Visions 7: People

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┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Documentation for PowerView -Special Edition │ ├────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Version 1.02 │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Note: This documentation is pleminary, and will be revised substantialy in the shareware release. Poweriew is a DOS based image viewing program that views most popular image file formats. Images may be viewed, modified and re-saved in different formats. PowerView comes with SciTech's UniVBE Driver built in. UniVBE is a Universal VESA BIOS Driver for over 160 different Graphics Chips. Installation is simple and painless. Files Included: PV EXE Main Program UVC_EXEC EXE Setup Manager UVCONFIG EXE UniVBE Configuratin PV DOC This File FEATURES DOC Discussion of PowerView features REGISTER DOC Information on Registering PowerView FILE_ID DIZ Banner File for BBS's System Requirements: * A 386sx or greater CPU is required. * A VGA display is required. * 512K free conventional memory is required. * MS-DOS or PC-DOS 5.0 or later is required. Optional System Features: * A mouse. * VESA BIOS extensions to access resolutions beyond the VGA standard such as 800x600 @ 256 colors, etc. * 600+K free conventional memory. * XMS and/or EMS memory. The more the better. Keys Available from the Desktop ------------------------------- "A"-"Z", "a"-"z", ...... Move to the next file or directory "0"-"9", ".", "@" that starts with that character Enter .................. View currently selected file Space .................. Tag/untag current file and advance to next file Backspace .............. Tag/untag current file and advance to last file Tab .................... Tag/untag next 5 files Shift+Tab .............. Tag/untag next 25 files F1 ..................... Help F2 ..................... Begin Slideshow F3 ..................... Directory history list (very useful) F4 ..................... Lock "auto" video mode selection F5 ..................... Go to last available video mode F6 ..................... Go to next available video mode F7 ..................... Assign Alt+Fkey Directories F8 ..................... Change current file mask F9 ..................... Change current directory F10 .................... Activate Pull-down Menus F12 .................... Display Extended file description Alt+F1 to Alt+F9 ....... Goto Pre-assigned Directory Alt+F10 ................ Goto Startup Directory Alt+Q, Alt+X, Esc ...... Quit program Alt+T .................. Tag all files Alt+U .................. Untag all files Alt+1 .................. Tag/untag all files Alt+2 .................. Go to first directory Alt+3 .................. Go to first file Alt+A .................. Quick Locate File by Name Alt+E .................. Recursively Search for File Alt+N .................. Resume last Recursive Search Alt+Z .................. Delete (Zap) file(s) or directory Alt+R .................. Rename file or directory Alt+C .................. Copy file(s) Alt+M .................. Move file(s) Alk+K .................. Make new Subdirectory < ...................... Go to last available video mode > ...................... Go to next available video mode ? ...................... Display Full File Descriptions Special Keys Recognized when an Image is Displayed -------------------------------------------------- "[" or "{" or "/" ...... Go immediately to the previous image in file list "]" or "}" or "*" ...... Go immediately to next image in file list "<" or "," ............. Switch to previous video mode ">" or "." ............. Switch to next video mode "?" .................... Display Current Video Mode F ...................... Display Current File and File Size V ...................... Display Current Image Size M ...................... Reset video Mode N ...................... Lock video mode (stands for "no mode change") B ...................... Blank the Screen, Press any key to Unblank T ...................... Tag image currently being viewed U ...................... Untag image currently being viewed Alt+Q, Alt+X ........... Quit program immediately Z ...................... Toggle Zoom mode on/off. EMS required F1 ..................... Help F2 ..................... Save Current Image File Saving Options ------------------- Alt+G .................. Save image as .GIF file (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 