
                   comp.os.os2.programmer.tools     (Usenet)

                 Saturday, 28-Aug-1999 to Friday, 03-Sep-1999

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: jana.persson@telia.com                            27-Aug-99 22:47:04
  To: All                                               28-Aug-99 03:31:24
Subj: Image compression?

From: "Jan A" <jana.persson@telia.com>

Anyone know of any REALLY efficient image compression utility? The type
image I need compressed is a 200 dpi/256 grays with mostly printed text and
lines on it. In the BMP format, the image is just above 1 MB in size and I
need it to be under 10K. Lossy compression OK but have to be able to read
handwritten text after decompression and printout.

The amount of grays is actually mostly noise, so the closest I've come this
far was to reduce the amount of grays to 2 and use GIF89a, that took it down
to some 17K. But I desperately need to get rid of another 10K or so. Would
IFS do it (fractals)? Wavelets? I have no experience with those.

A clue, anyone?

/Jan A

jana@tumbleweedtrail.com


--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: Telia Internet (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: aaronl@clear.net.nz                               29-Aug-99 00:02:13
  To: All                                               28-Aug-99 10:43:14
Subj: Re: Image compression?

From: Aaron Lawrence <aaronl@clear.net.nz>

Jan A wrote:

> Anyone know of any REALLY efficient image compression utility? The type
> image I need compressed is a 200 dpi/256 grays with mostly printed text and
> lines on it. In the BMP format, the image is just above 1 MB in size and I
> need it to be under 10K. Lossy compression OK but have to be able to read
> handwritten text after decompression and printout.
>
> The amount of grays is actually mostly noise, so the closest I've come this
> far was to reduce the amount of grays to 2 and use GIF89a, that took it down
> to some 17K. But I desperately need to get rid of another 10K or so. Would
> IFS do it (fractals)? Wavelets? I have no experience with those.

Have you tried it with jpeg? That's the obvious thing you haven't mentioned.
It
might work ok. The result will look pretty bad but...

If you can find a wavelet codec for OS/2 that would probably do it, though
again
I don't think it is designed for black and white.

--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: CLEAR Net New Zealand (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: paul_floyd@see.sig                                30-Aug-99 09:33:06
  To: All                                               30-Aug-99 12:22:13
Subj: Re: Image compression?

From: Paul FLOYD <paul_floyd@see.sig>

Jan A wrote:
> 
> Anyone know of any REALLY efficient image compression utility? The type
> image I need compressed is a 200 dpi/256 grays with mostly printed text and
> lines on it. In the BMP format, the image is just above 1 MB in size and I
> need it to be under 10K. Lossy compression OK but have to be able to read
> handwritten text after decompression and printout.
> 
> The amount of grays is actually mostly noise, so the closest I've come this
> far was to reduce the amount of grays to 2 and use GIF89a, that took it down
> to some 17K. But I desperately need to get rid of another 10K or so. Would
> IFS do it (fractals)? Wavelets? I have no experience with those.
> 
> A clue, anyone?
> 
> /Jan A
> 
> jana@tumbleweedtrail.com

The first question I have to ask is why do you need grey colours? If you
use monochrome, you will get an instant 8:1 compression.

Personally I'd recommend TIFF (which is itself a loose rag-bag of
formats). The CCITT (ITU these days) format used for faxes is pretty
good, combining, if I remember rightly, RLE and Huffman coding. It's
also lossless. You don't say what dimension paper you need to use (and I
can't guess as you dont say if you used RLE bmp or not). But for A4
paper, monochrome TIFF should at least get you into the 10K ballpark.

Cheers
Paul
-- 
Paul Floyd	Focal Ingenierie Sud
Mail: paul underscore floyd at focal dot fr
Sig tagline under contemplation.

--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: Focal Ingenierie Sud (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: jana.persson@telia.com                            30-Aug-99 23:34:03
  To: All                                               31-Aug-99 03:52:24
Subj: SV: Image compression?

From: "Jan A" <jana.persson@telia.com>

Paul FLOYD <paul_floyd@see.sig> skrev i
diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:37CA41C9.F66DFD91@see.sig...
> The first question I have to ask is why do you need grey colours? If you
> use monochrome, you will get an instant 8:1 compression.
>
> Personally I'd recommend TIFF (which is itself a loose rag-bag of
> formats). The CCITT (ITU these days) format used for faxes is pretty
> good, combining, if I remember rightly, RLE and Huffman coding. It's
> also lossless. You don't say what dimension paper you need to use (and I
> can't guess as you dont say if you used RLE bmp or not). But for A4
> paper, monochrome TIFF should at least get you into the 10K ballpark.
>
> Cheers
> Paul
> --
> Paul Floyd Focal Ingenierie Sud
> Mail: paul underscore floyd at focal dot fr
> Sig tagline under contemplation.


Thanks Paul! A greyscale image, that's what I have to work with, not my
choice. My task is to shrink it as much as human knowledge permits. The only
criteria is it has to be readable after printout. You're right monochrome (1
bit per pixel) gives me about 7/8 compression. I used that and then
compressed with GIF89a, which took it down to 17K. The dimension of the
paper is about 130x200 mm. Far as I know, the TIFF standard allows for the
use of a number of different compression schemes, the most common is LZW,
which I think is the same one used in the GIF format. I found a format
called CPC at a company called Cartesian Inc. It actually does the job down
to 6K but is only available for Unix and Windows. The have an SDK available
and I guess I could ask them if they plan on making it available for OS/2.
Maybe they're susceptible to a bribe?

/Jan A


--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: Telia Internet (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: eolson@express.ca                                 31-Aug-99 02:16:14
  To: All                                               31-Aug-99 05:26:03
Subj: Re: Image compression?

From: eolson@express.ca (Eric Olson)

On Fri, 27 Aug 1999 22:47:08, "Jan A" <jana.persson@telia.com> wrote:

> Anyone know of any REALLY efficient image compression utility? The type
> image I need compressed is a 200 dpi/256 grays with mostly printed text and
> lines on it. In the BMP format, the image is just above 1 MB in size and I
> need it to be under 10K. Lossy compression OK but have to be able to read
> handwritten text after decompression and printout.
> 
> The amount of grays is actually mostly noise, so the closest I've come this
> far was to reduce the amount of grays to 2 and use GIF89a, that took it down
> to some 17K. But I desperately need to get rid of another 10K or so. Would
> IFS do it (fractals)? Wavelets? I have no experience with those.
> 
> A clue, anyone?

Hello Jan,

 I don't have any experience with it but you could check out 
the free source of the djvu format from at&t and port it to
OS/2. It is based on multiple compression techniques among
which wavelets.

http://djvu.research.att.com/open/

Good luck.

Eric

--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: Sympatico (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: nospam_madbrain@thetaband.com                     31-Aug-99 03:44:11
  To: All                                               31-Aug-99 11:04:20
Subj: Theta Band Software releases WarpCharge payment software

From: nospam_madbrain@thetaband.com

Santa Clara, Calif. - Theta Band Software LLC released WarpCharge, a new
product that enables web sites to securely process credit card orders directly
over the Internet.

WarpCharge is the first credit card processing software available for the OS/2
platform.  WarpCharge provides the missing piece in your OS/2 e-commerce
solution : the payment system.

"Until now, merchants running secure web sites on IBM OS/2 Warp Server for
E-business had no means to process payments online. They could accept online
orders, but had to process the payment manually." said Julien Pierre,
President of Theta Band Software. "Shoppers like to get their purchase
immediately, and by processing credit card payments automatically and in
real-time, WarpCharge enables that sort of instant gratification."

WarpCharge is not just for e-commerce - it can be used for nearly all types of
businesses : whether you are taking credit card orders by mail, over the phone
or real-time over the Internet, WarpCharge is the perfect solution.

WarpCharge comes with sample CGI scripts for use on any secure OS/2 web
server, so that you can start taking Internet orders immediately.

WarpCharge also comes with an extensive REXX interface that lets developers
integrate credit card processing facility into any REXX-enabled OS/2
application, or into custom applications.

There are two editions of WarpCharge :

WarpCharge Business

WarpCharge Business is for any business that needs to process credit cards
over the phone, web, or in custom REXX applications. 

WarpCharge for Internet Service Providers

WarpCharge for ISPs lets Internet Service Providers offer credit card
processing capability to all their customers.

AVAILABILITY

WarpCharge is available for purchase from the Theta Band Software web site at
http://www.thetaband.com . WarpCharge Business requires a PC running IBM OS/2
Warp 4, OS/2 Warp Server or OS/2 Warp Server for E-Business. In addition,
WarpCharge for ISPs requires an OS/2 secure web server program.

ABOUT THETA BAND SOFTWARE LLC

Theta Band Software, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, was founded in
1997 and develops Internet and multimedia software products for IBM OS/2 Warp
that are marketed and sold on the world wide web.

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Julien Pierre               http://www.madbrain.com
Theta Band Software LLC     http://www.thetaband.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------

--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: putmanh@my-deja.com                               31-Aug-99 12:35:11
  To: All                                               31-Aug-99 14:56:01
Subj: WebExplorer toolkit

From: putmanh@my-deja.com

I am looking for a way to show web pages in an arbitrary window in my
application running under OS/2. I remember a while back there was a
WebExplorer toolkit that let you do this. It seems to have disappeared.
Does anyone have a copy of this or know where I can get it. I know the
HTML support is not up tyo today's standards, but I'm willing to live
with that.

Is there any other way to do this? [I've looked at Gecko from the
Mozilla project but it doesn't seem like it is near complete enough in
Os/2, and I couldn't find any documentation about how you use it in
your own application.]

Thanks for any help or information.

Harold Putman


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you do
(1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: donnelly@tampabay.rr.com                          31-Aug-99 15:08:04
  To: All                                               31-Aug-99 14:56:02
Subj: Re: WebExplorer toolkit

From: donnelly@tampabay.rr.com (Buddy Donnelly)

On Tue, 31 Aug 1999 12:35:23, putmanh@my-deja.com a Úcrit dans un message:

> I am looking for a way to show web pages in an arbitrary window in my
> application running under OS/2. I remember a while back there was a
> WebExplorer toolkit that let you do this. It seems to have disappeared.
> Does anyone have a copy of this or know where I can get it. I know the
> HTML support is not up tyo today's standards, but I'm willing to live
> with that.
> 
> Is there any other way to do this? [I've looked at Gecko from the
> Mozilla project but it doesn't seem like it is near complete enough in
> Os/2, and I couldn't find any documentation about how you use it in
> your own application.]
> 
> Thanks for any help or information.

All I can offer is to steer you in an extra direction. I saw a reference to
a Java applet over a year ago that would do something like this.

Good luck,

Buddy

Buddy Donnelly
donnelly@tampabay.rr.com


--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: RoadRunner - TampaBay (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: bvermo@powertech.no                               31-Aug-99 18:30:05
  To: All                                               31-Aug-99 16:34:24
Subj: Re: METAFILE CONVERTION

From: bv <bvermo@powertech.no>

Marek Wojciechowski wrote:

>
> OK but what about "OS/2 metafile" <-> "Win metafile" conversion.
> Does anybody know such a tool ?
>

An OS/2 metafile can contain almost anything, from a printer spool job
including downloadable fonts to a single OS/2 bitmap. It should be possible to
convert a Windows metafile, which is a much more limited creature, to an OS/2
metafile. The opposite is only possible in special cases.

You could get the Windows metafile into an OS/2 metafile format simply by
printing it under WinOS/2 and intercepting the spoolfile. The spoolfile is an
OS/2 metafile, but it is probably not in a format your application will be
able
to handle.

I think the best way is to convert them to a format like EPS, and exchange
that. This should work for some types of metafiles.


--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: Norbionics (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: mek@compuserve.com                                31-Aug-99 12:55:23
  To: All                                               31-Aug-99 16:34:24
Subj: Print to graphic [was Re: METAFILE CONVERTION]

From: Mat Kramer <mek@compuserve.com>

A more general question: is there a printer driver that will allow
output to be saved as a file and then imported into Word 97 as a
graphic?  Word will import HPGL -- which driver should I use for that?

bv wrote:
> You could get the Windows metafile into an OS/2 metafile format simply by
> printing it under WinOS/2 and intercepting the spoolfile. The spoolfile is
an
> OS/2 metafile, but it is probably not in a format your application will be
able
> to handle.
> 
> I think the best way is to convert them to a format like EPS, and exchange
> that. This should work for some types of metafiles.

-- 
Mat Kramer [MekTek] mek@compuserve.com
VyperHelp: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mek/vyper.htm

--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: MekTek (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: letoured@sover.net                                31-Aug-99 15:24:14
  To: All                                               31-Aug-99 21:19:20
Subj: Re: Print to graphic [was Re: METAFILE CONVERTION]

From: letoured@sover.net

>A more general question: is there a printer driver that will allow output
>to be saved as a file and then imported into Word 97 as a graphic?  Word
>will import HPGL -- which driver should I use for that?

Setting up a plotter driver (like the HP7550) and printing to file would
probably work. I suspect that word will still not give you what you want,
because the HPGL file is going to be a vector graphic and Microsoft has
never quite figured out what that means. 



>bv wrote:
>> You could get the Windows metafile into an OS/2 metafile format simply by
>> printing it under WinOS/2 and intercepting the spoolfile. The spoolfile is
an
>> OS/2 metafile, but it is probably not in a format your application will be
able
>> to handle.
>> 
>> I think the best way is to convert them to a format like EPS, and exchange
>> that. This should work for some types of metafiles.


_____________
Ed Letourneau <letoured@sover.net>

--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Origin Line 1 Goes Here (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: ekadakal@aol.com                                  31-Aug-99 23:25:28
  To: All                                               01-Sep-99 10:43:23
Subj: -<ERROR>- unable to open transport

From: ekadakal@aol.com (EKadakal)

Hi Everyone:

I get the follwing error (in tracing) when I try to access an Oracle database
from a Warp 4 client machine. Any idea?

-<ERROR>- soc -1 error - operation=3, ntresnt[0]=530, ntresnt[1]=-3,
ntresnt[2]=0
-<ERROR>- nsres: id=0, op=65, ns=12560, ns2=0; nt[0]=530, nt[1]=-3, nt[2]=0
-<ERROR>- unable to open transport

Thanks

Ercan

--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: AOL http://www.aol.com (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: csaba.raduly@sophos.com                           01-Sep-99 15:02:00
  To: All                                               01-Sep-99 17:47:20
Subj: Re: WebExplorer toolkit

From: Csaba Raduly <csaba.raduly@sophos.com>

(The original post never made it here)
Buddy Donnelly wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 31 Aug 1999 12:35:23, putmanh@my-deja.com a ?crit dans un message:
> 
> > I am looking for a way to show web pages in an arbitrary window in my
> > application running under OS/2. I remember a while back there was a
> > WebExplorer toolkit that let you do this. It seems to have disappeared.
> > Does anyone have a copy of this or know where I can get it. I know the
> > HTML support is not up tyo today's standards, but I'm willing to live
> > with that.
> >

do a ftpsearch for webex (ftpsearch.lycos.com or ftpsearch.ntnu.no)

Csaba
-- 
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- 
Version 3.1
GCS/>GMU d- s:- a30 C++$ UL+ P+>+++ L++ E- W+ N++ o? K? w++>$ O++$ M-
V- PS PE Y PGP- t+ 5 X++ R* tv++ b++ DI+++ D++ G- e+++ h-- r-- !y+
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK----- 

Csaba Raduly,    Software Developer (OS/2),    Sophos Anti-Virus
mailto:csaba.raduly@sophos.com            http://www.sophos.com/
US Support +1 888 SOPHOS 9            UK Support +44 1235 559933
Life is complex, with real and imaginary parts.

--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: Sophos Bridge ClubN (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From: bvermo@powertech.no                               01-Sep-99 11:40:12
  To: All                                               02-Sep-99 04:17:19
Subj: Re: Print to graphic [was Re: METAFILE CONVERTION]

From: bv <bvermo@powertech.no>

Mat Kramer wrote:

> A more general question: is there a printer driver that will allow
> output to be saved as a file and then imported into Word 97 as a
> graphic?  Word will import HPGL -- which driver should I use for that?

If you use a HP printer with the HPGL-level Word works with and use only
printer
fonts (so the output will not contained downloaded fonts to the printer),
setting it
to print to file ought to work. I do not have Word to test with (and do not
feel it
as a loss).
The resulting filr is of type "Printer specific", and has 7 lines of spool
control
before the HPGL reset command (ESC-E). This ought not to bother a properly
made HPGL
import filter.

It may be useful to toggle "Fast system fonts".




--- WtrGate+ v0.93.p7 sn 165
 * Origin: Usenet: Norbionics (1:109/42)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

+============================================================================+
