Your help is needed in creating new Tangram puzzles and in creating Fancy pictures of existing Tangram puzzles. This file will explain the procedures for creating new fancy pictures.
A Fancy picture is a drawing that replaces a plain outline of a Tangram puzzle. Some examples of Fancy pictures can be seen in the example files that came with your Tangram program. The “About Tangrams...” screen also has an example fancy picture. The purpose of the fancy picture is to obscure the location of the puzzle pieces. The tradition of puzzles of this type of picture can be seen in puzzle books dating to the 1800s and have traditionally been of Chinese design.
I plan to add the best of the Fancy pictures to future releases of Tangram puzzles. This is your chance to have your work published.
Here is the procedure for creating Fancy pictures.
Start up Tangrams and choose the puzzle you would like to make a Fancy picture of. Choose Copy Puzzle from the Edit menu. An outline of the puzzle is now on the clipboard. The outline of the puzzle can now be pasted to the Scrapbook, or to a painting program.
Use the outline as a starting point to create a fancy picture.
Drawing or painting can be done on the computer or the outline can be printed on paper. Use the outline as a starting point in either case. If you print out the outline and draw and color your picture you will need to use a scanner to get the picture back into the Mac. When the picture is complete scan the picture. Open the scanned image with a painting program and make any adjustments that seem necessary. I believe setting the scanner to 72 dots per inch should create a fancy picture that will display on the screen nicely without making the picture overly large.
When the picture has been scanned and is loaded into a paint program it should be cleaned up. Make sure the outside edge has no extra dots and check that the outside edge is continuous. To save space set the depth and resolution to 72 dots per inch and black and white. If you do make a colored fancy picture you will have to make the colors shades that will look OK when displayed on black and white screens. Light fill colors and dark outlines work OK
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When your drawing in the paint program is complete, select the picture with the lasso tool and copy it.
To make sure the fancy picture and original puzzle outline match outlines, click and drag the puzzle. The original outline will replace the fancy picture while it is moving and you can see if the two shapes match.
If you are on American Online you can send your fancy tangram pictures to me and I will include the best in the latest edition of Tangrams.
Internet users other than those on American Online can files to hacksoft@mail.stp.k12.mn.us or send a disk with the Tangram file to me at the address below.
