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Documentation for PV.EXE version 2.50 04.01.95 W.Wiedmann ----------------------------------------------------------- Contents: 1. What PV is able to do: 1.1 Requirements 2. Image processing 3. Converting 4. Details of the most common Image formats 4.1 File formats able to be read by PV 4.2 Image formats able to be generated by PV 4.3 Adapting unknown formats by the 'define Header' function: 5. Animation, Slidefiles 6. Configuring the graphic adapter 7. How to use PV, menu keys and command line options. 8. Installation, Registration 9. Trademarks , Disclaimer 1.What PV is able to do: ------------------------ PV is used to display and convert Images with different File formats on a AT-compatible machine. You can import images from different sources and export it to other applications and modify it with some image processing functions. PV can do animations controlled by slidefiles and it supports all common color graphic adapters. It imports and exports the following imagefiles: - JPG Baseline JPEG 8R8. - TIF IBM and Macintosh, image processing and DTP like Pagemaker Designer, Photostyler. - TGA Targa supporting software. - PCX Paintbrush and other paint software. - PIC PcPaint, Pictor. - SCx,RIX Colorix, Winrix, RIX demo Present. - CUT Dr Halo, Halovision, some scanners. - LBM,IFF Deluxe Paint both IBM and Commodore. - GIF Autodesk Animator, VPIC, VGIF, CSHOW, GWS and others. - BMP,RLE,DIB Windows 3.0,3.1 and OS/2. - IMG,DTA Kontron image analysis, ZEISS DSM-series of digital microscopes. The following file formats can be imported : - PCD Kodak Photo CD Base format 768x512 and 512x768. - CVP Passport image photo unit (Canon) 512x512 24Bps. - JPG,JIF Baseline JPEG 9R6 (Image Alchemy 1.0-1.5), Lossless JPEG. - JTF TIFF with JPEG compression. - CEG Edsun Continuous Edge Graphics (Modes d, f). - GEM-IMG,XIMG GEM and Ventura Publisher up to 24Bps, Atari ST. - MSP MS-Paint, Windows 2.0. - MAC Macintosh-Paint. - PIC Macintosh PICT in 1,2,4,8,24 BPS. - WPG Raster graphic files from Word Perfect. - ICO Windows Icons. - PMC A4TECH Scanner. - SFI SIS Framegrabber. - EPS Encapsulated Postscript with raster data. - RAS Sun raster file uncompressed. - VI Jovian. - DCX FAX Multiple PCC File Format. - FX*,FAX,QFX,BFX, RIC,WFX,XFX FAX -formats CCITT Group 3 - IM KO-23 satellite with 109 Block error correction. - SGF Starwriter by Star Divison Hamburg - SAT Eumetsat Wettersatellitenbild (BTXSAT Austria) - SCR Word capture - CDR,CCH Corel draw Icon - SKD Autosketch Icon - RAW - PNM UNIX Portable Bitmap 1,8,24 Bps (Jef Poskanzer). - ACB,BBM IFF Brushes and ACBM Files. - DAT Framegrabber Video 1000/2000 Fricke/Berlin. - FRM Echolab - FLM Uncompressed files from the Screenmachine FAST-Electronic. - VM files from a Videomachine FAST-Electronic. - ART First Publisher ART - BSG Fontasy - PCP Atari - TPI Turbo Pascal - AVI Video for Windows until 320x200x8Bps RLE too, 160x120x16/24 Bps - FLI Autodesk Animator FLIC's run in realtime. Quickfli, Aaplay. - FLC Autodesk Animator Pro FLIC's. - FLX Animator FLIC's with Hicolor (Hicolor VESA VGA required) - ANI The first image of IFF animation files. - DL DL animations run in realtime. - GL Sequential overview of the images included in GRASP files. - TXT,DOC,BAT,HLP Text files and block graphics are shown in a size 128x54. - ANS ANSI 80x25 - MOD Amiga music files can be played on PC-Speaker or Soundblaster. For Soundblaster there must be a 'SET BLASTER=' command in the autoexec.bat (The MOD Player is based on a PD OBJ file by Marc Cox) You can call a batchprocess depending of the fileextension of any filetype. Yust make a EXT.BAT batchfile for the extension EXT. With that you can call other viewers or do anything else. E.g. with ZIP.BAT containing PKUNZIP -v %1 you can wiew the content of ZIP packed files. With a ANS.BAT you can show true ANSI sequences by calling TYPE %1 and so on. PV prints at LPT1 with HP DJ 500C, Mitsubishi CP200 termosublimation. PV recognizes the image files by the header pattern and/or the file extension. It is also possibile to import unknown file formats by a 'Define-Header' operation if you have some details - e.g. the image size and the colors. The file selection menu allows easy selection of files. Some of the functions can be predefined by command line parameters and can also be changed by the menu. A help system is available by F1 key. PV is written in Turbo Pascal 6.0. Most of the routines that access the display adapters and some of the decompressions ( GIF,TIFF,JPEG,SCx,.. ) are written in assembler code and offer high speed performance. I included many undocumented and not published file formats (SCX compressed, FLI, GL) to PV. It takes a lot of time to analyse the difficult file structures, but it makes PV a compact universal display utility with incomparable features. 