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Thread: ILDA Format

  1. #21
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    you are not being condescending, I do not know all the nuances of the format.

    Im not just spouting what i have heard from james, james and I have never discussed the extension. Im not damning the format change, I just believe that a format change should come with an extension change.

    its more of a good practice than a solid rule. I think i have stated my side of it to the best of my ability, so any further discussion would most likely be out of my league

    ---------------------

    I did not mean to offend by any of my statements.. im just discussing for the sake of knowledge. im an ENTP, its how i work...

  2. #22
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    What I don't think you understand is that the format code is not the format of the file but the format of a section within a file. An ILDA file can contain any combination of those. I can create an ILDA file that has each and every one of those section types in it and that is perfectly legal. What extension would YOU give a file that contains sections with formats 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, AND 5 in it? I'd give it an extension of .ILD.

  3. #23
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    Thank you EVERYONE!

    I'm going to read all of this several times before I go into any of it point for point.

    But, I did want to interject one more idea.

    What if I'm working with someone else, over the Internet on a set of frames? Lets say we develop a set of palettes that convey certain moods. We decide that our frames will be simple and may in fact contain less than 256 points; certainly less than 256 unique colors. So the first thing we want to do is know that we are painting with the same colors! I make a set of palettes (format 2) and all I do to make it a legit ILDA file is make a frame (format 1) with just a single line in it and use that as a dummy frame for each of the different palettes. If I could save that with format 2, then my collegue would get the palettes. If I save that as format 4 or 5. He gets nothing but one color from each of the palettes; and no palettes at all.

    That is a loss of information and it kinda' goes against the idea that format 4 does it all.

    Also, the most important design criteria for LaserBoy is that it uses ONLY open file format standards; .ild, .bmp, .wav, .dxf, etc. So by that rule, I have no other options for storing laser vector art. I have no motivation at all to create a LaserBoy proprietary format.

    James.
    Last edited by James Lehman; 11-01-2008 at 09:54.

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by James Lehman View Post
    Thank you EVERYONE!

    I'm going to read all of this several times before I go into any of it point for point.

    But, I did want to interject one more idea.

    What if I'm working with someone else, over the Internet on a set of frames. Lets say we develop a set of palettes that convey certain moods. We decide that our frames will be simple and may in fact contain less than 256 points; certainly less than 256 unique colors. So the first thing we want to do is know that we are painting with the same colors! I make a set of palettes (format 2) and all I do to make it a legit ILDA file is make a frame (format 1) with just a single line in it and use that as a dummy frame for each of the different palettes. If I could save that with format 2, then my collegue would get the palettes. If I save that as format 4 or 5. He gets nothing but one color from each of the palettes; and no palettes at all.

    That is a loss of information and it kinda' goes against the idea that format 4 does it all.

    Also, the most important design criteria for LaserBoy is that it uses ONLY open file format standards; .ild, .bmp, .wav, .dxf, etc. So by that rule, I have no other options for storing laser vector art. I have no motivation at all to create a LaserBoy proprietary format.

    James.
    you already did that with the "laserboy wave" i think you should start saving laserboy waves as .lbw (btw its not taken yet either)

  5. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by James Lehman View Post
    What if I'm working with someone else, over the Internet on a set of frames. Lets say we develop a set of palettes that convey certain moods. We decide that our frames will be simple and may in fact contain less than 256 points; certainly less than 256 unique colors. So the first thing we want to do is know that we are painting with the same colors! I make a set of palettes (format 2) and all I do to make it a legit ILDA file is make a frame (format 1) with just a single line in it and use that as a dummy frame for each of the different palettes. If I could save that with format 2, then my collegue would get the palettes. If I save that as format 4 or 5. He gets nothing but one color from each of the palettes; and no palettes at all.

    That is a loss of information and it kinda' goes against the idea that format 4 does it all.

    Also, the most important design criteria for LaserBoy is that it uses ONLY open file format standards; .ild, .bmp, .wav, .dxf, etc. So by that rule, I have no other options for storing laser vector art. I have no motivation at all to create a LaserBoy proprietary format.

    James.
    I see what you are getting at. In that case, you're more interested in the palette than the drawing. Were ILDA files ever intended to be used that way? I would argue that they weren't. And that seems obvious when they dropped the use of them with Format 4 & 5.

    So yea, I can see why that might be a problem for LaserBoy. But, I don't think most others care. So, I guess your options are to be creative and think of a way to work around it or get into the system and try to change it to suit your application.

