HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mustafa@seas.smu.edu (Mustafa Kocaturk)
Subject: Re: Printing images much faster!
Summary: run-length encoding compression of postscript images
Keywords: compression perl
Organization: SMU - School of Engineering & Applied Science - Dallas
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:35:48 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.161405.19667@midway.uchicago.edu> epc1@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>
>
>After converting some X images to Postscript, I sent the Postscript files
>to the laser printer.  Each images took more than 10 minutes to print!
>
>As I would like to do this consistently, is there anything I can do
>to speed the process of printing these images?  Can I convert
>to some other format which would speed up the printing of these images?
>Will PS2 do anything for me?  Can I get a faster printer?
>
>What can I do???   I would like to get the printing time to under 2 minutes.
>

The bottleneck may be your data connection to the printer.

To reduce the amount of data transferred approximately tenfold,
I suggest that you use a perl script posted in September by
Steve Parker, parker@mps.ohio-state.edu.

It compresses postscript image files using run-length encoding.
It inserts a decompression function just before the compressed image data
in the output file.  The printer uses this function to decompress the
compressed image code it receives and generates the original image.

The decompression takes time of course, but it varies according
to the processing power of the printer and is significantly shorter
especially if your printer connection is a low speed, serial one.

I had to play with the perl script to make it work with postscript output
obtained from `xv', and the result was a nearly tenfold reduction in
the file size for a medium sized picture with moderate detail.

Kind regards,
-- 
Mustafa Kocaturk   mustafa@seas.smu.edu  EE Dept., Room 305A, Caruth Bldg.
Home: 214-706-5954  Office: 214-768-1475  SMU Box 753190, Dallas, TX 75275
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
From: henry@trilithon.mpk.ca.us (Henry McGilton)
Subject: Re: font convertors from adobe to postscript
Organization: Trilithon Software
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 16:18:52 GMT

In article <fxg.724338011@bolgolam>  writes:

    *  So the only difference is representation? That's something
    *  I wanted to know for a long time, my problem being that my
    *  NeXT doesn't eat Mac-Fonts directly.
Essentially, yes.  The differences between Type 1 fonts on Macintosh,
Type 1 fonts on UNIX, and Type 1 fonts on PC, is a matter of storage
format.  Other than that, there's no magic.

    *  And there's one for the NeXT, too. Here, it's an essential
    *  tool: without it, practically no fonts are aveilable. They
    *  have to be distributed in 'yet another vendor-specific
    *  format', i.e. hardly at all, and way expensive anyways. I
    *  wonder why NeXT didn't include these utilities in the first place.
So the third party vendors would have a chance to develop some
utilities and make a living.

    *  As am aside, in some desktop publishing and digital design
    *  mag (page), I read the following opinion:

    *      There are converters in the public domain that convert
    *      macintosh to NeXT fonts. They should be avoided, because
    *      any conversion will influence the font esthetics. Instead,
    *      you should wait for the font suppliers to publish special
    *      NeXT fonts.
Sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me.

    *  (quoted from months back out of memory. I think, it was a
    *  letter, too.) Sounds interesting, Uh? "People who are
    *  willing to pay M$ for a computer should be ready to pay
    *  more for the same fonts, too", or what?
Sounds like yet another vendor trying to justify inflated prices.
UNIX hardware boxes are now available at prices comparable or better
than Macintoshes or PCs.  There's no reason why software for UNIX
boxes should be priced at multiples of Macintosh or PC prices, just
``because it's for UNIX''.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
From: steveg@iplmail.orl.mmc.com (Steve Gabrilowitz)
Subject: Help with QMS PS-810
Organization: Martin Marietta
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 18:59:46 GMT


I purchased a QMS model PS-810 printer a while back and the guy I bought it from
was supposed to include the manual but he didn't - such is the peril of buying
equipment over the net ;-(

Anyhow, I have a couple of questions for anybody who may know:

1.  The printer has a HPLJ emulation mode that can be selected via a switch on
the back of the machine.  This is a rather inconvenient way to switch modes
though, it would be much preferred if there was an escape sequence or something I
could send the printer in "batch" mode to pop it into HPLJ emulation and then
another sequence to put it back to postscript - any ideas?  Also, which HPLJ does
this thing emulate anyhow, a II or an II+ or an III or ????

2.  Apparently this printer came with a couple of utility diskettes when it was
new, and QMS wants something like $150 for those diskettes and the manuals for
the software on them - does anybody know what these utils do?  Are they worth
having, or more specifically are they worth spending that much $$ on?

           ADVthanksANCE



-- 



I think
I think I am
Therefore I am!
I think...



                            Steve Gabrilowitz
                            Martin Marietta, Orlando Fl.
                            steve-gabrilowitz@orl.mmc.com
                            Fidonet 1:363/1701 (407-380-1701)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
From: pyrros@braindamaged.cis.udel.edu (Christos T. Pyrros)
Subject: Re: DPS Color use
Organization: University of Delaware, Newark
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 19:46:35 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.212044.24566@adobe.com> asente@adobe.com (A Usenet Pal) writes:
>In article <zisk-111292153206@macne010.boston.us.adobe.com> zisk@adobe.com (Stephen Zisk) writes:
>>In article <MSL9EGP@math.fu-berlin.de>, beck@irzr17.inf.tu-dresden.de
>>(Andre Beck) wrote:
>>> How do I get a 1280x1024 pixel image that uses less than 256 colors
>>> on the display WITHOUT any dithering ? In other words, how can I force
>>> the XDPS system to allocate new colors ?
>>
>>Preface: I am not a DPS expert, but I do have a manual in front of me,
>>so here goes, and watch out for the trees!
>
>Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain :-)
>
>The exact behavior is implementation dependent, but the reality is that
>Level 1 implementations of DPS always use halftones in images.  There is
>no way to avoid the dithering.  Level 2 systems, which will be coming out
>eventually, will not have this limitation.

EVENTUALLY?  Sorry, NeXT has it TODAY. :-)

NeXTSTEP 3.0 includes Display PostScript Level 2, with Pantone color matching.
It just works! (tm).  It also does CMYK, RGBA, etc.  Which also means that my
laser printer, and any dumb device that will accept a bitmap from my machine
effectively becomes PostScript Level 2!

Buy a NeXT. :-)


Chris
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
From: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Subject: Re: font convertors from adobe to postscript
Reply-To: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 18:07:06 GMT

Felix Gatzemeier writes

> So the only difference is representation? That's something I wanted
> to know for a long time, my problem being that my NeXT doesn't eat
> Mac-Fonts directly.

>   There are converters in the public domain that convert macintosh
>   to NeXT fonts. They should be avoided, because any conversion
>   will influence the font esthetics. Instead, you should wait for
>   the font suppliers to publish special NeXT fonts.

There are "conversions" and there are "conversions".  If you take
a Type 1 font program in Macintosh format and turn it into a Type
1 font program in Unix format (aka NeXT), all you've one is tweak
formatting information, and expanded the binary encoding into hex
- none of the actual "font program" had been touched.

However, if you use a font utility that does program "conversion"
(from TrueType to Type 1, for example) what the utility is usually
doing is reading in the font program, getting the character
coordinates for every character, and writing out a completely new
font program in the new type program format.  This often loses all
hinting information, which is what the desktop publishing magazine
was warning about.


Please be aware that Adobe's Type 1 font programs are copyrighted
software, and must be treated according to the licence agrement on
the package.  When the font is converted from one format to another
(Mac to Unix) it is still a derivative work and still falls under
that licence agreement.  Type 1 font program format conversion
utilities make it easy to forget that you are still using the same
Type 1 font program, just in a different representation.

--
Scott Byer                             NeXTMail: byer@mv.us.adobe.com
Adobe Systems Incorporated               These are *my* opinions, and  
1585 Charleston Road, P.O. Box 7900        do not necessarily reflect
Mountain View, CA 94039-7900             the opinions of my employer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Organization: Arizona State University
Date: Thursday, 17 Dec 1992 14:49:49 MST
From: Ben Goren <AUBXG@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: How to test for Color Postscript

I think the problem here is akin to the "how many pages" one. In order
to see if it's going to actually do color output, rather than just
think about it, you need to interpret it to the point where it marks
dots on the page, and for that you pretty much need a full-blown
interpreter.

If you can run Ghostscript on your machine and have a color monitor,
use that. Quite impressive; even more so when you consider the price.

b&
From: wah+@CS.CMU.EDU (Wilson Harvey)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: That time of year ... request for snowflakes
Date: 17 Dec 92 21:42:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BzFAy7.HHM.2
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University

Does anyone have PostScript code to generate outlines of snowflakes?
The ability to generate different styles of flakes would be a plus.

Thanks very much.  -Wilson

-- 
W. A. Harvey		Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science
wah+@cmu.edu		5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA  15213-3891
From: mikem@travis.csd.harris.com (Mike McCole)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Need ascii to Postscript filter
Date: 11 Dec 92 19:15:54 GMT
Organization: Harris CSD, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
NNTP-Posting-Host: travis.csd.harris.com

I'm in need of a filter that will allow me to print plain ascii files on a
postscript printer. (LaserWriter II)  It's on a unix box.  Any pointers to
a source file will be appreciated.

  Mike

__
  mikem@travis.csd.harris.com  Mike McCole  305-973-5466
  2101 W. Cypress Creek Road  Ft. Lauderdale FL 33309 MS 143
  All opinions expressed are mine, not Harris Corporations.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
From: Tim Larkin <tsl1@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: PS Development tools for Macs and PCs
X-Xxdate: Mon, 14 Dec 92 18: 37:15 GMT
Nntp-Posting-User: tsl1@cornell.edu
Organization: Cornell University
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d7
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 18:31:38 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.113700.18473@husc3.harvard.edu> Manuel Veloso,
veloso@husc9.harvard.edu writes:
>LaserTalk, which is _still_ in 1.0 release after all these years, can do 
>any laserwriter that's hooked up via the printer port (ie: 
>appletalk-able). It only supports level 1, tho.

Where can one obtain LaserTalk?

Tim Larkin
Federal Nutrition Laboratory
Tower Road
Ithaca, New York
tsl1@cornell.edu
607-255-7008
From: terry@eece.ksu.edu (Terry Hull)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Tumblemode and duplex mode
Date: 11 Dec 1992 18:04:26 GMT
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: ralph.eece.ksu.edu
Summary: Best way to set these
Keywords: tumble duplex

I have two basic questions.  

1)  How do you set the tumble mode for a printer with duplexing capability?
2)  Where is the best place in a PS file to put things like the duplex mode
and the tumble mode? 

Thanks for your help.

--
Terry Hull  -  terry@eece.ksu.edu
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Kansas State University
From: lilleyc@cs.man.ac.uk (Chris Lilley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: DPS Color use
Date: 18 Dec 92 22:04:57 GMT
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <1992Dec15.194635.18632@udel.edu>
pyrros@braindamaged.cis.udel.edu (Christos T. Pyrros) writes:

>NeXTSTEP 3.0 includes Display PostScript Level 2, with Pantone color matching.
>It just works! (tm).  It also does CMYK, RGBA, etc.  Which also means that my
>laser printer, and any dumb device that will accept a bitmap from my machine
>effectively becomes PostScript Level 2!

Well, sort of. But it will not support all the level 2 features. For
example, you will not be able to specify a colour in (say) CIE XYZ and
have it come out that colour on your printer - which is a major reason
many people want level 2 printers in the first place. What will happen
is that the DPS interpreter will calculate the RGB values required
for your _screen_ to display that colour. The printer, on getting
those values, will print out a colour based on dumb RGB->CMYK
conversion, not the colour you would have got with a true Level2
interpreter on your printer.

Also, I suspect that using DPS to render at, say, 100dpi and then
sending this lo-res bitmap to a colour imagesetter is not the route to
high quality ;-)

Of course, I am not knocking NeXT in any way by these comments. They
have done a fine job in getting a DPS together based on Level 2, and
will hopefully spur other DPS vendors (DEC, SGI, and now Sun) into
following suit.

DEC, are you listening? When does the upgrade come out for my DPS?

--
Chris Lilley
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical Author, ITTI Computer Graphics and Visualisation Training Project
Computer Graphics Unit, Manchester Computing Centre, Manchester, UK
Internet:   lilley@cgu.mcc.ac.uk        Janet:   lilley@uk.ac.mcc.cgu
Voice:      +44 (0)61 275 6095          Fax:     +44 (0)61 275 6040
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
From: anno4000@zrz.tu-berlin.de (Anno Siegel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Cant print large images on LJ3
Followup-To: poster
Date: 18 Dec 1992 13:39:34 GMT
Organization: tu-berlin
NNTP-Posting-Host: w172zrz.zrz.tu-berlin.de

Hi,
I cant print raster images on my three LaserJet III si printers, when the
image size is more than 600x600 or so (Could you be more vague?). Stamp
size images work. A different LJ3 (same firmware level, less(!) memory)
works with larger images, as does a NEC printer. A call of the image
(or imagemask) operator results in a limitcheck error. The Red Book says,
this is violation of implementation dependent limits, but how can that be,
given that some LJ3 work and some don't?

Please reply by email (note Followup-To), I'll summarize.

Puzzeled, and in bad need of help
-- 
Anno Siegel             Tel.:  +49 30 314 24398
c/o TU-Berlin/ZRZ       s=siegel ou=zrz p=tu-berlin a=dbp c=de 
Einsteinufer 17         siegel@zrz.tu-berlin.de 
D 1000 Berlin 12
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
From: henry@trilithon.mpk.ca.us (Henry McGilton)
Subject: Re: NeWS
Organization: Trilithon Software
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 17:18:30 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.205058.12133@gandalf.UMCS.Maine.EDU>  writes:
    *  Is this newsgroup considered an appropriate forum for the
    *  discussion of NeWS?  I remember a listserv group dealing 
    *  with it a couple years ago, but no such thing appears in
    *  my news distribution now.  Does it still exist, or is this
    *  now the closest thing there is to a NeWS discussion group?
One would not want to bet too much of anything on NeWS.  When you
cut through all the dross, posturing, and face saving, NeWS is
essentially a dead duck.

	........  Henry
Newsgroups: comp.lang.idl-pvwave
From: hatay@spot.Colorado.EDU (Ferhat F. Hatay)
Subject: Re: problems with FFT cross spectra and other floating point operations
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 17:46:22 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.030946.4899@news.media.mit.edu>   steve@media.mit.edu (Steve Mann) writes:
.
.
.
>  
>  I also noticed that when I subtract the DC from an image, and then do
>  an FFT, the element af(0,0) is not always zero.  In fact, as the image
>  gets bigger, I get values further and further from zero.  For a 256 by 265
>  image, the DC spike in the Fourier domain is so high that I can't see 
>  anything else in shade_surf,abs(af) or tvscl,abs(af).
>  
>  I wrote this little script which shows the accumulation of excess DC:
>  --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  ; when I set N=91 or less, I get zero as expected.
>  ; when I set N=92 or more, I get a non-zero DC value in fft.
>  
>  N = 100;  size of square array
>  q=findgen(N)#findgen(N); create some arbitrary square array
>  ;Subtract the DC component
>  w=float(q)-norm(q,/one)/float((size(q))(1))/float((size(q))(2))
>  wf = fft(w,1);      Fourier transform of w
>  print,wf(0,0);      The DC component should be zero now.
>  ;I dont know why it is not zero.


I was under the impression that the FFT routines in IDL and WAVE
are basically one-dimensional-complex FFT routines. Please, forward me
info if this is wrong. 

I have played with one-d arrays of size 100-500 on IDL.  here is the script:

IdlMaster>  N=100
IdlMaster>  q = findgen(N)  
IdlMaster>  w = q-total(q)/float(N)
IdlMaster>  wf=fft(w,1)
IdlMaster>  print,wf(0,0)
(      0.00000,      0.00000)
IdlMaster>  print,total(w),total(q)
      0.00000      4950.00

IdlMaster>  N=500
IdlMaster>  q = findgen(N)
IdlMaster>  w = q-total(q)/float(N)
IdlMaster>  wf=fft(w,1)  
IdlMaster>  print,wf(0,0)
(      0.00000,      0.00000)
IdlMaster>  print,total(w),total(q)
      0.00000      124750.

-- 
Ferhat F. Hatay                        || Disclamer: |||||||||||||||||
Aerospace Engineering Sciences         || I speak for myself unless || 
University of Colorado, Boulder        || otherwise indicated.      ||
e-mail: hatay@spot.colorado.edu        |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Newsgroups: comp.lang.idl-pvwave
From: li@aurora.physics.utoronto.ca (Kelvin Li)
Subject: 3d scatter plot
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 01:17:53 GMT


Hi,

I am a new user for pvwave. I am wondering if I can do a 3d scatter plot
in pvwave. Say, I have a 3d array (ie array[][][]), I want to put a 
dot or whatever on the graph if array[][][] is greater than a certain
value. Thanks in advance


kelvin 
(li@nuclear4.physics.utoronto.ca)

Newsgroups: comp.lang.idl-pvwave
From: scowen@wfpc3.la.asu.edu (Paul A. Scowen)
Subject: Re: IDL base widget question.
Organization: Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, Arizona State University
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 16:53:25 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.063144.7699@ists.ists.ca>, turgeon@nereid.sal.ists.ca (Benoit Turgeon) writes:

[deleted part that I'm not qualified to answer]

|> 	Finally, how do you get rid of the TITLE on a base widget ?  Setting 
|> the keyowrd TITLE to "" when declaring a base widget produces a title 
|> like "idl"...  Setting TITLE to " " still gives you a title bar...

Isn't this controlled by the window manager - I don't think IDL can control
this part.  You need to set the part of your .twmrc so that any windows called
from IDL get their title bars lopped off.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul A. Scowen				INTERNET: scowen@wfpc3.la.asu.edu
Department of Physics & Astronomy		  uk1@spacsun.rice.edu
Arizona State University		Tel:      (602) 965-0938
Tempe, AZ 85287-1504			FAX:      (602) 965-7954
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.lang.idl-pvwave
From: hatay@spot.Colorado.EDU (Ferhat F. Hatay)
Subject: 3D-text on PS 
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 17:16:01 GMT


In a three-dimensional plot of mine I am plotting and 
annotating all-three Cartesian axises. Titles and axis 
labels  are aligned with the axes when I view 
the plot on X-Windows terminal. 
When I switch the device to PostScript and chose a 
PostScript font (!P.FONT=7) I can not have my annotations
aligned with the axes. (no angle other than 0-90-180-270
as a matter of fact). 

Is there a way to use PS-fonts aligned with axes in 
bizarre 3D plots?

I use IDL. Version 2.2.2 (IRIX mipseb).
-- 
Ferhat F. Hatay                        || Disclamer: |||||||||||||||||
Aerospace Engineering Sciences         || I speak for myself unless || 
University of Colorado, Boulder        || otherwise indicated.      ||
e-mail: hatay@spot.colorado.edu        |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
From: scowen@wfpc3.la.asu.edu (Paul A. Scowen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.idl-pvwave
Subject: Re: Postscript dump to a Laserwriter
Date: 20 Dec 92 21:55:52 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, Arizona State University

In article <18DEC199217302565@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov>, thompson@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (William Thompson, code 682.1, x2040) writes:
|> >|> You can do a dump of a window with exactly the same colors that appear on the
|> >|> screen by using TVLCT,/GET to get the current (stretched) color table.  For
|> >|> example,
|> >|> 
|> >|> 	IMAGE = TVRD(0,0,!D.X_SIZE,!D.Y_SIZE)
|> >|> 	TVLCT,RED,GREEN,BLUE,/GET
|> >|> 	SET_PLOT,'PS'
|> >|> 	TV, IMAGE		!Note:  Not TVSCL
|> >|> 	TVLCT,RED,GREEN,BLUE
|> >|> 	SET_PLOT,'X'
|> > 
|> >Unfortunately, Bill, this does *not* work.  I've just tried it several times,
|> >with several different stretches, and the resulting PS file looks execatly
|> >the same for all versions.  It uses the default setting of b/w linear in the
|> >4bit mode, which is of no use to me.  This is my whole point.
|> 
|> This may be because I left out the following command:
|> 
|> 	DEVICE,/COLOR,BITS_PER_PIXEL=8
|> 
|> which is crucial.  Sorry about that.  (I also forgot the DEVICE,/CLOSE at the
|> end.)

yes, well, this was the original problem, too.  Laserwriters cannot read PS
that has the COLORTAB entry added by /color, I was trying to do this using
8bit with color turned off.   Anyway, it's academic now, since if you use the
conversion I put in my previous post you can get a decent b/w version of a
rolled colortable from r,g,b and that does what I need.

Since the problems I was having have been essentially solved, I'm dropping 
this line of discussion, since there will probably be other more complex
issues that i will run into over the next 2-3 weeks.  Thanks again to all
who contributed, particularly Bill.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul A. Scowen				INTERNET: scowen@wfpc3.la.asu.edu
Department of Physics & Astronomy		  uk1@spacsun.rice.edu
Arizona State University		Tel:      (602) 965-0938
Tempe, AZ 85287-1504			FAX:      (602) 965-7954
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.lang.idl-pvwave