1.1 Requirements ---------------- You need an AT compatible computer with an EGA, VGA, SuperVGA or 8514/A compatible graphic adapter. Your computer should have a hard disk and at least 512KB RAM. If you don't have a graphic adapter you are not able to display the images but you can convert them into other file formats with variable image sizes. PV supports SuperVGA with ATI, Paradise, Ahead, Video7, OAK, Chip & Technology, ET3000/4000 and Trident 8900 chipsets in nearly all resolutions up to 1024x768x256. PV is generally successful in detecting the chipset, but you can also use command line parameters to configure PV to the display functions. PV works with very large images up to 10240x10240. PV shows an overview or extracts a section if the image can not be completely displayed. If you have enough XMS memory you can scroll around the whole picture. All VGA's are supported by two special resolutions 360x512x256 and 720x512x16. VGA's with the new VESA conventions are supported via the VESA-calls. 8514/A, Tiga and XGA often offer a AI interface. If it is installed it is automatically supported. The CEG-multicolor DSP is supported for the use with CEG images but you can also display and convert them even without this feature. ATI ULTRA 2MB with MACH32 Chip is supported with 32768 colors and 65536 colors (5-6-5 mode) and truecolor. The HiColor RAM DAC is supported with 32768 color mode for the use with any image that contains more than 256 colors. Many of the PV functions are supported by a MS compatible mouse. 2.Image processing ----------------- You can use image processing with the displayed images. It is an advantage therefore to have an adapter that allows you to process the images without loss of resolution or colors. For example you need a display mode of 800x600x256 to process an image of size 512x512x256. If you choose a display mode with 16 colors you reduce the image permanently to 16 gray levels (or a 16 color dithered image), when you restore it (WYSIWYG). If you have an EGA you cannot use functions like invert, contrast, saturation, filter processing or other color operations. With plain VGA you can perform: - 6 fixed and one user definable 3x3 Convolution (256 color mode required). - Invert Color and/or Intensity. - Flip X and Y. - Rotate. - Dithering. - Color/Gray conversion. - Zoom and contract by divisions of 2,4,8,.. independent for X and Y. (In Conversion mode any ratio is possible for X and Y). - Brightnes, contrast, color intensity and saturation for each color component R,G,B or all together. - Define an image section for further processing or conversion. - Create and run an animation with different images or flics. - Store in a variety of file formats. PV does not automatically preserve the aspect ratio of an image during manipulation. It may therefore be necessary to use convert mode to force the particular aspect ratio desired. 3.Converting ------------ You can convert images with up to 10240 by 10240 by 256 lossless if you switch to pure conversion mode by the 'O' key or /c command line parameter. Images with more than 256 colors or shades are reduced to an optimised set of 256 colors. If the destination fileformat supports 24 Bit the image is stored 24 Bit if required. The maximum size for converting 24 Bit images is limited to 3400 pixel per line. The pure conversion and color reduction operations require XMS memory. If not available PV requires temporary working space on the hard disc (drive c: assumed). You can greatly speed up these conversions by providing a suitably sized RAMDISK. (include in your environment setting the line 'TEMP=D:\' assuming that D is your RAMDISK drive letter). If you get a disk error message, check that you have correctly defined the environment path for your RAMDISK. The size of the temporary file depends on the source image size. For example a 24Bps TIFF conversion to 640x480 requires about 1MB. You can set a variable size the destination image should have. It may vary from 8 to 10240 pixel in any dimension. The converted image has the same name with the appropriate file extension and it is stored in the same directory. If you wish, you can force a new destination path at the command line .. eg .. PV *.* C:\IMAGES\ 4.Details of the most common Image formats ------------------------------------------ Problems with images containing high color numbers (e.g. JPEG): All file formats that contain more than 256 colors are reduced to 256 colors when you display or convert them. This is done by a complex algorithm that classifies all color components into 16 steps and uses the most common color combinations and applies dithering to achieve the impression of a virtual higher color resolution. This may cause some images to look a little noisy, especially images displayed in lower resolution (e.g. 320x200). You can convert all file formats with up to 256 colors into all others without losing quality except for JPEG images. If you convert a GIF file with 256 colors into a JPEG file, the JPEG file will never have the same colors and may look a little noisy. This is why the image is converted from 256 colors into a true color YUV colorspace. Then you just have the intensity and a color information with half of the resolution of the intensity information (4:2:2). The YUV components are transformed with a DCT and then quantised. These processes are optimised to achieve a high file compression by losing information. If you display the JPEG image the reverse operations are dequantisation, IDCT and YUV to RGB conversion. This and the reduction of RGB to 256 color when you display it leads to a minor quality of color images. The loss of quality is nearly invisible if you convert greyscale images into JPEG and back. Other programs like JPG2GIF & GIF2JPG (by Handmade Software) use a special kind of JPG and GIF mixtured file that does not conform to any proposed JPEG standard. These files contain GIF fragments and the original GIF color table. So they achieve a higher quality when converting to JPG and back. I do not intend to support this special JPG creation in PV. PV simply extracts the JPEG block out of such image files and displays it. The appearance may therefore sometimes look fragmented. 4.1:PV reads the following file formats: a.) DTA,IMG DTA,IMG is a common extension used for image files generated by ZEISS electron microscopes. IMG is also a common extension for Kontron image analysis. Both formats are comparable apart from some special features. Kontron might have more than one image in one file but it does not include a color table. PV shows the first image if it contains more than one. If there is no color table included in the file, PV scans for a *.COL file that contains 768 ASCII values representing the color values. IMG from a DSM962 has an aspect ratio 1:1.25. So you should convert a 512x512 to a 640x512 first if you want to display the correct ratio. b.) IFF - Standard (LBM) - PBM used by PC's - ILBM used by Commodore - ACBM an old format used by Commodore PV loads all of them with 1...8 Bps whether compressed or not. With ILBM sometimes there is 24 Bps used for file interchange. PV loads this too. Commodore files often have specific CAMG-Chunks for the HAM and Halfbrite modes. PV knows this and regenerates the color information to a best fit color table. c.) CUT and PAL CUT is used by DR HALO to generate independent images as a clipboard. PAL contains the appropriate color table. It should have 256 color entries (Filesize = 2048) to be used with PV. CUT does not use a recognition pattern in the header, so PV recognizes it by the extension CUT. d.) GIF87a .. GIF89a Standard Used by many machines (IBM, Macintosh, Atari, Commodore) with many applications. PV loads images with color tables up to 256 colors. GIF allows images with more chained image parts. PV loads the first one. The GIF extension block is ignored. e.) TIFF 2a Standard TIFF allows many different variations of storing image data. I am not aware of a program anywhere that correctly reads all TIFF images. PV loads the most common ones. - IBM and Macintosh TIFF. - Orientation = 1,5. - Photometric Interpret. = 0,1,2,3,6 (bilevel,gray,invers,RGB,Palette, YCbCr). - Planar configuration = 1,2. - Predictor = 1,2. - Bits per Sample = 1,2,4,8,24,32. - Compression = 1,2,3,4,5,6,32771,32773,32900,32901 (uncompressed,Huffman,FAXG3,FAXG4,LZW,JPEG,PackBits,PICIO,SGI-RLE). In combination with RGB and/or LZW there are 24 Bps available. With LZW the Predictor tag is supported. Planar configuration 2 is only in conbination with 1,2 Bps available. Default is Planar configuration 1. The Planar configuration 2 might have problems if the Strips of the color components are not stored one after another. f.) GEM IMG, XIMG - Format Used by IBM and Atari in programs like GEM Paint, Ventura Publisher. The IMG format does not include any color table so there might be different colors between the GEM IMG based softwares. PV supports only RGB tables, if there is a color table within a XIMG. g.) RIX SCx Format PV does up to 8Bps SCI,SCQ,SCR,SCF,SCP images, whether they are compressed or not. It also loads uncompressed RIX with 15 and 24 Bps. h.) PCX,PCC Format PV knows those used by versions 1 to 4 plus Paintbrush and others. It supports 1...8 Bps in plane or Pixel coding with or without color table and also 24 Bps. i.) PIC Format PIC is often used as an extension. Here I am referring to the format used by PcPaint and Pictor. PV also supports the Macintosh PICT format in 1,2,4,8 Bps. This can often have the extension PIC. j.) BMP Format PV loads Windows and OS/2 BMP with 1,2,4,8,24 Bps. 24 Bps images are reduced to 4096 colors and optimized to a 256 color table. PV supports RLE 1,2,4,8 compression. RLE 1,2,4 will not be loaded correctly if the Runs and Strings are not packed to Byte borders. k.) TGA Standard PV loads images with 8,16,24 and 32 Bps. In the case of 32 Bps the so called alpha value is ignored. TGA RLE compression is supported. RGB images are reduced to 4096 colors and optimized to a 256 color table. 8 Bit images with or without color tables are also loaded. Images with upsidedown image data are loaded from bottom to top. l.) JPEG Standard JFIF 8R8,9R6 PV knows the sequential Baseline JPEG for color images with YUV (H1:1:1,H2:1:1,H4:1:1,V1:1:1,V2:1:1) and Grayscale images with pure Y. PV also loads spatial DPCM with 8 Bps and Predictor 0 and 1. Restart marker or other markers within the scan are ignored. Problems with other JPG software: -Fast's Screenmachine also offers a JPG compression. But this seems unloadable with PV and other JPEG capable programs like Image Alchemy. I think they scrambled the compressed data incorrectly. They also should have the suggested APP0 marker with JFIF recognition. With the introduction of Screenmachine II (1993) it is possible to make JFIF compatible JIF Files. -Image Alchemy, GIF2JPG, JPG2GIF (Handmade Software products) above V1.41 do not conform to JPEG. They use a special mixture of JPEG/GIF, but you can force them to do true JPEG by optional parameter (-j). Alchemy offers an arithmetic coding (-ja). PV does not support this yet. -VTCOMPRESS is a Windows based software distributed by STEMMER Munich. Be sure you generate a JFIF file format. It is possible to make a *.JPG file which does not conform to JFIF file format. All tables and parameters are not within the JPG file, so it is impossible to reconstruct the image data. PV tries to load files with JPG extension even if they are not JFIF. PV starts with a default table and parameter set proposed in the 8R8 Draft. So if some JPG software does include this, there is a chance of decoding it. The minimum requirement therefore is the complete SOS marker 'FF DA'. m.) WPG Word Perfect PV supports raster graphics with 1...8Bps. WPG may include vectorized images. PV does not support this. n.) EPS Encapsulated Postscript PV supports EPS with 1,2,4,8,24Bps. Some EPS include a Tender with a reduced TIFF image and many EPS picture readers use just that. Not so PV. PV uses the Postscript data and tries to interpret the image descriptions. This sometimes may not work, in this case you can enter the right parameters by the 'define-header'- function (4.3). 4.2:PV generates following image formats: a.) Kontron IMG format and ZEISS DSM format. The parameters contained in the header of ZEISS images will get lost. You get Kontron compatible images if you convert to monochrome images or give the 'H0' to store the data without monocrome conversion and without color table. b.) TGA Standard PV makes 8Bps Targa uncompressed with or without color table. If you have a source image with more than 256 colors PV makes a 24 bit true color image in the conversion mode. c.) IFF Standard ILBM uncompressed with 8Bps for IBM format and ILBM uncompressed with 5 Bps for Grayscale images and 6 Bps color images with HAM for the Commodore Amiga ("H2"). You can load all Deluxe Paint versions. Remember that Amigas use 640x512x64 or 320x512x4096. d.) CUT and PAL 8 Bsp CUT file with 256 color PAL file. e.) GIF87a Standard 1..8 Bps GIF file with color table. 'H4' tries a higher compression rate but it takes a long time. f.) TIFF Standard IBM and Macintosh 1,2,4,8,24 Bps uncompressed ( compression = 1). Grayscale images have a Photometric interpr. = 0 and Color images have a color table and Photometric interpr. = 3. If you have a source image with more than 256 colors PV makes a 24 bit true color image in the conversion mode. g.) RIX SCX 8 Bps RIX file uncompressed with color table. h.) PCX Standard 8 Bps Pixel coded loadable with Paintbrush 4, 4+, Windows 3.0 Paintbrush. i.) PIC format 8 Bps compressed for Pictor, PcPaint. j.) BMP format 8 Bps BMP for Windows 3.0 uncompressed or 8 Bps RLE compressed. If you have a source image with more than 256 colors PV makes a 24 bit true color image in the conversion mode. k.) JPG format PV generates a sequential baseline JPEG (4:2:2 or gray) conforming to the 8R8 proposed JFIF File format. For natural tone images you can achieve compression ratios up to 1:5 or 1:10 for 'HJ' relative to an uncompressed grey or color table image. The ratio can be up to 1:20 relative to RGB 24Bps uncompressed. 4.3:Adapting unknown formats by the 'define Header' function: If PV does not recognize the selected file as a image file it automatically switches to the define header function. You can also achieve this by the 'u' key or the /u command line parameter. With this function you can see or change elementary image parameters and you have the chance to import various other kinds of images. First you are requested weather you really want to define the parameter [Y] or to display it as Text [T]. any other key aborts and returns to the menu. Eg you have an image file with a size of 262944 bytes and you know it is a 512x512 8Bps uncompressed rastered grey scale image. You can try: Start of body: 800 ( 262944 - 512x512 = 800 ,if the header starts at 0 ), X-Size: 512 ( allowed 1..10240 ) Y-Size: 512 ( allowed 1..10240 ) Bit/Pix: 8 ( allowed 1..8,24 ) Pixelmap [Y] ( planemap is used by some screen captures for CGA,EGA but the default and most common is Pixelmap ) Upside down [N] ( E.g. TGA and TIFF can reverse bottom and top but the most common (& default) is top to bottom method ) Start of color table:( type ENTER if you think there is no color table or give the start address of the table in the file. The table values are expected to be in the order r0,g0,b0,r1,.. ) Bit/color value: 8 ( most color tables use 8 Bit (255 = white) ) Color: [N] ( 'N' means greyscale, 'Y' means Pseudo color or using the color table if the address has been defined ) There is possibily to define a special fileformat by a *.HDR file. The file has the same name as the extension of the fileformat and must be stored in the same or the PV directory. The file can be created by the DOS Edit and must have the following structure: Start of body X-Size Y-Size Bit/Pix Bit/color Start of colortable ( optional, just if a colortable included ) You may also activate other programs by Batchprocessing. If PV finds a *.BAT with the name of the extension of the selected file it starts the Batch automaticaly. You can use it to start eg a HPGL viewer if you have made the appropriate PLT.BAT file. I will be adding more formats in the future. If PV has problems with loading a specified image format please send it to me. There are a lot of programs not listed above that support different file formats. 5. Animation, Slide files ------------------------ PV reads and stores slide files (extension *.SLD). These files contain names and commands and you can use a text editor to produce or edit them. If you call them with PV you will see PV loads the files listed in the slide file one by one until you abort by the ESC key. Remenber the following instructions: - All image names should not contain path or command line parameters, the names must be complete with the extension. - the maximum count of entries is limited to 256. - All images must be in the actual path. The slide file could contain some commands: D:nnnnn Delay in ms after each image is loaded G:nn Switch to the Graphic mode number nn (refer to your VGA manual). no number activates the textmode. X:nn set the x position. X: without parameters falls back to autocentering. Y:nn set the Y position. Y: without parameters falls back to autocentering. C:nn Clear last image, clearmode nn = 0..99 0 clears the whole screen, others do just a clear of the imagefield in different algorithms. S:nnn Skip to SLD line number nnn Q: Quit SLD after executing once T:text displayes a textunderline P:path Changes to the drive \ path A:nn Activates VGA-Mode detection for the next nn = 0..255 images eg : G:$13 D:0000 image1.gif C:16 D:2000 Animat.fli G:$12 image2.lbm Image1 starts followed by Animat.fli. and finally image2. There is then a delay of 2 sec before image1 is loaded again. Image1 and Animat are shown with VGA 320x200x256, image.lbm is shown with 640x480x16. Be sure not to enter more than 32 char per line and 128 lines. In VGA - AUTO mode PV uses the parameters of the last imagefile listed in the SLD. If this faults it tries to use the 640x480x256. If you want to activate a appropriate VGA Mode for a imgae use the A: comand. Use this too if you have a Hicolor VGA and you want to combine hicolorimages and images <= 256 colors, because PV can not show this in Hicolor only. 6. Configuring the graphic adapter ---------------------------------- If PV is called without parameters, it tries to find the adapter installed in your system. If this does not work reliably, you have to call PV with command line parameters. The parameter that defines the type of adapter must be the last one: $10000 = ATI, $20000 = VIDEO7, $30000 = ET3000, $40000 = ET4000, $50000 = PARADISE(WD), $60000 = TRIDENT8900, $70000 = AHEADB, $80000 = CHIP&TECH, $90000 = OAK, $A0000 = AHEADA, $B0000 = EVEREX, $C0000 = VESA, $D0000 = Genoa, $E0000 = NCR, $F0000 = Realtek. If you don't know your type or if the display does not show correct images, you can try the parameter $C0000 for VESA. This allows type independent access if your VGA supports the VESA interface. You might have to load a TSR utility like VESA.COM from your VGA disk before you start PV. PV automatically supports the following resolutions on VGA's with 512kb/1Mb Video RAM: - 640x480x256 - 