vjg@cblph.att.com (Vincent J Guinto) (01/31/90)
Awhile ago, I posted a long, tedious request for information. I was looking for a way to capture selected parts of a Sun 4 SPARC station screen, in either raster files or PostScript files, and insert these files into troff documents. In that posting, I promised to summarize and post the replies I got. It's been awhile, but here is that promised summary, along with a few subsidiary requests. 1. First, this is what I've done successfully so far: I have dumped a whole-screen screendump into a raster file, run rasfilter8to1 to remove the color, then pssun to convert it to PostScript. You must then edit the PostScript header and remove the initmatrix command and any translate or scale commands, and it will insert into troff documents using some AT&T-internally-developed add-on troff macros and software. Note that this process works on Sun 3s, but I haven't tried it on a SPARC station yet (I don't have one yet). In my original posting, I asked if anyone knew of any problems using the rasfilter8to1 and pssun commands under Sun 4, but received no reply. (In case you can't tell from my postings, I'm pretty ignorant about the distinctions between the Sun 3 operating system and Sun 4 OS.) 2. Someone mentioned a program by Ed Falk of Sun Microsystems called "rast2ps" to convert a rasterfile to PostScript, but also said that the program's output takes a very long time to print on a LaserWriter. Now, it seems LaserWriters are known for somewhat slow PostScript printing times, so that may not be a problem; I don't know. 3. The same person who mentioned "rast2ps" says his people are using parts of an image processing package called FBM. I've never heard of this, and don't want to mess around with large packages unles they offer a total solution to my problem. Also, my group doesn't own the fileserver, and I don't know how enthusiastically the owners will greet the request to add large software packages. 4. Someone recommended the Publisher package from ArborText. He gave the following contact information: ArborText, Inc. 535 West William Street, Suite 300 Ann Arbor, MI 48103 313-996-3566 Contact: Melanie Kesler, mdk@arbortext.com I haven't gotten any information from them yet. 5. OpenWindows 1.0 from Sun will capture windows and pieces of Sun screens in raster files, but my impression is that this software exists only in test form - i.e., it is not a finished product, isn't readily available, and can require a lot of tech support from Sun. It runs about $200, requires a minimum of 8MB of main memory, and is available for Sun 3's (which means I can't use it - I need something for SPARC stations). 6. Someone pointed out that you can specify x and y coordinates to the screendump command in the form: screendump -x xCorner -y yCorner -X width -Y height This will dump to a file the same as a full screendump, and can be converted to PostScript via rasfilter8to1 and pssun like I've already done to full-screen screendumps. A question following from this is how in the world do you find out the coordinates of random points on the Sun screen? Trial-and-error doesn't appeal to me. 7. A program called "dumpregion" is supposed to be either on the Rice archive server or in the uunet archives. It's supposed to make a rasterfile of a screen portion that you mark out with the mouse. You can then convert to PostScript as in #5 above (it's possible that both people are talking about the same program, I don't know yet). Can someone without remote ftp ability get a copy of this, and how? [[Ed's Note: on titan, so the usual archive server commands/FTP address. The files are sun-source/dumpregion.c and sun-source/dumpregion.diffs]] 8. Finally, someone recommended using public-domain software usable under X-windows. This won't help me, because we're not using X-windows (I think) and I don't want to do anything as complicated as install X-windows just to get my graphics images. 9. We're doing an experiment here using FrameMaker software to capture pieces of the screen in PostScript and raster files. The capturing goes okay, but so far I haven't gotten anything that will insert into my troff file and print properly. But, I haven't exhausted all the possibilities with this yet. 10. Starting next week sometime, we're going to experiment with the Eroff package from Elan Computer Group. It will supposedly insert rasterfiles directly into troff documents, and its version of troff is supposedly 100% compatible with standard UNIX troff, plus some other nice features. I myself would like a solution that doesn't involve buying such a large software package, but other people here are really enthusiastic about eroff, and I guess it would be nice to have the flexibility of using rasterfiles directly in addition to PostScript images. Well, there is the summary, along with a couple additional questions. Thanks to everyone who responded; I was (pleasantly) surprised at the volume of email I received. If anyone else has any ideas, my electronic ears are always open! Thanks again! Vince Guinto att!cblph!vjg AT&T Bell Laboratories Columbus, OH