Need advice

Art Fore

11 Feb 2006 11 Feb '06

18:50

I need some advise on how to do something in Suse 10.0. I know how to do it in Windows, but not in Linux. I have a google maps web page showing our property, which is 23 acres. I want to do a screen capture, (printing to a file does not print the graphics in either opera or firefox) pull it into a graphics editor and do an outline drawing like you can do in Micrografix. I then want to add some things like where the water lines are along with their turnoffs and where the buried electrical lines are. Any suggestions on how to do this in Linux? Art

Show replies by date

James Knott

11 Feb 11 Feb

18:55

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

Art Fore wrote:

...

I need some advise on how to do something in Suse 10.0. I know how to do it in Windows, but not in Linux.

I have a google maps web page showing our property, which is 23 acres. I want to do a screen capture, (printing to a file does not print the graphics in either opera or firefox) pull it into a graphics editor and do an outline drawing like you can do in Micrografix. I then want to add some things like where the water lines are along with their turnoffs and where the buried electrical lines are.

Any suggestions on how to do this in Linux?

Well, you might try Ksnapshot, which can capture images of the entire desktop, a window, or an area of the screen. It's in the SUSE menu, under Utilities > Desktop.

Randall R Schulz

19:00

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

Art, On Saturday 11 February 2006 10:50, Art Fore wrote:

...

I need some advise on how to do something in Suse 10.0. I know how to do it in Windows, but not in Linux.

I have a google maps web page showing our property, which is 23 acres. I want to do a screen capture, (printing to a file does not print the graphics in either opera or firefox) pull it into a graphics editor and do an outline drawing like you can do in Micrografix. I then want to add some things like where the water lines are along with their turnoffs and where the buried electrical lines are.

Most browsers can save images they're displaying separately and / or copy the URL used to retrieve that image to the clipboard so you can download it using curl or wget. In Mozilla and Firefox, both these functions are available via the context menu--right-click on the image to display that menu, which includes the commands "Copy Image Location" and "Save Image As...". From there, there are several image editing applications you could use to add the overlays you need. Gimp is the high end, of course, being comparable to Photoshop.

...

Any suggestions on how to do this in Linux?

Art

Randall Schulz

Art Fore

21:10

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

On Sat, 2006-02-11 at 11:00 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Art,

On Saturday 11 February 2006 10:50, Art Fore wrote:

...
I need some advise on how to do something in Suse 10.0. I know how to do it in Windows, but not in Linux.

I have a google maps web page showing our property, which is 23 acres. I want to do a screen capture, (printing to a file does not print the graphics in either opera or firefox) pull it into a graphics editor and do an outline drawing like you can do in Micrografix. I then want to add some things like where the water lines are along with their turnoffs and where the buried electrical lines are.

Most browsers can save images they're displaying separately and / or copy the URL used to retrieve that image to the clipboard so you can download it using curl or wget. In Mozilla and Firefox, both these functions are available via the context menu--right-click on the image to display that menu, which includes the commands "Copy Image Location" and "Save Image As...".

From there, there are several image editing applications you could use to add the overlays you need. Gimp is the high end, of course, being comparable to Photoshop.

...
Any suggestions on how to do this in Linux?

Art

Randall Schulz

Apparently, Google disables that in both Opera & Firefox. I can do it on another website, but not on maps.google.com with the satellite photo. Ksnapshot works good though. Art

Jim Flanagan

22:37

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

Art Fore wrote:

...

On Sat, 2006-02-11 at 11:00 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...
Art,

On Saturday 11 February 2006 10:50, Art Fore wrote:

...
I need some advise on how to do something in Suse 10.0. I know how to do it in Windows, but not in Linux.

I have a google maps web page showing our property, which is 23 acres. I want to do a screen capture, (printing to a file does not print the graphics in either opera or firefox) pull it into a graphics editor and do an outline drawing like you can do in Micrografix. I then want to add some things like where the water lines are along with their turnoffs and where the buried electrical lines are.

Most browsers can save images they're displaying separately and / or copy the URL used to retrieve that image to the clipboard so you can download it using curl or wget. In Mozilla and Firefox, both these functions are available via the context menu--right-click on the image to display that menu, which includes the commands "Copy Image Location" and "Save Image As...".

From there, there are several image editing applications you could use to add the overlays you need. Gimp is the high end, of course, being comparable to Photoshop.

...
Any suggestions on how to do this in Linux?

Art

Randall Schulz

Apparently, Google disables that in both Opera & Firefox. I can do it on another website, but not on maps.google.com with the satellite photo.

Ksnapshot works good though.

Art

I see you found a solution, but another quick option is to do either Crl+PrintScreen or Alt+PrintScreen. You won't notice anything happen, but open an app, say a wordprocessor, select where you want to paste, then do Ctl+V. Very quick and easy. One captures the entire desktop, the other the active window, I don't remember which is which. Slainte, Jim

Randall R Schulz

22:42

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

Art, On Saturday 11 February 2006 13:10, Art Fore wrote:

...

On Sat, 2006-02-11 at 11:00 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...
...

Most browsers can save images they're displaying separately and / or copy the URL used to retrieve that image to the clipboard so you can download it using curl or wget. In Mozilla and Firefox, both these functions are available via the context menu--right-click on the image to display that menu, which includes the commands "Copy Image Location" and "Save Image As...".

From there, there are several image editing applications you could use to add the overlays you need. Gimp is the high end, of course, being comparable to Photoshop.

...

Apparently, Google disables that in both Opera & Firefox. I can do it on another website, but not on maps.google.com with the satellite photo.

What in the world does that mean? How does Google disable functions in your browser? Ah. I see. First of all, their maps are tiled (what appears to be a single map image is actual several smaller ones). Secondly they apparently are capturing mouse-click events on the map images and diverting or consuming them so they cannot activate the usual functions (using JavaScript). I just tried disabling JavaScript in Mozilla (after displaying a Google Maps page). Sure enough, the context menu returns. Unfortunately, this does not solve the tiling issue and you'd have to perform 16 separate save actions then tile the images back together in an image editor!

...

Ksnapshot works good though.

As long as you can get the whole map on the monitor.

...

Art

Randall Schulz

ken

12 Feb 12 Feb

11:30

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 14:42:48 -0800 Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Art,

On Saturday 11 February 2006 13:10, Art Fore wrote:

...
On Sat, 2006-02-11 at 11:00 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...
...

Most browsers can save images they're displaying separately and / or copy the URL used to retrieve that image to the clipboard so you can download it using curl or wget. In Mozilla and Firefox, both these functions are available via the context menu--right-click on the image to display that menu, which includes the commands "Copy Image Location" and "Save Image As...".

From there, there are several image editing applications you could use to add the overlays you need. Gimp is the high end, of course, being comparable to Photoshop.

...

Apparently, Google disables that in both Opera & Firefox. I can do it on another website, but not on maps.google.com with the satellite photo.

What in the world does that mean? How does Google disable functions in

your browser?

Ah. I see. First of all, their maps are tiled (what appears to be a single map image is actual several smaller ones). Secondly they apparently are capturing mouse-click events on the map images and diverting or consuming them so they cannot activate the usual functions (using JavaScript).

I just tried disabling JavaScript in Mozilla (after displaying a Google Maps page). Sure enough, the context menu returns. Unfortunately, this does not solve the tiling issue and you'd have to perform 16 separate save actions then tile the images back together in an image editor!

Been there. The easy (or easier) way (in FF): Do "Tools > Page Info", select the images/tiles, and download from the right-click popup (IIRC). Putting them back together again in gimp is fairly simple if you do the math on the size and positions of the tiles and then use that geometry when setting the size of the New gimp image you'll be creating. There's some other apps in linux I've used for drafting and such... used them to design my new kitchen, a couple different decks, and to draw up the property as a whole. All that was a lot of brain cells ago... but I think the name of the app I used was either dia or xfig. There's others too. You might want to see if gimp can input and/or output to a graphic/file format so that you could combine the power of gimp with the more endgoal focus of one of the drafting apps. hth, ken -- "This world ain't big enough for the both of us," said the big noema to the little noema.

Carlos E. R.

12:43

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 06:30 -0500, ken wrote:

...

On Saturday 11 February 2006 13:10, Art Fore wrote:

...
I just tried disabling JavaScript in Mozilla (after displaying a Google Maps page). Sure enough, the context menu returns. Unfortunately, this does not solve the tiling issue and you'd have to perform 16 separate save actions then tile the images back together in an image editor!

Been there. The easy (or easier) way (in FF): Do "Tools > Page Info", select the images/tiles, and download from the right-click popup (IIRC). Putting them back together again in gimp is fairly simple if you do the math on the size and positions of the tiles and then use that geometry when setting the size of the New gimp image you'll be creating.

Intersting trick. Another method is to look at the mozilla cache; sort by date, separate the latest files, run the "file" command on those that seem likely (they don't have helpfull extension names), and then check which are the images you want. I used that for a map in "flash" format, I think. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFD7y14tTMYHG2NR9URAtf4AJ9KxzPGCUqTe80PCtDRxCoP0DkMNQCghIpK fAICeWKbxz+o5G/bg+BzYO4= =UPJM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Randall R Schulz

15:34

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

Carlos, On Sunday 12 February 2006 04:43, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 06:30 -0500, ken wrote:

...
On Saturday 11 February 2006 13:10, Art Fore wrote:

...
I just tried disabling JavaScript in Mozilla (after displaying a Google Maps page). Sure enough, the context menu returns. Unfortunately, this does not solve the tiling issue and you'd have to perform 16 separate save actions then tile the images back together in an image editor!

Been there. The easy (or easier) way (in FF): Do "Tools > Page Info", select the images/tiles, and download from the right-click popup (IIRC). Putting them back together again in gimp is fairly simple if you do the math on the size and positions of the tiles and then use that geometry when setting the size of the New gimp image you'll be creating.

Intersting trick.

Another method is to look at the mozilla cache; sort by date, separate the latest files, run the "file" command on those that seem likely (they don't have helpfull extension names), and then check which are the images you want. I used that for a map in "flash" format, I think.

Watch the page load (pick a location you have not viewed recently) and you'll see that the order in which the images arrive is not fixed. If you're familiar with the whole AJAX thing, which is used by sites like this, the first A is for "asynchronous." Again, taking a screen capture is nice and straightforward and bypasses all the difficulty caused by the image tiling. For the moment, A9.com maps are not tiled and you might get better results there: http://maps.a9.com/. You'll still need to disable JavaScript to be able to get the context menu from a right click. The Page Info / Media trick still works there, however, and it's a single image. This is another AJAX site and in this case, it caches images, so if you navigate while on that page, you'll find multiple images in the Media listing.

...

-- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Randall Schulz

Carlos E. R.

15:48

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 07:34 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

...
Intersting trick.

Another method is to look at the mozilla cache; sort by date, separate the latest files, run the "file" command on those that seem likely (they don't have helpfull extension names), and then check which are the images you want. I used that for a map in "flash" format, I think.

Watch the page load (pick a location you have not viewed recently) and you'll see that the order in which the images arrive is not fixed. If you're familiar with the whole AJAX thing, which is used by sites like this, the first A is for "asynchronous."

Again, taking a screen capture is nice and straightforward and bypasses all the difficulty caused by the image tiling.

Yes, but lower quality, not good enough for printing. As I said, I have done this before, but not on that site. I order by modification date of files (you can force full reload of the page so that all relevant files are recent), not by names, using "mc". Then I copy those that have a timestamp in the interesting range to a tmp dir, and run "file" on them to see what type they really are. I get the original file displayed: I can zoom on it, manipulate, whatever. I'm not saying that this is the best method. I only say that it works. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFD71jHtTMYHG2NR9URAsAPAKCQ4JKrFKdaCy1budQs6nEuCDNnugCfXSg4 NOEFHXptolaFL2Rt9IwQ5zo= =rhrs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Randall R Schulz

16:08

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

Carlos, On Sunday 12 February 2006 07:48, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 07:34 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...
...

Again, taking a screen capture is nice and straightforward and bypasses all the difficulty caused by the image tiling.

Yes, but lower quality, not good enough for printing.

How / why is that? Unless the screen is running in indexed color mode (who does that outside of VNC / FreeNX / etc.?), you'll get exactly the same bits in a screen capture you get by saving the bits off the wire. These are not SVG images, after all, they're raster images.

...

As I said, I have done this before, but not on that site. I order by modification date of files (you can force full reload of the page so that all relevant files are recent), not by names, using "mc". Then I copy those that have a timestamp in the interesting range to a tmp dir, and run "file" on them to see what type they really are. I get the original file displayed: I can zoom on it, manipulate, whatever.

You've really got to like jigsaw puzzles to do it this way.

...

I'm not saying that this is the best method. I only say that it works.

Sure, but the screen capture works better. Why go to all the trouble putting the tile pieces back together?

...

-- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Randall Schulz

Carlos E. R.

13 Feb 13 Feb

01:00

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 08:08 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Sure, but the screen capture works better. Why go to all the trouble putting the tile pieces back together?

Because I had no tiles whatsoever to put back. I said main was a flash file. I did try the screen capture first, by the way. I was not convinced. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFD79oWtTMYHG2NR9URAorfAJ9iPhv8P+8M/EtiEB63vR1DaP3s0wCfWJ+Q SRO5o4U2dXsj1UscBaU453U= =qPJ1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Randall R Schulz

01:05

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

Carlos, On Sunday 12 February 2006 17:00, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 08:08 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...
Sure, but the screen capture works better. Why go to all the trouble putting the tile pieces back together?

Because I had no tiles whatsoever to put back. I said main was a flash file.

Where did Flash come from in this discussion? The OP is using Google Local / Maps. They tile the overall map into 16 individual PNG files.

...

I did try the screen capture first, by the way. I was not convinced.

Who knows what the hell is going on with Flash. There are technologies out there that deliberately work to degrade screen captures. I don't know how they do it, but they do, somehow. It wouldn't surprise me if Flash had such an option available to Flash authors.

...

-- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Randall Schulz

Carlos E. R.

01:30

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 17:05 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

...
Because I had no tiles whatsoever to put back. I said main was a flash file.

Where did Flash come from in this discussion? The OP is using Google Local / Maps. They tile the overall map into 16 individual PNG files.

J...r! I said, several emails back, that in MY case the map was a flash file. Am I not entitled to say what I did? Oh my, how picky you are today! :-/

...

...
I did try the screen capture first, by the way. I was not convinced.

Who knows what the hell is going on with Flash. There are technologies out there that deliberately work to degrade screen captures. I don't know how they do it, but they do, somehow. It wouldn't surprise me if Flash had such an option available to Flash authors.

They used flash instead of bitmaps image just as a way to create difficulties to people wanting to get the real photo instead of an screen capture, or wanting to bypass the print button (and thus not printing their commercials). Just as creating a picture composed of 16 tiles is another technique to reach the same goal. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFD7+E5tTMYHG2NR9URAli8AJ48uP8tSBuY0Dol7alqY6A/yIy9KwCcCTxt sor7ip7Mo8yIJKaK6eejj9Q= =Ivp7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Randall R Schulz

01:40

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

Hi, On Sunday 12 February 2006 17:30, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

...

They used flash instead of bitmaps image just as a way to create difficulties to people wanting to get the real photo instead of an screen capture, or wanting to bypass the print button (and thus not printing their commercials). Just as creating a picture composed of 16 tiles is another technique to reach the same goal.

Actually, there are technologically valid reasons to tile maps served in the manner of Google Local or A9.com Maps. Consider, e.g., enabling the user to pan the map. In fact, all the animation effects and background loading capabilities in Flash are also enticing to producers of various on-line interactive applications. Thankfully, browser technologies are rapidly closing the gap and hopefully soon close solutions like Flash will not be necessary for most Web-based interactive applications.

...

-- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Randall "the contrarian" Schuzl

Carlos E. R.

14 Feb 14 Feb

01:31

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 17:40 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Actually, there are technologically valid reasons to tile maps served in the manner of Google Local or A9.com Maps. Consider, e.g., enabling the user to pan the map.

Yes, you are right in that. For continuous panning, that is. The one I saw in flash admitted limited panning and zoming. I'm thinking. I understand that The Gimp is scriptable. It should be possible then to feed the names of the sixteen tiles to an script in gimp that would join then automatically. But I don't know how the gimp handles that, I haven't looked into it. It is possible that there exists out there software for joining tiles more or less automatically: I have hand joined scanned pages with overlap, and it is a pain.

...

In fact, all the animation effects and background loading capabilities in Flash are also enticing to producers of various on-line interactive applications. Thankfully, browser technologies are rapidly closing the gap and hopefully soon close solutions like Flash will not be necessary for most Web-based interactive applications.

I think that flash will remain interesting for sites trying to obfuscate things. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFD8TMRtTMYHG2NR9URAl+8AKCNljPXktEeHzQYVl/4mWZXWPXIcACfag48 IjJBoKegB/m5dGr5h2/Ncog= =zYOn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Carl Hartung

13 Feb 13 Feb

01:48

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

On Sunday 12 February 2006 20:30, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

They used flash instead of bitmaps image just as a way to create difficulties to people wanting to get the real photo instead of an screen capture, or wanting to bypass the print button (and thus not printing their commercials). Just as creating a picture composed of 16 tiles is another technique to reach the same goal.