800x600x256 - 1024x768x256/16 PV chooses the appropriate resolution but you can also force a resolution by toggling the 'X' key. The resolution is displayed in the last line of the menu. If you want to add any other mode you just have to add the function number to the last parameter (remember it's a HEX code!). You can find it in your VGA reference manual. eg PV /e $10065 or PV $65 = 1024x768x16 with older ATI Wonder's PV $nn6f02 = VIDEO7 Mode nn PV /x /e $30 = ET4000/3000 1024x768x16 The parameter /e stands for 16 color modes. If PV does not find the mode it tries 360x512x256 for color images or 720x512x16 for monochrome images. You can force these modes by adding $f2 or $f3 to the command line. This should run on all VGA's but not on EGA. In this case try PV /x $12 for 640x480x16, PV /x $10 for 640x350x16, PV /x $13 for 320x200x256, or any function number listed in the adapter's manual. The parameter /x means that PV uses that mode only if required. Eg : PV /x $65 - this is for older ATI-Wonders that have the function $65 for 1024x768x16. The default for PV is $55 for newer ATI Wonders. If PV does not find the $55 mode it then calls $65 from the command line. Be sure you give a valid function number. Otherwise PV ignores your input, and automatically switches to conversion mode. - 8514/A, TIGA and XGA are supported if the AI is loaded (HDILOAD, 8514AI,..). Work stations and graphic adapters with 1MB & TIGA often offer a 8514/A emulation. If you use it you will have 640x480x256 and 1024x768x256 display modes. You can select them using the command line parameters $17f or $27f. - 1280x1024x16/256 and 1600x1280x16/256 are provided but not tested yet. If your adapter supports such resolutions try out the mode by using the command line parameter. If you use the AI you can try $37f, $47f .. $f7f. - Virtualy PV uses the complete VGA RAM. This means that you can load an image into the VGA with more lines than your VGA could display. You can scroll the image up and down with the Cursor or the mouse. Mode VGA Virtualy usable lines: 640x480 512Kb 819 640x480x256 1Mb 1024 360(720)x512 256Kb 728 800x600 512Kb 655 800x600x256 1Mb 1024 1024x768 512K/1Mb 1024 It depends on the SVGA how many lines can be scrolled. Currently there is no limitation for the scroll down function. It is sometimes possible to scroll above or below the actual picture information, revealing garbage patterns. Ignore these. You can attempt to disable this function by PV /s. This may not work on all VGA's eg 8514/A adapters or in hicolor modes. - Truecolor, Hicolor ATI Ultra with Mach32 and 2MB are supported in the 'ATI VGA Auto' mode with 16,8 Mio. and Hicolor (65536) automatically in the following resolutions: 640x480x24Bit, 800x600x24Bit, 1024x768x16Bit. VGA's with VESA Hicolor Modes (65536, 32768) currently do not have unique function numbers. If you know the number of the function you can use it by calling PV with that number (e.g. PV /x $117 with ATI, PV /x $302 with Diamond Stealth). If you want to display a RGB image you must select with the [X] to 'Use Command line Parameter' before starting the image. On cards with Hicolor chips you can try to activate the hicolor, if you call PV /h. But in this mode you just have the half of the resolution in the X dimension. The ATI MACH64 has a VESA 1.2 compatible BIOS but the readout of its fearures lasts extremly long, so please use PV /h $c0000 to specify VESA 1.2 compatibiluty without using autodetection. I will try to improve the hicolor support in the future. 7. How to use PV ---------------- - Commandline parameters: PV [Path[Name.ext]] [Destination path] [/c /m /e /p /d] [/x $nn (VGA Mode)] if Path[Name.ext] is not a valid file or path it is assumed to be a filemask. /c = ONLY convert; use if you just want to convert without displaying. If you add the conversion type eg /cj you can specify the file format. j : medium compressed JPG , hj : higher compressed JPG , 0 : IMG , 1 : TGA , 2 : LBM , h2 : Amiga LBM , 3 : CUT , 4 : GIF , 5 : TIFF , h5 : Motorola TIFF , 6 : SCx , 7 : PCX , 8 : PIC , 9 : BMP , h9 : OS/2 BMP. /m = monochrome; use if you have for example a monochrome EGA Display. The menu and all images are displayed in monochrome. Conversion is also done in monochrome. If you want an image handled with colors use the 'M' key in the menu mode. /e = 16 color mode; use this in combination with the command line EGA/VGA mode to tell PV that this is a mode with not more than 16 colors. /d = dithering; if your images have more than 16 colors and you have an EGA with 16 colors, you should add this parameter. If you do not you will be asked whether you want EGA dither or 16 grey steps. EGA's don't have a RAM DAC, so EGA's will show a kind of pseudo color instead of 16 grey steps. /p = no color optimising; If images have more than 256 colors PV automatically makes a color optimising. This takes a lot of time but the result is better. If you want a fast result add /p. /x = use the $nn Mode to tell PV to use $nn Mode only if it is required. $nn is the number of EGA/VGA/XGA etc Mode and or the Chipset you want to adapt. Remember this parameter must always be the last one. /h = make use of the HiColor chip. Images with more than 256 colors are displayed with up to 32768 colors. This works faster and might give better results than color optimising. The horizontal resolution is decreased and you should not do further processing or save the image if an image is displayed with CEG or HiColor activated. The result is unuseable. /s = suppress the virtual line scrolling. /o = suppress the use of hicolor/truecolor. /b = some VGA's with truecolor 24 Bit show the red and blue component exchanged. Use this to correct this. /v = suppress the use of 1280x1024 or higher resolution. Use this to protect the monitor if it is not able to syncronize that. - Keys during fileselection: "F1" Help menu. up, down, pgup, pgdn home, end = select the file or the path you want to change to. Enter = Start the image to be loaded or open a directory. The '..' means the directory below. "I" File info. "L" Change the drive "S" Save all previous displayed image names in the slide file PV.SLD "U" Show image parameter or modify it before next image is loaded. "M" Color/monochrome for next image. "Z" Destination drive and path for saving files. "X,+,-" Select the display mode; default is PV detects the right mode, but you can also set the command line mode parameter or choose between resolutions 640x480, 800x600 or 1024x768. "F" Here you can define the 3x3 filter coefficients for the filter 4. You can try out the Filter if you display an image in a 256 color VGA mode and type "F" and then "4". "O" Toggle between Convert/Display mode for the next image. "D" Delete the image file. "R" Rename the image file. Please enter the full name incl. extension, do not enter paths, wildcards or symbols not allowed for DOS files. If you do not want to rename the file just type enter. "P" Color optimising. Images with RGB, (more than 256 simultaneous colors), can be displayed with optimised VGA colors or a standard VGA color set with R3G3B2. Optimisation takes more time but the result is better. If your VGA supports Hi/Truecolor at the current selected resolution, it is possible to select this mode too. "Y" Filetype. You can select a file mask to reduce the number of files to a set of files you are interested in. All DOS wildcards allowed. Eg *.* , *.gif , test????.??? , etc. "G" generate a overview gallery with Icons (128x96) of all pictures in the current path. You then can select or mark the files and start to display pictures. - cursors to select and PGUP/PGDN to scroll - "T" to mark single pictures - ENTER to display the selected or marked pictures - Esc to switch back to menu You can specify a path where PV can store the Icons. If you define SET PVICONS=drive/path in your AUTOXEC.BAT PV stores them in the appropiate path to have a fast access to them. - Keys when a image is displayed: (With hicolor, truecolor, or CEG, the functions are presently limited). Colormetric operations: "Home, End" Increase, decrease intensity. "PgUp, PgDn" Modify contrast. "F9, F10" Modify color saturation. You can double the saturation or reduce it to a greyscale image and you can invert the the saturation. "DEL" Restore the original colors. "R,G,B" All the above operations normally work on all color components red, green and blue. If you want to control the red component and leave the others unchanged type "R" before it. The same applies for green "G" or blue "B". "<Space>" Perform the modifications for all color components (default). "I" Invert the intensity. "M" Permanently convert to monochrome "C" Color cycling. Geometric operations: "Cursors" scroll the image if exeeding the VGA windows. "*X,/X" Reduce/zoom X dimension in divisions of 2. "*Y,/Y" Reduce/zoom Y dimension in divisions of 2. "*Z,/Z" Reduce/zoom in divisions of 2. "+,-" Switch between the VGA resolutions. "U" Reload the image (Undo function). "D" Greylevel dither in different resolutions. D4 does a dither to reduce 256 greyshades to 16 greyshades. With this you may achieve better results if you want to print it, for example, with Word, Windows, etc. D1 does a Dither to pure black and white. "F" 3x3 Greylevel filters. You have 7 filters predefined with a hipass (sharpen), a lowpass (smoothing), relief (contour), Laplacian eg deextractor, erosion, median, dilation. You can define your own filter by overwriting the coefficients of the Laplacian filter (4). To do this you must return to the File selection menu and type "F". "T" Transformations "X,Y" flip and "R" rotate 90 deg. If you want a 180 deg rotation, it is better to use "TX" and "TY" than two "TR". Be sure you have a high resolution display mode eg 640x480 to rotate a 320x200 area. "W" With this you can define a ROI (region of interest). All geometric functions and the saving of images work on the defined ROI. The default ROI is the basic image dimensions. "Q" sets the ROI to 512x512 "F" sets the ROI to the screen dimensions "S" sets the ROI to the last size/position "Enter" toggles between size and move (also right mouse button) "Cursor" move the ROI or modify the size. This is better done by using the mouse. "Space" restores the original size. "Esc" accept the ROI and quit (also left mouse button). "K" This is a pixelpicker. It shows the values of the intensities at any position. Saving the image: "F1" shows an overview of the possible File formats and functions. "1..9" Save the displayed image within the actual ROI in a file. Remember what you see is what you get. If you want to convert an image it is better to do it by converting it without actually displaying the image. Printing images: "P" Print to a HP DJ 500 C. For animation: "A" Do a slideshow of all previous displayed images in the current path. "S" Store the slideshow in a file PV.SLD. - Tips for Conversion/Display: Images with more than 16 Color are displayed monochrome on 16 color VGA modes. When the image is displayed you can modify brightnes, contrast, saturation and size. But if you store the result in one of the file formats 1..9, image size and colors are limited to the display capabilities of your VGA. For conversion WITHOUT display, the max. image size is 10240x10240x256. The conversion is done with a tempfile. Be sure you have enough space, for example you need up to 1.5Mb for the temporary file with a 800x600 24Bps image, and additionaly up to 480Kb for the destination. 'SET TEMP=DRIVE:\PATH' in the autoexec.bat defines the temporary file drive. 8. Installation, Registration ----------------------------- The registered version shows the name of the user when you quit. The Shareware version shows a message both within PV and when you quit. It is forbidden to use the program for commercial purposes without registration. Your decision to register will encourage me to continue enhancing PV. I believe it already compares more than favorably with programs like Graphic Workshop, VPIC, PICEM, etc. PV displays many image formats that cannot be handled by any other image viewer. Registered users receive detailed information about PV, how to expand the use of their VGA's, and image compression possibilities, etc, etc. Please advise if you wish to have special functions or image formats added. Registered users receive one free update. US PV Register and no further support [ ] DM60,- $45.00 PV Register incl. one update [ ] DM100,- $69.00 and further Updates [ ] DM15,- $10.00 Shipping outside Germany $5.00 PV multi licences 5.. [ ] DM50,- $30.00 each 10.. [ ] DM40,- $25.00 each PV multi licences 50.. [ ] DM20,- $12.50 each Information and special wishes depend on the amount. - Select the disk type and whether you want a German, English or french version. (coming soon netherland and may be italian). - For destinations within Germany, please include a stamped addressed envelope. For other countries, please supply a self adhesive address label. - Address all mail to: Wolfgang Wiedmann Rechbergweg 4 D7087 Essingen Germany 0(049)7365-1419 (after 17 European time or on weekend) - You can get the latest shareware version at the Ultraforce BBS : Line 1 : 0(049)7361-44117 Line 2 : 0(049)7361-45309 Login : Gast Password : Gast FidoNet 2:2487/3108 (Magic PV) 9. Trademarks , Disclaimer All other products or services mentioned, including: Western Digital, MS-DOS, Silicon Graphics, FLIC, PCX, TIFF, AI, HAM, BMP, DIB, IBM, Macintosh, Pagemaker, Designer, Photostyler, Targa, Paintbrush, PcPaint, Pictor, Colorix, Winrix, RIX, Dr Halo, Halovision, Deluxe Paint, Commodore, Autodesk, VPIC, VGIF, CSHOW, GWS, Windows, OS/2, Edsun Continuous Edge Graphics, GEM, Ventura Publisher, MS-Paint, Word Perfect, A4TECH, SIS, Encapsulated Postscript, Sun, UNIX, Fricke, Sreenmachine, FAST-Electronik, Kontron, Zeiss, GRASP, Turbo Pascal, AT, EGA, VGA, SuperVGA, 8514/A, ATI, Paradise, Ahead, Video7-, OAK, Chip&Technology, ET3000/4000, Trident8900, VESA, Tiga, XGA, CEG, HiColor, JPG2GIF, GIF2JPG, Handmade Software, HSI, GIF87a, GIF89a, CompuServe, Atari, Huffman, LZW, PICIO, SGI, Image Alchemy, VTCOMPRESS, Stemmer, HDILOAD, ATI Wonder, Everex, Kodak, Corel.. are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of their respective companies or organizations. I offer no warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. I am not liable for any errors contained herein or for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of the PV.EXE product or documentation. Before delivery, each disc is scanned for viruses.