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- Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet
- From: oahvenla@vinkku.hut.fi (Osma Ahvenlampi)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
- Subject: SURVEY: Amiga picture viewers, version 2
- Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
- Date: 15 Mar 1994 15:41:37 GMT
- Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
- Lines: 479
- Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
- Distribution: world
- Message-ID: <2m4kvh$mf7@menudo.uh.edu>
- Reply-To: oahvenla@vinkku.hut.fi (Osma Ahvenlampi)
- NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu
- Keywords: graphics, viewer, IFF, JPEG, GIF, freeware, shareware
-
-
- PRODUCT NAMES, AUTHOR INFORMATION, AVAILABILITY
-
- AIVE 1.0 by Laurent Vivier
- ALook 3.1 by Trevor Andrews
- Bview 1.06 by Joeri Alberty
- FastJPEG 1.10 by Christoph Feck
- FastView 2.01 by "KRUEMELMONSTER2000"
- GIF.datatype 39.3 by "Steve the G"
- GIF_view 4.4 by Lorenzo Musto
- HAMGIF 2.5 by Steven Bennett
- ILBM.datatype 40.2 by Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
- JPEG.datatype 39.1 by Steve Goddard
- Mostra 2.0 by Sebastiano Vigna
- MUGiff 1.4 by Mark Rose
- PPShow 4.0 by Nico Francois
- ShowGIF 1.01 by Christophe Passuello *
- ViewJpeg 1.0 beta by <unknown>
- Viewtek 1.05 by Thomas Krehbiel
- VirtGIF 1.0 by Patrick Maloney
- VJPEG 0.01 by David Blevins
- ZGif 0.4 by Michael Zucchi
- ZGIF.datatype 39.7 by Michael Zucchi
-
- * ShowGIF is the CLI counterpart of FastGIF, a better known, GUI
- driven GIF viewer. ShowGIF is is distributed with FastGIF.
-
- All of the software in this review, with the exception of
- ILBM.datatype (a part of the AmigaDOS from version 3.0 upwards) is available
- on Aminet, the world wide network of ftp sites for Amiga software. For
- further information on Aminet, ftp to ftp.wustl.edu, directory /pub/aminet,
- and read the README file available there.
-
-
- BRIEF DESCRIPTION
-
- After getting a considerable amount of response from the quick and
- dirty picture viewer test I made a while ago, I decided a more thorough test
- would be in order. For this, a friend of mine was nice enough to loan me an
- A1200 so that I could include AGA specific software also. Thanks, Pekka!
-
- [MODERATOR'S NOTE: The original test was posted in c.s.a.reviews
- on 23 February 1994, and is found in our ftp archives in the
- file software/graphics/PictureViewerSurvey. - Dan]
-
- Only public domain, shareware, freeware and similar software is
- included, simply because I do not have access to enough commercial software,
- nor the time to learn to use it well enough to get a fair view of the
- capabilities. I felt that to avoid biasing, it would be better to restrict
- the test to freely available software.
-
-
- SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
-
- For more detailed information about the specific requirements of any
- of the programs, see their documentation.
-
- HARDWARE
-
- Some of the programs require the AGA chipset found on Amiga
- models A1200, A4000 and later. A few of the programs
- require a 68020 CPU or better.
-
- SOFTWARE
-
- Some of the programs require AmigaDOS version 2.0 or later,
- or, most notably in the case of the Datatypes, even AmigaDOS
- version 3.0 or later.
-
-
- MACHINE USED FOR TESTING
-
- Amiga A1200
- Microbotics 1230XA, 50MHz 68030 board
- 2MB Chip RAM, 4MB Fast RAM
- 130MB hard drive
- Kickstart version 39.106, Workbench version 40.23
-
-
- BACKGROUND
-
- The hardest part was deciding what to test. For reasons described
- above, I left all commercial software out of the test. None would have
- actually fit into the description of a "picture viewer" anyway, being
- complicated and feature-laden image conversion and manipulation software.
-
- Next, I decided, partly for the same reasons, to leave out all
- programs specifically made for image conversion and manipulation. So you
- won't find ADPro, ImageFX, ImageMaster, HamLabPlus, NETPBM, or any other
- similar programs here. Sorry.
-
- What was left after this was the relatively simple programs meant
- for displaying pictures in various formats. Note that most, if not all, of
- these programs sacrifice quality for speed, unlike the dedicated converter
- programs.
-
- This time, AGA modes were used where applicable, and if the program
- supported them. No extra ECS-specific tests were made. If a program had
- two versions, an AGA specific and an ECS specific, the AGA specific one was
- used.
-
- Most programs in the review have a command line interface only, with
- perhaps the capability to read the options from icon tooltypes also. All
- tests were made using the command line interface, except in the case of
- ViewJpeg, which had a GUI interface only (and a horrible file requester,
- something that was quite common in the AmigaDOS 1.3 days).
-
- Originally, I intended to test AIVE 1.0 also. During the testing,
- it produced lots of alerts and even crashes, and thus I had to leave it
- out. From what I did find out, it was exceptionally slow and supported a
- subset of IFF ILBM only, so I don't think dropping it from the review changed
- the results too much.
-
-
- TABLE OF FEATURES
-
- Program IFF IFF24 PCHG GIF JPEG Mode DT Multi Slide FReq AGA
- ==============================================================
- ALook O - O - - - - O O O -
- Bview O - - - - - - - - O O
- FastJPEG - - - - O O - O O O *
- FastView O - - - - - - O - O -
- GIF.dt - - - O - NA NA NA NA NA O
- GIF_view - - - O - - - - - - -
- HAMGIF - - - O - - - O O - -
- ILBM.dt O - - - - NA NA NA NA NA O
- JPEG.dt - - - - O NA NA NA NA NA X
- Mostra O - O - - O - O O O O
- MUGiff O - - - - - - O - O -
- PPShow O O O O O O O O O O O
- ShowGIF - - - O - - - O O - O
- ViewJpeg - - - - O - - - - O -
- Viewtek O O O O O O O O O O O
- VirtGIF - - - O - - - - - - -
- VJPEG - - - - O - - - - - -
- ZGif - - - O - - - O - - *
- ZGIF.dt - - - O - NA NA NA NA NA X
-
- Key:
- O The program has this feature.
- - The program does NOT have this feature.
- * A separate version of the program has this feature.
- X AGA is required to run this program.
- NA Not applicable. In particular, datatypes do not
- have a user interface of their own, but require a
- viewer that supports datatypes (such as MultiView)
- as a front-end.
-
- Explanation of the columns:
-
- - IFF, IFF24, GIF and JPEG are picture formats. PCHG is an
- extension of the IFF ILBM format with a multipalette chunk mostly
- usable for HAM pictures.
- - DT means the program can use Datatypes to display pictures.
- - Mode means support for manual screenmode selection from the
- Display Database.
- - Multi means capability of showing multiple files on one
- invocation.
- - Slide means basic slideshow support, such as looping through
- the pictures, showing a picture for a specified time, and
- hidden decompression while showing another picture.
- - FReq means the pictures can be selected from a file requester.
- - AGA means the program supports AGA modes.
-
-
- PICTURES USED IN TESTING
-
- Two pictures were used in the testing. For a color picture, I
- decided to use a 597x796x24 scan of a Boris Vallejo painting, available on
- ftp.funet.fi as /pub/pics/art/BorisVallejo/bv9.jpg. This picture was
- downscaled and converted with the NETPBM image conversion package to all the
- formats used in the test, with the exception of the HAM6 version, which was
- converted with HamLabPlus as a PCHG HAM (using 12 color registers in the
- slicing). For black and white, I used a 600x787x1 clip art collage GIF which
- I also converted to IFF.
-
- Pic# Description
- 1 597x796x24 color JPEG
- 2 597x796x8 grayscale JPEG
- 3 298x796x6 lores/laced sliced (12) PCHG HAM6
- 4 597x796x8 hires/laced HAM8
- 5 299x398x4 16 color IFF
- 6 299x398x8 256 color IFF
- 7 600x768x1 B/W IFF
- 8 299x398x4 16 color GIF
- 9 299x398x8 256 color GIF
- 10 600x768x1 B/W GIF
- 11 299x398x24 IFF24
-
-
- SPEED OF THE PROGRAMS
-
- The timing of the programs was done using the Spy System 3 system
- performance monitor package, and the CPUTime command. This program runs the
- program given to it as a command line argument, and after the program has
- finished, reports the real time and CPU time taken by the program. In the
- following table I have listed the real time. While on first thought, CPU
- time might have been more truthful, it would have not included the time used
- to access the disk. Some of the programs use asynchronous file I/O,
- decompressing at the same time as reading from the disk, while others first
- read a bit, then decompress, read a bit more, etc. Given the same
- decompression routine, a program using asynchronous I/O can be significantly
- faster, although the CPU time taken would be the same. This is why real
- time is listed. See the end of this article for the listing of both real and
- CPU time.
-
- The times are in seconds, and include all initializations and
- cleaning up the program made before and after displaying the picture. If
- the program wasn't capable of exiting immediately after displaying the
- picture, the number includes the time it took me to press the mouse button,
- ESCAPE, ENTER, or whatever the program required to exit. Datatypes were
- timed using Viewtek with the DT option.
-
- It should be kept in mind that the times below are the results of
- one iteration only. That is, I tested the programs once. There might be
- random errors that repeated testing could have eliminated. This is
- especially true with the viewers that could not exit automatically, where my
- own reaction time might account for most of the time. The CPU time could be
- nearer to the truth in these cases.
-
-
- Program 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
- ALook - - 3.2 - 1.8 - 1.6 - - - -
- Bview - - - 7.4 2.7 - 2.6 - - - -
- FastJPEG 14.3 6.9 - - - - - - - - -
- FastView - - - - 7.9 - 3.6 - - - -
- GIF.dt - - - - - - - 3.1 4.7 4.5 -
- GIF_view - - - - - - - 14.3 17.9 19.1 -
- HAMGIF - - - - - - - 7.4 6.9 4.7 -
- ILBM.dt - - - 6.1 1.9 2.7 1.9 - - - -
- Mostra - - 2.7 5.8 1.4 2.2 1.2 - - - -
- MUGiff - - - - 5.0 - 2.4 - - - -
- PPShow 18.9 9.5 2.9 5.3 1.6 2.3 1.8 2.4 3.3 3.3 4.6
- ShowGIF - - - - - - - 5.9 4.1 3.3 -
- ViewJpeg 57.9 24.1 - - - - - - - - -
- Viewtek 40.4 10.6 3.6 7.6 1.9 3.0 1.9 3.3 4.6 5.6 19.8
- VirtGIF - - - - - - - 21.6 25.1 63.6 -
- VJPEG 123.6 * - - - - - - - - -
- ZGIF - - - - - - - 4.7 2.3 X -
- ZGIF.dt - - - - - - - 2.2 2.7 2.6 -
-
- * VJPEG crashed on a grayscale JPEG.
- X For some unknown reason, ZGif showed only a blank screen on
- the large black and white GIF.
-
- JPEG.datatype crashed for some unknown reason on every try. Others
- have reported it working, but I was not able to get it work.
-
-
- NOTES ON QUALITY
-
- My experience has been that on an ECS Amiga, FastJPEG produces by
- far the best result from a JPEG picture. In HAM8 mode on an AGA machine,
- the dithering is not that critical, and thus the difference in quality
- between FastJPEG and other JPEG viewers is less. FastJPEG also has a
- "dirty" option, which turns off dithering and speed up the displaying
- considerably. With this option, the resulting picture is very close to
- Viewtek quality.
-
- PPShow has a problem when rendering 24-bit to HAM. While this is
- only a marginal problem on HAM8, it shows up extremely clearly on ECS
- machines and HAM6 mode. The result is hard to describe, but diagonal and
- vertical lines of high contrast are messy.
-
- Some of the viewers convert 256 color GIFs to HAM6. This is a
- two-sided matter. While this is the only practical way of displaying the
- pictures in color on ECS machines, HAM6 resolution is not that good.
-
-
- MISCELLANEOUS NOTES
-
- I've collected here some notes that I felt might be of some use to
- the readers.
-
- Viewtek can show 256 color IFFs even on ECS Amigas. It will render
- them in HAM6 mode, and the result is identical to a 256 color GIF. In
- addition, it shows HAM8 pictures on ECS machines, but seems to simply strip
- two bitplanes out, and not do any rendering to HAM6. The result is quite
- weird looking.
-
- Gif_view, HAMGIF, VirtGIF and Viewtek show 256 color GIFs in HAM6 on
- ECS machines. Other GIF-capable viewers show them in 16 grayscales.
-
- Viewtek and PPShow can also play ANIMs.
-
-
- MICRO REVIEW
-
- In my opinion, the overall quality of a display viewer can be judged
- from three roughly equal parts: flexibility, speed, and display quality.
- What follows is a quick assessment of the viewers in this test in the
- comp.sys.amiga.reviews micro-review format.
-
- ALook | Trevor Andrews | *+
- Bview | Joeri Alberty | *+
- FastJPEG | Christoph Feck | ****
- FastView | "KRUEMELMONSTER 2000" | *
- GIF.datatype | "Steve the G" | **+
- GIF_view | Lorenzo Musto | *
- HAMGIF | Steven Bennett | *+
- ILBM.datatype | Commodore-Amiga, Inc. | ***
- Mostra | Sebastiano Vigna | ***
- MUGiff | Mark Rose | *
- PPShow | Nico Francois | ****+
- ShowGIF | Christophe Passuello | **+
- ViewJpeg | <unknown> | *
- Viewtek | Thomas Krehbiel | ***+
- VirtGIF | Patrick Maloney | *
- VJPEG | David Blevins | *
- ZGif | Michael Zucchi | **+
- ZGIF.datatype | Michael Zucchi | ****
-
-
- CONCLUSIONS
-
- PPShow was great all around. You will probably want a fast viewer
- that can display a lot of things with good to reasonable quality, and PPShow
- fits the description. The JPEG and IFF24 display quality leave room for
- improvement, but both are fast. In case you're willing to use several
- viewers, I would recommend using FastJPEG for JPEGs. It is a bit faster than
- PPShow, and a lot better quality. If you happen to be a speed freak, or use
- a slow machine, you might want to consider using the ZGIF.datatype with
- PPShow for GIF pictures.
-
- Viewtek used to be the best all-around viewer available, and it
- still is quite nice. It has a lot of options, but suffers from number of
- bugs and chronic slowness. Personally, I'm surprised it is thought to be a
- fast viewer.
-
-
- SPECIAL NEWSFLASH FOR AMIGADOS 3.x USERS
-
- At the last moment, I decided to try Tron's PCX datatype (TPD.lha on
- Aminet) on a 256-color conversion of the JPEG used in the above tests. It
- is significantly faster than the other PCX Datatype (PCX.lha on Aminet) I've
- seen. The times to display the picture were 8.6 seconds (TPD) and 12.4
- seconds (PCX).
-
-
- LOG OF THE TESTS
-
- The results of each test are given, with the picture number
- (see the PICTURES USED IN TESTING section, above) preceding each result.
