GORRIEDE@UREGINA1.BITNET (Dennis Robert Gorrie) (12/05/89)
I posted this about a week ago, and I received many requests for a summary posting, so here it is. >1) What are people with large hard disks using to de-fragment their disks? > BAD disk optimiser won't work for me because it would require that I have > 3 megs RAM just to optimize my 155 meg drive. A serious limitation. > Any other suggestions? (besides a complete backup and restore I mean) ;I've got a 65M drive, and I find it doesn't fragment all that badly even with ;the heavy use I give it. Once a year or so I backup and restore it just to ;clean things up a bit. With "Quarterback" it isn't all that much of a chore. 'To defrag my disk I do an incremental backup, reformat (high level only), then 'do a full restore. Not pretty, but it works RELIABLY, something BAD doesn't. "Unfortunately, haven't found anything yet. Progressive Peripherals has just "released a software package that includes a bunch of utilities. One of them "is a HD defragmenter. In the mean time, I'm doing backups with QuikBackup "(off of a Fish disk), and a reinstall. No way to spend a afternoon..... Here I will add that KwikBackUp off of FF234 is fast but cannot recover from a crash during your backup. MRbackup can do this, and is more flexible, but MUCH slower. >2) Has anyone tried out the commercial terminal program VTX On-line > by MichTron? ;Why would anyone want to BUY a terminal emulator when such good ones are ;available for free from the Fish disks? I use "VT100 V2.6" and "Dnet Fterm". Many people find themselves needing more than one terminal program. I think there is no one single program that provides these features: a good dialer that uses the FINALLIST number format, the excellent VT100/220 capability of Handshake, and the wide number of reliable transfer protocols in JRcomm. >3) Has anyone tried the latest Perfectsound ver 3 hardware? The older version > just does not quite cut it "No, I haven't, but I'm real interested in hearing what others have to say. "I have the last version on loan, and I'm not real thrilled with it. I keep "hearing that AMAS is much better, but I alrealy have a midi interface. I'd "like to hear what others have to say myself. Supposedly one of the fixes is "the crosstalk and noise problem when doing stereo samples. >4) Does anyone have suggestions about what would be the fastest, most flexible > mandelbrot generator? I would like to give it a batch of coordinates, and > have it produce for me several 640x200 16 color IFF pics. ;What you want is called "MandelVroom" from Fish disk 214. If you've got a 68020 ;it will run a lot faster. If you've got a floating point chip, it will run ;faster yet (if the chip has a decent clock speed). "i'm using two mandelbrot generators. Mandlevroom is easily the faster, with "the nicer user interface. I recommend it wholeheartedly. The author is "supposedly at work on a HAM version, as well as a 3d mandlebrot generator. "The other I'm using is Slicer. It's slow, but is a much better "mandelbrot "hacker" program. User interface is minimal, but it has one big thing going "for it. It renders the data for the mandelbrot, and then you have a several "different ways of displaying them, including on it's "side". You can save "the generated data separately from the pictures. I'd take a look at it. Both "of these are on the Fish disks. :Have you looked at MandelVRoom? This program was posted to :comp.sources.amiga last summer so you can find it at your nearest archive :site. It can not process a batch of coord. but it can generate several :mandelbrots at the same time in different windows (a good example of a :program that takes advantage of multitasking). >5) IF I wanted to compile a bunch of IFF pics into an animation in the ANIM > format, what would I need ? (would MakeAnim suffice?) ;Why "anim" format? I use something called "Page Flipper plus FX" for ;prototyping animations, and then I use "dilbm/pilbm/movie" to put them together ;and display them. "dilbm" and "pilbm" are godawful to use, but they still ;product the fastest, smallest animations I've found. PFX is a purchased ;product, while dilbm/pilbm come from the Fish disks. "Makeanim would work fine. If you want to spend some money, check out Aegis's "VideoEffects 3d. It will compress, convert, edit and generally screw around "with anim format files. I don't own it yet, but it's high on my list. =The Director, I believe, can also do this, =as well as one of the "Animation:" products by Hash Enterprises. MakeAnim, =however, is in the Public Domain, which is Nice. I am leaning toward ANIM format animations because I am hoping that I will be able to play/create much larger animations than my 1.5M RAM would normally allow, using the new DiskAnim program. No other animation format that I know of currently can do this. Any comments? >6) Say I wanted to do some tilting of iff pics for this animation, as well as > wraping them around globes, ect, before compliling them into the animation. > What software would I need for this? ;Turbo Silver. It allows you to wrap arbitrary IFF images around complex shapes, ;plus one hell of a lot more. It appears to be the best ray-tracer around for ;the Amiga, especially with its latest release (which is called "Turbo Silver ;SV"). I just got my update in the mail yesterday and I'm excited as all heck by ;what I'm seeing. "Again, look at VideoEffects 