colors) Alt+I .................. Save image as Interlaced .GIF file (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 colors) Alt+P .................. Save image as .PCX file (2, 8, 16, 256, 16m colors, rle comp) Alt+F .................. Save image as .TIF file (2, 16, 256, 16m colors, no comp) Alt+T .................. Save image as .TGA file (256, 32k, 16m colors, no comp) Alt+B .................. Save image as .BMP file (2, 16, 256, 16m colors, no comp) Alt+A .................. Save image as Raw image file (256, 32k, 64k, 16m colors) Special Keys Recognized in 16 and 256 Color Modes ------------------------------------------------- The following keys work in 16 and 256 color modes only: 8 ...................... Toggle 8-bit RAMDAC support on/off G ...................... Color-kill on/off (or greyscale) I ...................... Inversion on/off A ...................... Cycle palette on/off (press ESC, a mouse button, or "A" to stop cycling) C ...................... Component swap (cycles through all combinations of the RGB components: RGB, RBG, BGR, etc.) Ctrl+C ................. Component swap reset "1", Shift+"1" ......... Red Component - "2", Shift+"2" ......... Red Component + Ctrl+"1", Ctrl+"2" ..... Red Component Reset "3", Shift+"3" ......... Green Component - "4", Shift+"4" ......... Green Component + Ctrl+"3", Ctrl+"4" ..... Green Component Reset "5", Shift+"5".......... Blue Component - "6", Shift+"6" ......... Blue Component + Ctrl+"6", Ctrl+"7"...... Blue Component Reset F7, Shift+F7 ........... Brightness - F8, Shift+F8 ........... Brightness + Ctrl+F7, Ctrl+F8 ....... Brightness Reset F9, Shift+F9 ........... Contrast - F10, Shift+F10 ......... Contrast + Ctrl+F9, Ctrl+F10 ...... Contrast Reset F11, Shift+F11 ......... Color Saturation - F12, Shift+F12 ......... Color Saturation + Ctrl+F11, Ctrl+F12 ..... Color Saturation Reset W, Shift+W ............. Hue Rotate + S, Shift+S ............. Hue Rotate - Ctrl+W, Ctrl+S ......... Hue Reset E, Shift+E ............. Linear Brightness + D, Shift+D ............. Linear Brightness - Ctrl+E, Ctrl+D ......... Linear Brightness Reset O, Shift+O ............. Gamma + L, Shift+L ............. Gamma - Ctrl+O, Ctrl+L ......... Gamma Reset R ...................... Toggle between original settings and new settings Ctrl+R ................. Resets all settings, does not toggle Special Keys Recognized in Zoom Mode ------------------------------------ Tab .................... Increase zoom factor (zoom mode only) Shift+Tab .............. Decrease zoom factor (zoom mode only) + ...................... Increase zoom factor (zoom mode only) - ...................... Decrease zoom factor (zoom mode only) Special Keys Recognized During Slide Show ----------------------------------------- U ...................... Untag image currently being viewed (beeps to acknowledge) T ...................... Tag image currently being viewed (beeps to acknowledge) P ...................... Pause (Press enter or space to resume slide show) Enter, Space ........... Go immediatly to next image (if it's available) Usage Notes: * The first time you run PowerView (PV.EXE) you are given the option to setup the UniVBE driver. * If you do not use UniVBE, you may find that hardware panning is buggy in some older VESA BIOS's and is turned off in VESA modes by default. * XMS and EMS memory allows the program to run faster and process very large images. * If insufficent memory is available for some complex functions such as JPEG rescaling with Multipass & Dither, the program will turn off functions until enough memory to run is available. * EMS memory is helpful, and without it the I-cache and Zoom features are not available. * A mouse is helpful, but not required to run. * File Descriptions in the file '00_index.txt' are supported * The first time you run the program, it is a good idea to go through each item in the Setup pulldown menu. Formats Currently Supported --------------------------- GIF --- All Types GIF87a and limited GIF89a support Views GIF images with a Macintosh fork header Max. Res. 3072x4096 Limitations: GIF89a extensions are not supported. PCX --- 2, 8, 16, 256, and true color Max. Res. 3072x4096 BMP --- 2, 16, 256, and true color, compressed or uncompressed Both Windows and OS/2 1.x versions max. res. 2048x4096 Limitations: The lastest OS/2 2.x bitmaps are not supported. LBM/IFF/BBM ----------- 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 color, compressed or uncompressed, enhanced or unenhanced 6 bit extra-halfbright mode Images without a colormap (grayscale) Max. Res. 2048x4096 Limitations: HAM and SHAM files can't currently be viewed. MAC --- All Types (with or without a Macintosh fork header) TIF --- Supports: 2 color grayscale/palettised, 16 color grayscale/palettised, 256 color grayscale/palettised, 24 bit true color, and 32 bit CMYK Compression: None, Macintosh PackBits, and LZW Horizontal differentation, or "predictors", are supported Max. Res. 3072x4096 Notes: No TIFF decoder can claim 100% TIFF support. However, PV's TIFF decoder should be able to view most of the popular TIFF variants. Limitations: The FAX style compression algorithms (Group 3 and Group 4) are currently unsupported. Images with planar configurations other than one are not supported. TGA --- 256 color, 15 bit, 16 bit, 24 bit, and 32 bit compressed or uncompressed Max. Res. 3072x4096 Limitations: The official TGA spec states that RLE runs should not cross scanline boundries. As usual, nobody cares about the official spec, so this requirement is sometimes ignored by developers. JPG --- The JPEG decoder supports the baseline DCT and extended sequential DCT based modes of operation, with or without a JFIF marker, with the following sampling factors/colorspaces: 1. YH2V2, CbH1V1, CrH1V1 (the most popular) 2. YH1V2, CbH1V1, CrH1V1 3. YH2V1, CbH1V1, CrH1V1 4. YH1V1, CbH1V1, CrH1V1 5. YH1V1, (256 color grayscale) 6. CMYK, 1:1:1:1 (or 1x1, 1x1, 1x1, 1x1) 7. CMYK, 4:1:1:4 (or 2x2, 1x1, 1x1, 2x2) Notice that for the YCbCr colorspace both chrominance components must be sampled at H1V1, and that the maximum horizontal or vertical luminance sampling factor is two. The CMYK colorspace code has only been tested with images written by Adobe's Photostyler program. Also, the preview mode is not currently available for CMYK images, because I'm too lazy to implement it. (Who cares? Hardly any DOS or Windows programs support CMYK images anyway.) The CMYK to RGB conversion code is written in C, and is quite simple, so don't expect it too look very good or perform very quickly. The maximum supported resolution is 3072x4096. (An image this size would require lots of memory to decode, so images this big may not be viewable. The maximum practical resolution is probably around 1024 to 2048 pixels per scan line or so. This depends on the sampling factor and colorspace, of course.) Non-interleaved files are not supported. In other words, the JPEG data segment must contain a single scan: multiple scans are not currently supported, and may never be. These files are rare, to say the least, so don't worry about it. My Huffman decoder currently skips restart markers. I currently do not use them for error recovery on corrupted JPEG files. About decoding speed: The following three factors greatly affect decoding speed: 1. Image detail: Highly detailed images take longer to decode. 2. The JPEG quality setting: The higher the quality setting, the slower the decompression. 3. The sampling factor used (for color images only): Images with a 1x1 sampling factor decode more slowly than images with a 2x2 sampling factor. Most color JPEG images in existance on BBS's use the 2x2 sampling factor (for good reasons). To get the most out of JPEG images, use a video card which supports the true color video modes. I don't know if the JPEG files written by Adobe Photoshop can be viewed by my decoder yet... I've heard that these files may be non-standard. If you want the fastest possible JPEG viewing in 256 color modes, turn off "Dither/256" and "Multipass/256". If you want the best quality, then turn both of these options on. I highly recommend you experiment with the 4 combinations of these values so you can settle on one that suites you best. (I use Dither/256 = off and Multipass/256 = on.) Be sure you have lots of available EMS or XMS memory if you turn multipass on, otherwise PowerViewI will use your hard disk to hold the decoded image, which is much slower. In Hi-Color modes: I don't recommend you turn on "Dither/Hi-Color" unless your machine is very fast because Floyd-Steinburg dithering is very slow... (On most photographic images you can't even tell a difference anyway.) About JPG previews: The JPEG preview mode is fast! If your video card does not support the Hi-Color or true color video modes, use the grayscale preview, otherwise use the true color preview.