-
- ALook
- 3: Real 00:00:03.202, PCPU 00:00:01.163, TCPU 00:00:01.163
- 5: Real 00:00:01.755, PCPU 00:00:00.824, TCPU 00:00:00.824
- 7: Real 00:00:01.594, PCPU 00:00:00.733, TCPU 00:00:00.733
-
- Bview
- 4: Real 00:00:07.367, PCPU 00:00:02.377, TCPU 00:00:02.377
- 5: Real 00:00:02.735, PCPU 00:00:00.784, TCPU 00:00:00.784
- 7: Real 00:00:02.623, PCPU 00:00:00.722, TCPU 00:00:00.722
-
- FastView
- 5: Real 00:00:07.910, PCPU 00:00:05.321, TCPU 00:00:05.321
- 7: Real 00:00:03.561, PCPU 00:00:02.449, TCPU 00:00:02.449
-
- FastJPEG
- 1: Real 00:00:14.273, PCPU 00:00:12.610, TCPU 00:00:12.610
- 2: Real 00:00:06.888, PCPU 00:00:05.765, TCPU 00:00:05.765
-
- Gif_view
- 8: Real 00:00:14.342, PCPU 00:00:03.799, TCPU 00:00:03.799
- 9: Real 00:00:17.904, PCPU 00:00:07.829, TCPU 00:00:07.829
- 10: Real 00:00:19.124, PCPU 00:00:10.081, TCPU 00:00:10.081
-
- HAMGIF
- 8: Real 00:00:07.408, PCPU 00:00:06.327, TCPU 00:00:06.327
- 9: Real 00:00:06.868, PCPU 00:00:05.783, TCPU 00:00:05.783
- 10: Real 00:00:04.742, PCPU 00:00:03.918, TCPU 00:00:03.918
-
- Mostra
- 3: Real 00:00:02.672, PCPU 00:00:00.738, TCPU 00:00:00.738
- 4: Real 00:00:05.813, PCPU 00:00:01.317, TCPU 00:00:01.317
- 5: Real 00:00:01.424, PCPU 00:00:00.378, TCPU 00:00:00.378
- 6: Real 00:00:02.238, PCPU 00:00:00.565, TCPU 00:00:00.565
- 7: Real 00:00:01.163, PCPU 00:00:00.294, TCPU 00:00:00.294
-
- MUGiff
- 5: Real 00:00:05.040, PCPU 00:00:00.466, TCPU 00:00:00.466
- 7: Real 00:00:02.426, PCPU 00:00:00.414, TCPU 00:00:00.414
-
- PPShow
- 1: Real 00:00:18.753, PCPU 00:00:16.895, TCPU 00:00:16.895
- 2: Real 00:00:09.490, PCPU 00:00:07.960, TCPU 00:00:07.960
- 3: Real 00:00:02.906, PCPU 00:00:00.885, TCPU 00:00:00.885
- 4: Real 00:00:05.348, PCPU 00:00:01.399, TCPU 00:00:01.399
- 5: Real 00:00:01.600, PCPU 00:00:00.519, TCPU 00:00:00.519
- 6: Real 00:00:02.298, PCPU 00:00:00.719, TCPU 00:00:00.719
- 7: Real 00:00:01.803, PCPU 00:00:00.503, TCPU 00:00:00.503
- 8: Real 00:00:02.364, PCPU 00:00:01.091, TCPU 00:00:01.091
- 9: Real 00:00:03.251, PCPU 00:00:01.774, TCPU 00:00:01.774
- 10: Real 00:00:03.265, PCPU 00:00:01.985, TCPU 00:00:01.985
- 11: Real 00:00:04.451, PCPU 00:00:01.873, TCPU 00:00:01.873
-
- ShowGIF
- 8: Real 00:00:05.875, PCPU 00:00:00.631, TCPU 00:00:00.631
- 9: Real 00:00:04.128, PCPU 00:00:00.730, TCPU 00:00:00.730
- 10: Real 00:00:03.250, PCPU 00:00:00.831, TCPU 00:00:00.831
-
- VirtGIF
- 8: Real 00:00:21.579, PCPU 00:00:15.867, TCPU 00:00:15.867
- 9: Real 00:00:25.079, PCPU 00:00:18.480, TCPU 00:00:18.480
- 10: Real 00:01:03.563, PCPU 00:00:53.264, TCPU 00:00:53.264
-
- VJPEG
- 1: Real 00:02:03.594, PCPU 00:01:47.554, TCPU 00:01:47.554
- 2: VJPEG crashed on a grayscale JPEG
-
- Viewtek
- 1: Real 00:00:40.351, PCPU 00:00:37.964, TCPU 00:00:37.964
- 2: Real 00:00:10.576, PCPU 00:00:08.796, TCPU 00:00:08.796
- 3: Real 00:00:03.619, PCPU 00:00:01.126, TCPU 00:00:01.126
- 4: Real 00:00:07.555, PCPU 00:00:01.864, TCPU 00:00:01.864
- 5: Real 00:00:01.924, PCPU 00:00:00.564, TCPU 00:00:00.564
- 6: Real 00:00:02.957, PCPU 00:00:00.870, TCPU 00:00:00.870
- 7: Real 00:00:01.892, PCPU 00:00:00.554, TCPU 00:00:00.554
- 8: Real 00:00:03.300, PCPU 00:00:01.867, TCPU 00:00:01.867
- 9: Real 00:00:04.556, PCPU 00:00:02.858, TCPU 00:00:02.858
- 10: Real 00:00:05.630, PCPU 00:00:04.184, TCPU 00:00:04.184
- 11: Real 00:00:19.838, PCPU 00:00:15.922, TCPU 00:00:15.922
-
- ZGif
- 8: Real 00:00:04.725, PCPU 00:00:00.620, TCPU 00:00:00.620
- 9: Real 00:00:02.326, PCPU 00:00:00.880, TCPU 00:00:00.880
- 10: for some reason, ZGif only showed a blank screen on this GIF
-
- ViewJpeg
- 1: Real 00:00:57.889, PCPU 00:00:48.617, TCPU 00:00:48.617
- 2: Real 00:00:24.114, PCPU 00:00:16.502, TCPU 00:00:16.502
-
- JPEG.datatype crashed the test machine. The problem could not be
- found.
-
- GIF.datatype
- 8: Real 00:00:03.071, PCPU 00:00:01.867, TCPU 00:00:01.867
- 9: Real 00:00:04.690, PCPU 00:00:03.074, TCPU 00:00:03.074
- 10: Real 00:00:04.521, PCPU 00:00:03.185, TCPU 00:00:03.185
-
- ZGIF.datatype
- 8: Real 00:00:02.157, PCPU 00:00:00.866, TCPU 00:00:00.866
- 9: Real 00:00:02.721, PCPU 00:00:01.295, TCPU 00:00:01.295
- 10: Real 00:00:02.591, PCPU 00:00:01.292, TCPU 00:00:01.292
-
- ILBM.datatype
- 4: Real 00:00:06.051, PCPU 00:00:01.720, TCPU 00:00:02.211
- 5: Real 00:00:01.946, PCPU 00:00:00.563, TCPU 00:00:00.627
- 6: Real 00:00:02.657, PCPU 00:00:00.837, TCPU 00:00:00.963
- 7: Real 00:00:01.945, PCPU 00:00:00.552, TCPU 00:00:00.608
-
- ----
- 256 color 608x796 PCX picture:
- PCX.datatype
- Real 00:00:12.403, PCPU 00:00:08.577, TCPU 00:00:08.577
-
- TPD.datatype
- Real 00:00:08.603, PCPU 00:00:05.658, TCPU 00:00:05.658
-
-
- DISCLAIMER
-
- The author of this article cannot be held liable for any damage or
- loss that might result from this article. In case of doubt, interpret any
- information contained herein as lies and bad jokes.
-
-
- COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
-
- All tests made by Osma Ahvenlampi. This review is Copyright 1994
- Osma Ahvenlampi. Distribution through any channels permitted.
-
- ---
-
- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
- Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu
- Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu
- Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu
- Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews
-