puzzle 51 Q0 21 QDV 18 QRT 20 RIX 38 SGI 11 Spot 39 Stork 32 Sun Icon 52 Sun Raster 8 Targa 6 TIFF 4 Utah RLE 23 VI 36 Vivid 16 Windows BMP 12 WPG 27 XBM 35 XPM 47 XWD 33 For example, to force Alchemy to read a PCL file which it can't identify use -=15.