#Morph-Madness!
10 messages in this thread
What is Imagemaster? How much does it cost. etc….etc….etc…
thanks from an ignorant newcomer to animation…Brian
Imagemaster is a powerful 24-bit image manipulation program for the Amiga.
It provides extensive tools in the following areas: image processing,
special effects, image composition, painting, image analysis, rendering to
Amiga modes, file format translation and other services.
It can manage any number of images loaded at once, handles image sizes up
to 32767 pixels along an edge and has extensive facilities to rename,
delete and etc those images that are loaded.
All the tools, from compositing to processing to paint, can be applied
using familiar tools; rectangle, freehand, ellipse, polygon and more. You
can also have Undo and Redo available – or turn them off to save memory.
It also has a nice script and macro capability, implemented via ARexx.
It provides many unusual (but useful) techniques which can be taken
advantage of by animators and artists. These range from unusual fill modes
in the paint system to image distortion tools like motion blur, morphing,
lens simulation and a good deal more.
In the "service" area, we provide what are likely to be the highest quality
rending capabilities for converting 24-bit images into Amiga mode pictures
(2-32 colors, halfbright, ham). We also provide high quality color
separation and recombination tools. We can render to many unusual Amiga
modes, such as DCTV and HAM-E. We can also load both of these image formats
as 24 bit files (no other product on the market can load DCTV images, btw).
Imagemaster is intended to be a complete toolkit for the manipulation of
high color images. The only areas we have not yet extended to are extenral
scanner device support and photo output device driving. For these
capabilities, we currently suggest AdPro 2.x, from ASDG.
System requirements are any Amiga, 3 megs of fast ram, 512k of chip ram. We
suggest more of both, especially chip ram. An accellerator is always a good
idea for software like this… our software emphasizes quality of results
over speed. Imagemaster retails for $199.95
Hope this helps you. If you have further questions, I'll answer them as
well.
Ben:
Do I correctly understand that IM needs 3 1/2 Meg of memory to run?? I
have 2 Meg Fast, 1 Meg chip, is that not enough??
– via Whap!…….from Chicago
That may be enough for some operations – mostly, it's not enough though.
The thing about IM is that it is competely open-ended. We don't
automatically "hog" memory like some software does, nor do we require that
the memory be in contiguous regions – both of these appraches help smaller
memory users.
The math goes something like this… you have 3 megs, 2 of it "fast". When
you load IM, about 1.25 megabytes is taken by the software. You now have
about 750k of fast memory left, and most of your chip is still untouched.
buffer space (memory taken by an image) is calculated two ways; either
7*X*Y (if the undo buffer is used) or 4*X*Y (no undo buffer). If the undo
buffer is off, then (a) you can't undo, and (b) about 50% of the image
processes will not operate.
750k / 7 = 107k, more or less. Thats the number of pixels you can have.
Square root of 107000 is 327 or so. So, you can work on a 320×200 image and
have some room left over. Only that one image. With undo off, you go for
750k / 4 = 187k, square root of which is 433; you can do a 320×400 image
comfortably in that much room. Just one, though.
24 bit images eat memory like starving grasshoppers eat crops.
Imagemaster has the capability of loading any number of images, of pretty
much any reasonable size – providing you have the memory. There really
isn't an upper "reasonable" limit, either – I have 18 megs on my 2500/030
system and I have been known to bump the limit without really realizing I
was going to hit it.
Also, Imagemaster can multitask with a number of other programs to good
effect. Running public interface modules requires memory for them to be
loaded into – sometimes a fair bit. Certain other software (which should be
released shortly – at which time I'll be happy to discuss it) will also
multitask with Imagemaster and it for sure will use more memory.
No question about it. 24-bit image handling isn't a job for a small
machine. And as I said before – accellerators are a good idea.
–Ben
Ben, a question about IM and 24bit processing programs in general:
Have you ever considered allowing the user to *process* data in something
other than 24bit format? For instance, if I have a 24bit pic on disk, but
my machine doesn't have tons of ram, how about letting the user (at their
choice, of course) load the image in as a 15 or 12 bit image, or such?
You'd just translate the image into that 'deep' a color res as you loaded
it, and perform all operations on it at that level. That would save 1/3 or
1/2 the memory. You'd still save as 24bit, for compatibility, but the
color res wouldn't be there. Hey, sort of like a DCTV image! 🙂
If the user's ultimate output was to be HAM or Amiga 32color, etc… then
the lower color res wouldn't be a problem (or as much of one).
I realize that would comprimise quality, but it might open the product up
to others who don't have the extra ram?
Or would the programming, etc of above not be worth the few extra sales? Or
is this another ridiculous idea?
–jp–seattle–
It's not rediculous at all; but it doesn't fit with the way that the
program works internally. We use multiple arrays of bytes, one array for
red, one for green, blue, mask, etc. There's no unit smaller than a byte.
There's another factor – if we DID handle things as bitplanes, you'd see
really, and I mean *really* slow processing of images. THings like the
blitter are good at that, but general purpose processors, to date, are not.
So not silly, but not applicable to the way we're doing things. We *may*
add an 8-bit only mode, there have been a few requests for it and it would
be relatively easy (compared to variable bitplanes) to fit into our current
structure.
–Ben
OK, I was just wondering. I can see where it would require a change in
approach. I like the idea of an 8bit version! Would work in
monochrome/gray, I gather? You could load any image (incl 24bit) and
convert it to monochrome as you go. Give the option of a luma or average
conversion? Neat. And memory cheap. Would it be faster operations too?
–jp–seattle–
Should be 3x faster, 1/3rd the memory requirement per image.
Still just a pipe dream, tho.
–Ben
Ya, ya, one more request for eight bit mode!!!
73, Kelly
Barely, but not for anything usefull.
BEN:Leigh's Computer's