3d. I'd also ponder buying a copy of DigiPaint "3.0, for it's antialiased font support, and it's texture mapping. It's "running a very close second in my paintbox right now, behind DPaintIII "(which will, incidentally, create anim files itself, as well as animated "brushes). Now that I think about it, I'd almost suggest running out and "getting a copy of DPaintIII, if you don't own it, and just using it instead "of my other suggestions. =There is a public domain program on one of the Fish disks that takes =an IFF and wraps it around a sphere... I think "World" is in the title. =But if you want to wrap an IFF picture around *any* arbitrary shape, you =need the powerful 3D raytracer/renderer: Turbo Silver SV. The Object Editor =is difficult to learn how to use, but the possibilities of rendering are =almost limitless. The company that makes it (Impulse, Inc.) is developing a =new Object Maker that will be available around the summer of 1990. :Turbo Silver SV can handle 5) and 6). It is a ray tracing package that :includes the ability to lay iff pics on a flat surface as well as wrap iff :pics on any object. It even have textures that simulate wood, marble, and :waves. I don't have Impulses number handy but you can find their 800 number :in the mag. ads. BTW, Impulse just released a voice recognision :hard/software. Finally, let me add that a program called Animagic comes highly recommended from a friend of mine. It has over 2000 video effects to use in making animations, and supposedly comes with the DiskAnim program as well. I hope this list proves useful to others who are undertaking animation projects. It has been very useful to me, and I thank all of those who responded to my questions. Please reply DIRECT only. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Dennis Gorrie 'Sudden decompresion Sucks' | |GORRIEDE AT UREGINA1.BITNET | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
kevin@uts.amdahl.com (Kevin Clague) (12/07/89)
Sorry if this post is way late.... I've been working too much lately... In article <8912050357.AA13069@jade.berkeley.edu> GORRIEDE@UREGINA1.BITNET (Dennis Robert Gorrie) writes: >I posted this about a week ago, and I received many requests for a summary >posting, so here it is. non-mandelbrot stuff removed > >>4) Does anyone have suggestions about what would be the fastest, most flexible >> mandelbrot generator? I would like to give it a batch of coordinates, and >> have it produce for me several 640x200 16 color IFF pics. > >;What you want is called "MandelVroom" from Fish disk 214. If you've got a 68020 >;it will run a lot faster. If you've got a floating point chip, it will run >;faster yet (if the chip has a decent clock speed). i.e. > 16Mhz > >"i'm using two mandelbrot generators. Mandlevroom is easily the faster, with >"the nicer user interface. I recommend it wholeheartedly. The author is >"supposedly at work on a HAM version, as well as a 3d mandlebrot generator. >"The other I'm using is Slicer. It's slow, but is a much better "mandelbrot >"hacker" program. User interface is minimal, but it has one big thing going >"for it. It renders the data for the mandelbrot, and then you have a several >"different ways of displaying them, including on it's "side". You can save >"the generated data separately from the pictures. I'd take a look at it. Both >"of these are on the Fish disks. Yes. I have been working on an offshoot of MandelVroom that is 3D HAM. Since it is an offshoot of MandelVroom it has many of the niceties of MandelVroom: graphics user interface, multi-projects, multitaksing.... also now most of the menu items have keyboard shortcuts.... It also has many new features: It has one colored light source (infinitly far away) that you can place anywhere you want. It uses a simple ambient/diffuse/specular reflection lighting model. You can set the viewing angle (0 gets you a side view pi/2 gets you top view.) The navigational controls are center/magnitude/angle format so you can make animations where you can fly around and have the camera rotate (or the complex plane... who can tell?) This means that the complex plane axis do not have to be paralell to the window's borders. > >:Have you looked at MandelVRoom? This program was posted to >:comp.sources.amiga last summer so you can find it at your nearest archive >:site. It can not process a batch of coord. but it can generate several >:mandelbrots at the same time in different windows (a good example of a >:program that takes advantage of multitasking). > I also added a console window with a command line interface and an AREXX port. Using Willy Langenveld's (sp) arexx support libraries for access to IEEE transcendental functions you can easily write nice zoom-in, flyby or rotation animations in 20 lines of AREXX. Pretty cool!! Anyone want any other features added? One I want is to be able to produce ANIM files using MandelVroom 3D. > >Please reply DIRECT only. Sorry.... couldn't resist the urge to brag a little.... >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ >|Dennis Gorrie 'Sudden decompresion Sucks' | >|GORRIEDE AT UREGINA1.BITNET | >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ Amiga is still the greates personal computer I've ever seen!! -- UUCP: kevin@uts.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,seismo,oliveb}!amdahl!kevin DDD: 408-737-5481 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ]