CompuServe Thread

#Max brush size?

5 messages in this thread
#28482From: Roger HandOct 17, 1991 4:12 AM
I had a problem wrapping an bitmap onto an Imagine object. The bit-map was a DPaint file of dimensions 1200 x 1700 ( x 2 colors). At the rendering stage I was told there was "Not enough RAM" for the brush. I resized the brush in DPaint to half to 618 x 876 and everything rendered fine. But I really wanted the higher resolution that the larger bitmap gave me. I have 7 Megabytes of RAM. Other programs have no problem displaying the larger bitmap, so why can't Imagine deal with it? It is only a 36 K file. How large can a brush be? *********** I posted this message here once before, addressed to Impulse. It was marked as received but I got no reply. I emailed the question to Impulse. Steve Gillmor of Impulse replied, saying to call Impulse with the question, to get on the Imagine mailing list (?) or to "ask one of the experts there." Can anyone help me? This is an important question for me! And, what is the Imagine mailing list? – Roger
#28486From: Peter GreciOct 17, 1991 8:48 AM
How much chip Ram ya got?That could be the problem
#28504From: John PendergrassOct 17, 1991 8:10 PM
Roger, a few thoughts on your Imagine/brush wrapping problem: 1) memory for brushes, etc must be contiguous. So, after you have loaded Imagine and your .imp file is set up, how much contiguous memory is avail? A related question is: does the brush data have to go into CHIP ram? If so, do you have enough contiguous chip ram? 2) remember, a 1200×1700 image, 2 bitplane, takes up 255K of ram. It may well compress to 36K for disk storage, but in memory it is expanded out, and that's what it takes (if displayed as a 'normal' amiga image). (1200×1700 = 2,040,000 pixels / 8 (bits per byte) = 255K) 3) I *wonder* if Imagine translates all brushes to 24bit resolution before mapping. It would make sense to do so, given that it is computing in 24bits…. if so that would easily explain the memory problem. 4) were you 'altitude' mapping? Altitude mapping can takes many megs of memory just to wrap a simple map onto a simple object. What would normally be of little consequence is suddenly a major memory problem. You might want to start rendering your image; then go back to the CLI and type AVAIL every ten seconds or so. That way you could monitor what ram is being used up, and at what point it failed? –jp–seattle–
#28724From: Roger HandOct 24, 1991 3:12 AM
John: Thanks for your thoughtful reply to my brush mapping problem. My IFF was 2 colors (1 bitplane), which is 128 K or so at the size I was using. I usually have at least 500 K of coniguous CHIP ram available, so your suggestion that Imagine converts each image to 24 bits seems plausible. Unfortunately, since Impulse does not actually answer questions in their CompuServe "Vendor Support Area" I can't tell if that's true or not. You suggested I start rendering the image, then typing "AVAIL" every few seconds in a shell. The problem is that the image never even STARTS to render — I'm immediately given a "not enough RAM" message. ? ? ? -Roger
#28548From: Charles BlaquiereOct 18, 1991 11:45 PM
Roger, I agree with John in the sense that I feel Imagine translates all brushes to 24-bit. This means that your 1200 X 1700 image, with its 2,040,000 pixels, would take up three times that amount (24 bits/pixel = 3 bytes/pixel). If that's the case, and all pixels are translated to 24-bit anyway, why not reduce your image with a program that will anti-alias, such as The Art Department or Black Belt's Image Master? (See elsewhere in AmigaVend) This way, you can have a smaller version of your image which will still look quite smooth because of the anti-aliasing. And reducing it by half in each dimension will drop the memory requirements from 6 Meg to 1.5 Meg. Maybe you can try it and report your findings. Blaq! – via Whap!