Please, note that this is an _old_ document. A lot has happened since this was written. It has now been more than two years since the last public release of MGIF, but a _lot_ has happened during that time. A semi-public beta release was done in January this year, when I thought I was just about done (not for the first time ;-), but quite a few new ideas came up then... This time I do intend to leave MGIF more or less as it is, apart from bug fixes, manual updates and minor improvements, so the actual release will probably happen within two weeks (this was written July 27). If you have a problem with something that the manual doesn't discuss, or that it describes wrongly, don't hesitate to email. Hopefully there shouldn't be many such things. (The reason I do this final beta release right now is that I'm moving and don't know exactly when I'll have my Falcon set up again. It might be on Sunday, but it might also take a couple of days more and this release is already _far_ too late.) About MGIF ---------- MGIF is a FreeWare program for viewing and processing images. Not only is it free in the sense that it won't cost you anything, you can also have the complete sources to use in other FreeWare (or similar) programs. For the time being, contact me by email regarding this. Beware, though, that the sources are _very_ large and have a minimum of comments. Traditionally MGIF has been a monochrome GIF viewer, hence the name, but the last release (v4.2) could also load JPEGs. For the current version the name is no longer valid on any point, since colour is now fully supported. See below for further details. About beta testing ------------------ I've always been very liberal with beta versions of MGIF. Everyone who is interested in trying the program is free to fetch the latest version via my WWW site: http://rand.thn.htu.se (might need /~johan as well) or by FTP: rand.thn.htu.se (in /pub/mgif) (If you have WWW access, I'd really recommend using that since there will never be any problem with getting the correct version.) There is absolutely no need to search for bugs and send detailed bug reports or anything like that. Just take a look at the program. All responses are very welcome. Questions, ideas for new or changed features, general encouragement etc. Of course I'd like to hear about bugs as well, though. I only have access to a Falcon and a PowerMac running the demo of MagiCMac, so I'd especially like to hear from people running MGIF on other hardware. How does it run on accelerated machines, compatibles (Medusa etc), '030/'040 Macs, graphics cards or whatever? The most important features of MGIF 5.0 --------------------------------------- - Full colour support Mapped and 24 bit images as well as greyscale can be handled and displayed in any ST/TT/Falcon graphics mode or on any 8 bit graphics card. There are a few exceptions to this, since it's hard to display a colour image in a monochrome mode for example. Software and hardware resolution extenders such as BlowUP, OverScan and BigScreen are fully supported. - GEM interface Everything is handled by menu (with keyboard shortcuts) and dialogs. No windows, though, and the text interface is still available. - VDI drawing support MGIF can draw images on any 8 bit graphics card. A special accelerated mode is very fast if the card is 'nice'. Even the new 'virtual screen' scrolling works under VDI mode. (The accelerated mode works fine under MagiCMac demo on a PowerMac.) - Fastest GIF loader around (Unless something new has turned up recently.) MGIF can actually load and display an image in 8 bit colour quite a bit quicker than TurboGIF 1.3 on a Falcon. Mostly it's the displaying that is faster, but also the loading. - Loads GIF/JPEG/Targa/PPM/(X)IMG - Writes GIF/Targa/PPM/IMG - Image processing functions Most of these are for 8 bit greyscale or 24 bit RGB images. There are few that are useful for monochrome or mapped images, though those can of course be handled as greyscale and 24 bit respectively. Some excerpts from the MGIF history file (slightly edited and commented) ---------------------------------------- * 93/07/07 4.3 Klockars - GIF decoding speeded up very much Even more speedups were done later, making MGIF _the_ fastest GIF loader. - F-S drawing speedup - TARGA/PPM read supported - NonTC greyscale support added with switch - colour support for jpeg:s added - general colour support started - mapped and direct colour in true colour mode - slide show option added - 24 bit jpeg, targa and ppm read - RGB mode for operations - colour dithering in true colour mode - TT support added - colour dithering in 16/256 colour using IJG code - ST colour support added * 93/09/21 4.4 Klockars - GEM interface added There are no windows, but everything is handled via menu and dialogs. - destination buffer save/load added - GIF, PPM and targa save added - fast assembly 8 bit chunky to planar conversion _Very_ fast drawing in Falcon/TT 8 bit modes. - buffers in alternate ram if single screen If you use virtual memory, MGIF will be happy to keep its buffers there. Physical TT ram can also be used of course. - centering of images added - colour dither in 16/256 colours added - switches from command line and/or file It's no longer necessary to give any options on a command line. Just put them all in a file (template supplied). One of the latest additions is the capability to write switches permanently into MGIF. - menu option for display after load - support for GEMView dither matrices The dither matrices supplied with GEMView and Speed of Light can be loaded and used from within MGIF. - oil paint effect from xv added A strange effect that, though slow, can produce interesting results. - bias added to convolutions for emboss etc Emboss is the popular relief effect. - selectable number of colours for quantize You can quantize a picture to 240 colours for example, which could be nice if you want to use it as a desktop background. - mouse controlled zoom/cut - flicker draw speeded up - lmin/lmax added Another nice image processing effect. Can give thinning/thickening. - general keyboard short-cuts added Simple to change to whatever you like. - zoom/cut scroll around added - file load on startup for GEM version added - .FL load from GUI implemented Some people wanted it... - support for self-loading .FL files added Just change from filename.FL to filename.TOS and double click it. - IMG load added Colour or monochrome IMGs with physical or VDI colour order. - scrollable normal view added - switch for fit to screen on load added - write IMG added Only writes mono IMGs, but it's mainly intended for printing purposes. A size can be given in cm/inches and the image is written to a file using ordered dithering without being created in memory first. Even on a 1Mb ST you can create a file of 10Mb or more. - F-S dithering for IMG save added I didn't add this at first since it's not really useful for printing. - border function added - extended commands for text interface A lot more of the GUI features are now available from the text interface. - general image combine function added You can do stuff as complicated as: dest = (source * 137/56 - dest * 112/10) / 3 + 128 or as simple as: dest = source / 2 - support for UNDO added The destination buffer is saved in a file before every operation that may change it. The operation can then be undone if the result was bad. - time delay for slide show added If you don't want MGIF to display images as quick as it can load them. - switch for TT grey mode added MGIF has long supported TT grey mode, but I was unaware that it was impossible to select that mode from the desktop. Now that's no problem. - image type change added For example to do an explicit mapped->greyscale conversion. - local colour maps Was not needed before the function above was implemented... - real logarithms for log scale MGIF has used very low resolution logarithms since the beginning for performance reasons. Now it's faster anyway. * MGIF 5.00 is now the official name, this is after all a _major_ update - full VDI draw support for 8 bit modes MGIF should have no problem drawing images on _any_ 8 bit graphics card. For cards using the most reasonable approach, there is a special accelerated mode that is very fast. - default setting in program file implemented - smarter buffer handling for GIF load MGIF will no longer destroy the image in the second buffer when it loads a new GIF into the first (except when very little memory is available). - in place (but slower) deinterlace MGIF can now load interlaced GIFs even with a single buffer. For the time being all deinterlacing takes a bit more time, though. Most GIFs (expect those from WWW pages) are not interlaced anyway, so this should not be a large problem. - pixelize function added That's the nice 'mosaic' effect seen on TV for example. - switch for busy bee added Finally it's possible to have MGIF display a busy bee cursor while it's working. If you have an animated bee, it should of course work as well. - screen size on load for non-GUI mode Fit to screen and aspect correction can now be done automatically upon loading even for text mode operation and slide show. - slide-show loop, random and script file added Very much improved slide-show abilites.