ranson@crcge1.UUCP (D. Ranson CNET) (09/03/87)
Has anybody defined a file format for color bitmaps (for use in screen dumps
or color MacPaint look-alikes)? There is a rumor of a new color MacPaint. Has
anybody tested it and peeked into its files? Or maybe HyperCard is the place
to look at if it can paint in color (can it?).
Daniel Ranson
...!seismo!mcvax!inria!{crcge1 or cnetlu}!ransonjww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) (09/04/87)
In article <2862@crcge1.UUCP>, ranson@crcge1.UUCP (D. Ranson CNET) writes: > Has anybody defined a file format for color bitmaps (for use in screen dumps > or color MacPaint look-alikes)? There is a rumor of a new color MacPaint. The color painting program that most people have seen is ATG Paint, from Apple's Advanced Technology Group (yep, apple!lsr had a major hand in it). It uses a radical new format: PICT. Q: PICT? You mean like "Save as PICT" in MacDraw? A: Yep, that's the one. However, the Color QuickDraw version is a newer format than the original, includes RGB colors, etc. Q: Are there likely to be any other standard formats? A: Not any time soon, if ever. Q: Are there other formats? A: Yes. For example, PixelPaint has its own proprietary format. Q: Will ATG Paint ever be commercial? A: Not likely. Q: What about a commercial color MacPaint? A: Ask Claris, the Apple application spin-off. > Or maybe HyperCard is the place > to look at if it can paint in color (can it?). Q: Does the current HyperCard support color? A: No, and its current implementation would be too memory-intensive to work with color bitmaps if it did. -- Joel West (c/o UCSD) Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA 92083 {ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu or ihnp4!crash!palomar!joel joel@palomar.cts.com
lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein) (09/06/87)
In article <3789@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) writes: > >The color painting program that most people have seen is ATG Paint, from >Apple's Advanced Technology Group (yep, apple!lsr had a major hand in it). >It uses a radical new format: PICT. > >Q: PICT? You mean like "Save as PICT" in MacDraw? >A: Yep, that's the one. However, the Color QuickDraw version is a newer > format than the original, includes RGB colors, etc. Using PICT format was the most convenient, given the time constraints of getting these demos ready for the Mac II intro. Also, we has a couple of programs that read in images, and PICT was the easiest way for them to share files. The PICT files we used were exactly like MacDraw PICT files, except that they used the type 2 picture opcodes, since type 1 pictures don't support RGB color and pixMaps. System 4.1, however, contained a patch to DrawPicture that would interpret type 2 pictures correctly on a non-Mac II, so the color images can be read in by standard MacDraw. There is one catch, however, with the original image files. We made 2 mistakes in writing out the color images that prevent this from actually happening. First is that we did not divide up the picture into pieces and add the appropriate MacDraw picture comments. Second, we used the wrong kind of color table in the file. (There are pixMap color tables and device colorTables. Only pixMap tables are interpreted by the System 4.1 patch.) I have since modified ATG-Paint to write out the pictures properly, and MacDraw will read the new files quite nicely. The end result is the same as if you displayed them on a 1-bit deep screen. -- Larry Rosenstein Object Specialist Apple Computer AppleLink: Rosenstein1 UUCP: {sun, voder, nsc, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr CSNET: lsr@Apple.com