From: markus@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de (Markus Illenseer)
Subject: Re: ADpro v pbm+
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 19:09:10 GMT
Organization: Universitaet Bielefeld, Technische Fakultaet.

In article <1992Aug27.121745.23826@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
|> I have heard that ADPro is very good - Amiga Shopper last month
|> said it was arguably the greatest piece of software ever written
|> for the Amiga. Fair enough. But I use pbm at work on Unix/Suns
|> and I have now downloaded the Amiga release.
|> 
|> The question is do I need ADPro if I use pbm? Which is better?
|> OK so pbm is free and ADPro is megabucks, but it may be worth
|> it if its so much better.

 This is quite easy to explain and it also seems to be a FAQ ...

|> 
|> --
|> Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
|> Vision Group, City University, London, EC1V 0HB. 071-477 8000 x 3889

Pbmplus is free and available for most computer system, including Amiga.
(Once again, it's avail via ftp on ftp.informatik.uni-oldenburg /pub/amiga )
Therefore you have the warrantie, that your generated files (pictures)
are somewhat compatible on every systeM. 
Pbmplus was intended to be a converting library.
To convert n (Image) File Formats into each other you would need n*n converters.
It's easier to create a File Format in the middle, which is lossless.
PPM (Portable Pixmap) is a 24 Bit Format which is easy to read and write
(ASCII or Numeric, small and readable header). Fron the n File Formats you
write into PPM then into any other Format, so you just need 2n converters.

Afterwards, Pbmplus was expanded, because the file format was so easy, with
programms to work on the pictures, e.g. Filter Operation or Resizsing.
In fact, it's almost a full image processing system.

As it runs on the Shell, and has no GUI, it's limited to your imagination,
no WYSIWYG possible. Although Shell-Scripting and Piping can be done of course.

All Pbmplus Programms use heavy Stack Amount and RAM Amount, some Filers do 
need x*y*3 Bytes of RAM, which can easily exeed the Amount of RAM of your
System. But only the needed RAM is allocated, the Amiga Version of Pbmplus
can also reduce the Allocation when it works line-wise, this takes time.

As a subset of PPM there is PGM (Portable Graymap 256 ColorS) and PBM 
(Portable Bitmap b/w).

All in all, pbmplus is just fine for the once-a-week user or for he who
works on several systems. The programms aren't very fast and not very optimized 
In some cases (due to compatibility).

ADPro is a stand-alone programm for the Amiga, also it is a 'Displaying Tool'
rather than a converting toolkit. The first thing it does is to allocate all
available Memory *haps* (I don't know if this can be changed via any option,
i don't have ADPro). So, if you deal with large images, you must have much
RAM as well. As yet, ASDG does not support VMem, though the new GigaMem
System does support ADPro (Upto 512 MB only !). 
ADPro does support ARexx-Scripting and Commands. 
It has many features to act filters or operation on images, also visible
crop and merge function (besides a Textmerger) is supported.

ADPro can display the images in all Amiga (ECS) Modes, and on many 3rd Party
Gfx-Boards. 
Every loaded picture is converted into a 24 Bit Image (internally), every
function works on 24 Bit. This may be a overkill on many pictures, e.g. simple
GIF's.

In the professional version you get TIFF Support and Support for other Formats.

All in all, a powerfull software, not really a image processing tool but close
to it. As MemEater useless for Multitasking, and it seems that ASDG never heard
the Style Guide. It still doesn't support PPM-Format, but at least qrt.

For both Toolkits a 020+ is really usefull, also much RAM is a must.
 
So well, Pbmplus is usefull for the alround user, ADPro for the only-Amiga-user.

Me, myself and i prefer pbmplus... Man pages online, easy scripting and
easy to write code yourself for It.

ADpro has much balast which is useless for me and is constantly in the RAM
while running it... it has advantages in the visual part.

Your choice, Markus.

-- 
Markus Illenseer       EMail: markus@TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.de
Universitaet Bielefeld Fax: (+49 521) 106-2992
Technische Fakultaet   Phone: (+49 521) 106-2926(internal only); -5329
Angewandte Informatik  SnailMail: Postfach 100131, D-4800 BIELEFELD 1
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics