[Coco] [Color Computer] Convert image to Coco compatible image

Wed Apr 3 23:51:42 EDT 2013

I'd like to add many viewers to my utility Cocodskutil course need information graphics formats, if you can help with information or routines, I would like
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 13:58:08 -0400
> From: retrocanada76 at gmail.com
> To: coco at maltedmedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Coco] [Color Computer] Convert image to Coco compatible image
> 
> For PMODE4 blue/(red as orange or vice-versa),black and buff I use my own
> tool I made for my WIP elevator demo:
> 
> https://sites.google.com/site/tandycocoloco/cocogl
> 
> With my tool I can save a .BIN and loadm directly on 0E00 address. But it's
> a tilemap editor intended for riping arcade tiles to coco2. And it makes no
> dithering at all. In this case is better to dither in GIMP or any other
> graphic tool and then import on it.
> 
> If people have interest on it I can release the binaries. it's made in C#.
> 
> Felipe
> 
> 
> On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 11:05 PM, Bill Pierce <ooogalapasooo at aol.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> > Joel, If you would, upload those palettes to The Color Computer Archives,
> > We'll put them in the upcoming graphics utilities along with your
> > instructions which I just copied
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Bill Pierce
> > My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
> > https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
> > Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80 Color Computer Archive
> > http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/
> > Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
> > http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
> > E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Joel Ewy <jcewy at swbell.net>
> > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> > Sent: Tue, Apr 2, 2013 9:07 pm
> > Subject: Re: [Coco] [Color Computer] Convert image to Coco compatible image
> >
> >
> > On 04/02/2013 03:17 PM, John W. Linville wrote:
> > > On Tue, Apr 02, 2013 at 07:33:00PM +0000, T. Franklin wrote:
> > >> Easy? No. What I've done in the past is create a custom palette
> > >> table in Photoshop and let it do the conversion to an 8 bit 16 color
> > >> BMP. Then I strip the header info off the BMP file and rename it to
> > >> BIN. Then after importing it to a DSK image, I read it into the CoCo
> > >> using a custom loader. But don't tell anyone. Let's keep this our
> > >> little secret.
> > > The above process sounds similar to what I think Joel Ewy does as well.
> >
> > Here's approximately what I would do for a 16-color image.  I have a
> > palette in GIMP called CoCo3 64, which is (approximately) the 64 colors
> > the CoCo 3 can produce natively.  Close enough, anyway.  I first scale
> > the original image to 320x192 (or 200), possibly cropping it to preserve
> > aspect ratio.  (Doing all this in GIMP.) Then convert the image to
> > indexed, mapping it onto the 64 color palette, and using F/S dithering.
> > Then I promote the image back to RGB, and convert it to indexed again,
> > this time quantizing it to an optimal 16-color palette from the 64
> > colors to which it had already been reduced.  This gets pretty darn
> > close to the CoCo's actual display capabilities.
> >
> > A trick I've found for bringing out more detail in converted digital
> > photos is to use GIMP's 'Cartoon' script (Filters -> Artistic ->
> > Cartoon... in GIMP 2.6.8 under Ubuntu 10.04) after scaling the image and
> > before quantizing the palette down to 64 colors.  This has the effect of
> > outlining areas of detail that would otherwise become pretty indistinct
> > when the image is dithered.  It makes faces, for example. much more
> > clear in the final 16-color image, and ultimately makes for a more
> > recognizable, better looking picture, that still has as much of the
> > appearance of a digitized photo as can be expected in a 16-color picture.
> >
> > Then save the image as a (16-color) .gif.  Some of the CoCo programs
> > that display GIF files don't like comments, so un-check GIMP's comment.
> > Some of the CoCo programs don't like GIF-89 format, which is kinda dumb
> > because for a simple, single image there really is no difference.  That
> > can be fixed once you have it on the CoCo.  Use a disk editor to change
> > the '9' to a '7' in the first few bytes of the file.
> >
> > I use "os9 copy picture.gif diskimage.dsk,picture.gif" to get the
> > picture file on a disk image, and then serve it up to the CoCo with
> > DW4.  Then I can view the image with view 4.4, available at:
> > ftp://os9archive.rtsi.com/OS9/OS9_6X09/GRAPHICS/view44.ar
> >
> > view will display the 16-color GIF file directly, with no need for
> > flickering displays, since it is already in 16 colors, and even 16
> > colors that already match the CoCo's palette, as well.  With view, you
> > can convert the image into VEF, MGE, or CM3 formats, which will load
> > slightly faster on the CoCo because they don't use computationally
> > intensive (for the CoCo) compression.
> >
> > If you are ultimately going to use the image under DECB, CM3 format
> > might be a good choice.  I know there was a program that would load
> > CoCoMax 3 images into DECB's graphics memory blocks where it could be
> > saved with a BASIC program.  Look for it on CoCoMax 3 disk images.
> >
> > If anybody knows of a good place to put them, I can share the
> > CoCo-oriented GIMP palette files I have.  I think there's a way to
> > convert them to .pal files that can be used in other programs, but I
> > didn't see how in the few minutes I fiddled with it this evening.
> >
> > JCE
> > > I think Robert Gault has described doing something similar.  In fact,
> > > I think that is what he is describing in the "Coco3 Graphics to BMP
> > > and Back" articles here:
> > >
> > > http://aaronwolfe.com/robert.gault/Coco/Unpublished/Unpublished.htm
> > >
> > > I have written code to do this sort of thing, although I don't think I
> > > have anything easily applicable for exactly the task at hand.  Some of
> > > the older code in my cocovid project would apply, but nothing in the
> > > current version:
> > >
> > > http://git.infradead.org/users/linville/cocovid.git
> > >
> > > Actually, the cc3slides256 code is probably closer -- but, still not
> > > quite on target:
> > >
> > > http://git.infradead.org/users/linville/cc3slides256.git
> > >
> > > Well, maybe the above is helpful?  Or maybe it just confuses things...
> > >
> > > Would people want a special-purpose tool for converting images to
> > > 16-color mode on the CoCo3?  We have the technology... :-)
> > >
> > > John
> >
> >
> > --
> > Coco mailing list
> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Coco mailing list
> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Long live the CoCo
> 
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco