From: pianoman@misseye.uucp (Alan D. Ray)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re:  IFF Picture DataBase (is there still a picbase?)
Date: 21 Jul 92 22:06:31 GMT
Organization: Not an Organization

In article <1992Jul17.143450.20644@col.hp.com> dkm@col.hp.com (Dave K. Martin) writes:
>Not having used PICBASE (have seen it though), I can't comment on it.  For 
>a commercial counterpart, look for ImageFinder by Zardoz Software.  I had my 
>dealer order it a year or so ago, no one seems to carry it as a stock item.  
>I have seen Imagefinder in recent ads in the later Amiga magazines however.
>The price runs somewhere around $35-45 US.
>
>Imagefinder will scan sham, and dynamic hi-res in addition to the normal 
>Amiga display modes (ham, ehb, hi-res, etc).  You can create the thumbnail
>images in Black and White, Gray Scale, and 8 or 16 color versions.  The thumb-
>nail image size is somewhat adjustable up to about 150x150 pixels.  Multiple 
>image index files can be opened by ImageFinder at the same time, even combinat-
>ions of black and white, gray scale and color indexes at the same time.  The 
>display pallete defaults to the currently active thumbnail image.  Not a 
>problem with B/W or gray scale images but can look strange on the color images.
>The thumbnail resoulution is good enough to discern the inactive images even 
>with the color shift however.
>
>Imagefinder's scanner runs as a seperate process so that all of the display 
>functions are available even as an index is being created.  There is limited 
>ARexx support built in for extracting info about pictures but (on my version)
>no ARexx commands for scanning pictures yet.  The requestors are somewhat 
>clumsy but a small price for the power of the program.  Imagefinder was    
>designed to be a load and stay resident program with hot-key support.  A 
>useful feature is the ability to pass path and file name info to an open
>requestor.  Ie, run DPaint, open a file requestor and hit the Imagefinder 
>hot-keys.  Double clicking on the thumbnail image in Imagefinder will load the 
>path and filename for that image into the DPaint (or other program) requestor 
>and Imagefinder will then return to its invisible mode.  Neat stuff!
>
>The image indexes can grow quite large (320 ham and low-res images made an 
>index file of 890k) and can take a looonnng time to create.  About 40 minutes 
>per image on a stock 68000, about 7 on a 25 mhz '030.  Load up a set of floppys
>and let it run overnight.  Imagefinder can scan any valid disk device, starting
>at the specified directory and all subdirectories.  Multiple drives can be 
>scanned with one session.
>
>I guess it's time to get off the soapbox now, but I think this program never 
>got the recognition that it deserves.
>
>---
>--- Dave Martin - dkm@col.hp.com
>---


I received one update for ImageFinder free, right back when I bought
it (last summer or early last spring). Zardoz was going to send
another free update out, but never did. The new version I received
was V1.0D, and the letter I received from James Goodnow II, President
of Zardoz Software, said 'you will also be receiving a final version
of ImageFinder.... (some stuff deleted). This letter was dated Feb. 1,
1991.
Anyone know if Zardoz is still supporting ImageFinder, or are they
even around anymore? I haven't tried ImageFinder with OS2.04 on my
3000; I gave up using it when I had my A1000 because it was so slow.

						>AL<


                





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* Sing me a song           \  Alan D. Ray  /         BERKS AMIGA BBS     *
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