#TextCD Wish
11 messages in this thread
Jonas,
Wish for next version/bug fix of Texture Universe CD Browser IPAS.
Indexing will not cancel when indexing a CD and building a local (non-resident)
drive index. Hoo-boy was this frustrating!
2nd wish. Ability to update without reindexing directory. The browser
does indicate (with an 'X') if there is no postage stamp (meaning a new file,
unreadable or corrupt file, or file changed).
3rd wish. More speed! This thing is pretty slow on high-res .TIFF and
TGA files. Apparently the postage stamp image is achieved by methods other
than simple decimation.
4th wish. Support for 8-bit .TGA (like from ANIPRO?). The color map
was slightly off, although the image did display (the flower in the old
trademark Truevision EAGLE was blue).
Regardless of these items, it is still worth the price for the CD!!!
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Great idea about being able to update without reindexing.
Are you saying that you can't cancel with the ESC key while indexing?
Re the image-rescaling operation during indexing… The reason why it rescales
so slow is that it's NOT doing a simple decimation. It's running through the
3DS renderer's background rescaling code, which is doing a bilinear interp.
The neat thing is that it's just one call to 3DS from the IPAS routine. You
want speed too? <g>
– G
Gary,
I figured that BROWSE was taking advantage of easy calls to internal 3D
Studio code. The results are very good (image quality in the postage stamp),
but decimation probably wouldn't have been too bad either. Or possibly
utilizing a quick & dirty routine for images over a certain size. The use of
Photo CD, digital cameras and scanned images makes the indexing time a little
frightening though. Part of my problem was indexing some print files with only
16MB RAM. Quite a number of page faults from indexing.
Yes, I could NOT cancel indexing on a CD-ROM (I was trying to index the WCT
from 3DS R3). It continued to index file after file after file despite key
presses and mouse clicks. This only seems to occur when the index is
non-resident (index the CD, store the index in \3DS3 on the internal hard
disk). Cancelling worked fine when just indexing directories on the hard disk.
Regarding re-indexing – perhaps in the future at least a date/time check on the
image file & ability to copy sections of the previous index? I killed one
indexing due to time constraints, which blew away the previous index. What, no
.BAK file?
Please remember that any criticisms I may make are in the interest of everyone
having access to better products, and all of us being more successful.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
All great suggestions. Note that I have absolutely nothing to do with the
browser. Tom did it for his buddy who did the photography for the disk… Mike
Spaw, as a favor. Mike just graduated from college last year, and Tom wanted
to help him get on his feet.
– G
Gary,
I heard from a friend that the browser IPAS was/is going to be made available
as a standalone freeware application (i.e. seperate from the textCD). Is that
true?
As far as I know, that's completely untrue. The only way to get the IPAS
Browser is with the Texture Universe.
– G
Gary,
>> The only way to get the IPAS Browser is with the Texture Universe.<<
yes, I was pretty sceptical when I heard that.
Martin,
<< freeware brouser… >>
There's a cut down version of the browser in section #14 in a
file called ipas3c.zip. Not as elegant as the the TU but it's there.
jonas[adesk]
Jonas,
I'll take a look at ipas3c.zip. Thanks for the tip.
Re the freeware version of the browser that Jonas mentioned… It's not very
useful, since it won't support indexing on a CD-ROM (which is what you really
want it for), but it would give you a general feel for how it works.
– G
Regarding Kevin's wish list, I have one as well.
Isn't there some sort of mechanism for punching a file name into a dialogue box?
It is wonderful to visually determine that you want an image called RT247_VC,
but my short term memory sometimes fails me when it comes to typing in the
appropriate characters. A method of pasting in filenames would be a universe
of help.
Cap