  6. #26
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    I just went for a long walk and I figured some things out. I need to add some palette transform options to be able to save format 2 palettes as an ordered segment of <256 vertices, one of each color in the palette. It will be a non-art frame. But it will be directly translatable into a format 2 palette.

    Some more thoughts I want to add about the use of palettes...

    Think about hand drawn 2D cartoons. The good ones are many frames of the same scene and characters, that need to be drawn in a specific set of colors; often less than a dozen! If you have one palette of just those colors, there is no confusion that the orange shirt is THAT orange. AND you can tweak the whole frame set by manipulating one set of colors!

    Also note: When I wrote all of this with great enthusiasm, I was unaware that other laser applications had not taken up format 2. After all, it was part of the ILDA spec. I thought it was necessary.

    LaserBoy also does a really neat trick when you save format 3. If there is such a thing as an ILDA reader out there that can read format 2 but can not read format 3, it should be OK. Because both 2 and 3 add color to a 0 or 1 in slightly different ways, they can coexist. If you save a format 2 that is a palette of colors that were deduced from the 24 bit values as a best match, then save the format 3 color table, then save the format 0 or 1 with the palette indices pointing into the first format 2, you've got both!

    No matter what, ILDA is a vector based file format. With no format 2, you are stuck with only 62 colors for format 0 & 1.

    No matter what, a set of vectors that constitue a frame will never number in the millions. So it will always be a fairly small number finite set. Even if every one of them is a unique color, that is a palette.

    James.
    Last edited by James Lehman; 10-31-2008 at 13:38.

  7. #27
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    Which software doesn't support format 2? That's pitiful.

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by carmangary View Post
    I hate to be condescending but I think you should actually read the standards and understand them before offering technical opinions on them. It sounds like you are just repeating what James may have told you.
    Dude. That's not cool.

    He has a good grasp of it. It is his own understanding and we dissagree about a lot of stuff on the phone.

    James.

  9. #29
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    James,

    I don't know about ilda files, but i've done enough C/ASM programming in the early 90ties in mode 13h to know what a palette is

    technically, you are saying that everything is a palette.. even 32bpp color is a palette in that way.

    Except that a palette is normally an array of CUSTOM colors you want to use at the same time, because technology is restricting you to have them all.

    32bpp is not custom at all 0,0,0 is black and ff,ff,ff is white.. And there is no index containing any value here.

    Since we have analog laser technology, capable of displaying thousands or maybe even millions of colors, a palette is in my opinion obsolete.

    But then again, nobody asked for my opinion anyway

    (although i liked how easy it was with palettes to make fire effects and plasma screens in those days

  10. #30
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    Dude! I cut me teeth on QBASIC. I am soaked to the core with palette concepts.

    The first version of LaserBoy in Linux used the video card in palette mode and stuffed the ILDA palette into the video card palette.

    Then, when I heard about how 24 bit colors were going to be done, I promoted all of my LaserBoy code to work on a 16, 24, or 32 bit screen. It made everything else possible!

    In the case of laser art, palettes are not old fashioned. They make a lot of sense. How many laser frames are out there that are great that have less than 20 colors? TONS!

    Sure color gradients are cool, but that is just one aspect of laser art that does not have a practical application in every kind of frame.

    Please don't pick up the nearest heavy object and hurl it at me through your screen, but.......

    There could even be another kind of ILDA palette! That would be a palette that has more than 255 colors AND can stand as a global palette over a series of vector frames that follow it. In other words a format 3 natural order relationship but with the same one to many relationship that a format 2 has over 0 & 1. The only stipulation would be that the sets of frames that follow would all have to have the same number of points or less than the number of colors in the table. OR the idea that any number of colors can be used in the one global color table but they would need to be repeated through any set of vertices that number more than the colors.

    This kind of data storage would be perfect for math generated abstracts that always have the same number of points per frame.

    Here's an analogy:

    Think of the file format as a blank, white piece of paper. If you are a water color artist, you know that many characteristics of that paper, that might not be visible or obvious, will affect the way the water colors will work with that plain white paper. So, before you even start with an idea, the paper has already determined something about what your finished piece will look like! Having to choose between formats 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc... Has everything to do with the ultimate possibilities of this blank white piece of paper. And THAT should be an open world standard.

    I have no problem with formats 4 & 5 being part of the standard that all gets called a .ild file. But I'd like to point out the value of formats 2 & 3 and the possible addition of variations on format 3. This makes the ILDA file a much more flexible structure for digital artists. And every bit of it holds to the traditional meaning of an ILDA point with an ILDA color, in ILDA space.

    James.
    Last edited by James Lehman; 10-31-2008 at 20:32.

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