Obviously they don't know there are a number of Flash decompilers out there that let you extract content in it's original format. Goodnight! Carl

Carlos E. R.

01:09

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Monday 2006-02-13 at 02:00 +0100, I wrote:

...

Because I had no tiles whatsoever to put back. I said main was a flash file.

Errata: I meant "mine", not main. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFD79w5tTMYHG2NR9URAj6aAJ9JLS3aMYBCjgNjP/RNsS7U5lO4uwCghCEo yA1KtsNWuaEZ86NPPAdaOh0= =r/ji -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Randall R Schulz

12 Feb 12 Feb

15:27

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

Ken, On Sunday 12 February 2006 03:30, ken wrote:

...

...

...
I just tried disabling JavaScript in Mozilla (after displaying a Google Maps page). Sure enough, the context menu returns. Unfortunately, this does not solve the tiling issue and you'd have to perform 16 separate save actions then tile the images back together in an image editor!

Been there. The easy (or easier) way (in FF): Do "Tools > Page Info", select the images/tiles, and download from the right-click popup (IIRC). Putting them back together again in gimp is fairly simple if you do the math on the size and positions of the tiles and then use that geometry when setting the size of the New gimp image you'll be creating.

How on earth is that easier than taking a screen capture? For one thing, the "Save As..." button is unavailable when more than one item is selected in the "Media" tab of the "Page Info" dialog. Secondly, the ordering (X and Y tile numbers) are only present in URL query parameters, and files saved with those names are tedious to deal with. Unless someone is going to write a Mozilla / Firefox plug-in of some sort (or a custom client specifically designed for this kind of site) to stitch such tiled images back together and save them as a single whole, creating a screen snapshot will continue to be far easier.

...

...

hth, ken

Randall Schulz

Carlos E. R.

15:42

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 07:27 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

...
Been there. The easy (or easier) way (in FF): Do "Tools > Page Info", select the images/tiles, and download from the right-click popup (IIRC). Putting them back together again in gimp is fairly simple if you do the math on the size and positions of the tiles and then use that geometry when setting the size of the New gimp image you'll be creating.

How on earth is that easier than taking a screen capture?

For one thing, the "Save As..." button is unavailable when more than one item is selected in the "Media" tab of the "Page Info" dialog. Secondly, the ordering (X and Y tile numbers) are only present in URL query parameters, and files saved with those names are tedious to deal with.

True, but usually much lower quality. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFD71dVtTMYHG2NR9URAspYAJ9mBHJTvfaJoZJ3oKoU3mI0TPuRKQCgikz5 Se2FYQaxWR7fSZfhDBA6kZA= =HFOF -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Randall R Schulz

16:09

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

Carlos, On Sunday 12 February 2006 07:42, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 07:27 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...
...
Been there. The easy (or easier) way (in FF): Do "Tools > Page Info", select the images/tiles, and download from the right-click popup (IIRC). Putting them back together again in gimp is fairly simple if you do the math on the size and positions of the tiles and then use that geometry when setting the size of the New gimp image you'll be creating.

How on earth is that easier than taking a screen capture?

...

True, but usually much lower quality.

How so??

...

-- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Randall Schulz

Carlos E. R.

13 Feb 13 Feb

01:02

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 08:09 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

...
True, but usually much lower quality.

How so??

If your screen is relatively low resolution (a mere 1024), it is easy that the file has a higher quality that can be noticed when the image is printed. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFD79rOtTMYHG2NR9URAi2gAJ42qi2w5FTYpEtWu6PhBAB6yFA0SQCeKJpr 8maKYpw31t82wez0jQnAfE8= =41C/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Randall R Schulz

01:09

New subject: [SLE] Need advice (solved)

Carlos, On Sunday 12 February 2006 17:02, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

The Sunday 2006-02-12 at 08:09 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...
...
True, but usually much lower quality.

How so??

If your screen is relatively low resolution (a mere 1024), it is easy that the file has a higher quality that can be noticed when the image is printed.

You're not making sense. A raster image (GIF, PNG, etc.) will render at its native resolution in a browser. Thus a screen capture will produce an identical image file. That may not be true for JPEG, but if you're using JPEG (or any lossy compression) for line drawings, you're already in trouble, since sharp edges produce aliasing even at fairly high quality levels. There's also an exception in Mozilla, which can fit large images to the screen, but when it does that, it indicates that it has done so by showing a distinct mouse pointer and can then be overridden by clicking.

...

-- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Randall Schulz

Per Jessen

12 Feb 12 Feb

17:13

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Most browsers can save images they're displaying separately and / or copy the URL used to retrieve that image to the clipboard so you can download it using curl or wget. In Mozilla and Firefox, both these functions are available via the context menu--right-click on the image to display that menu, which includes the commands "Copy Image Location" and "Save Image As...".

With FF, your could just do "Ctrl-S" -> select "Web page; complete". That'll save all the tiles in one operation. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- http://www.spamchek.com/ - managed anti-spam and anti-virus solution. Let us analyse your spam- and virus-threat - up to 2 months for free.

Randall R Schulz

17:18

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

Per, On Sunday 12 February 2006 09:13, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Randall R Schulz wrote:

...
Most browsers can save images they're displaying separately and / or copy the URL used to retrieve that image to the clipboard so you can download it using curl or wget. In Mozilla and Firefox, both these functions are available via the context menu--right-click on the image to display that menu, which includes the commands "Copy Image Location" and "Save Image As...".

With FF, your could just do "Ctrl-S" -> select "Web page; complete". That'll save all the tiles in one operation.

Of course, but unless it stitches them into a single file, the hard, tedious work remains.

...

/Per Jessen, Zürich

Randall Schulz

Jerry Feldman

17:42

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 11:00:24 -0800 Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

...
I have a google maps web page showing our property, which is 23 acres. I want to do a screen capture, (printing to a file does not print the graphics in either opera or firefox) From there, there are several image editing applications you could use to add the overlays you need. Gimp is the high end, of course, being comparable to Photoshop. Just to add, Gimp also has a screen capture feature. It also allows you to grab a single window as well as the entire screen. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

Patrick Shanahan

02:17

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

* Art Fore [02-11-06 13:50]:

...

I have a google maps web page showing our property, which is 23 acres. I want to do a screen capture, (printing to a file does not print the graphics in either opera or firefox) pull it into a graphics editor and do an outline drawing like you can do in Micrografix. I then want to add some things like where the water lines are along with their turnoffs and where the buried electrical lines are.

Any suggestions on how to do this in Linux?

"import" from ImageMagick -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2

Art Fore

04:39

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Sat, 2006-02-11 at 21:17 -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

* Art Fore [02-11-06 13:50]:

...
I have a google maps web page showing our property, which is 23 acres. I want to do a screen capture, (printing to a file does not print the graphics in either opera or firefox) pull it into a graphics editor and do an outline drawing like you can do in Micrografix. I then want to add some things like where the water lines are along with their turnoffs and where the buried electrical lines are.

Any suggestions on how to do this in Linux?

"import" from ImageMagick

-- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535

Where do you find it in Suse 10.0? It is not under graphics or utilities and I have tried imagemagick and imagemag from the command line with no success. Yast says it is installed. Art

columbo

05:04

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Saturday 11 February 2006 23:39, Art Fore wrote:

...

Where do you find it in Suse 10.0? It is not under graphics or utilities and I have tried imagemagick and imagemag from the command line with no success. Yast says it is installed.

Hi Art, ImageMagick is actually a suite of command line tools which includes import, convert, mogrify, conjure, animate and others. For proper usage for what you'd like to accomplish (import) learn here: http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/02/22/227231 regards, columbo -- SUSE 9.3 Pro - KDE 3.5

Art Fore

05:19

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Sun, 2006-02-12 at 00:04 -0500, columbo wrote:

...

On Saturday 11 February 2006 23:39, Art Fore wrote:

...
Where do you find it in Suse 10.0? It is not under graphics or utilities and I have tried imagemagick and imagemag from the command line with no success. Yast says it is installed.

Hi Art,

ImageMagick is actually a suite of command line tools which includes import, convert, mogrify, conjure, animate and others.

For proper usage for what you'd like to accomplish (import) learn here:

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/02/22/227231

regards, columbo

-- SUSE 9.3 Pro - KDE 3.5

thanks for the info. After checking it out it is not what I need. I can open the .png file in Gimp, krita, or OOo Draw. Now problem is to be able to add lines, boxes etc. I can do that in Gimp krita, but I cannot make a box and copy it. Cannot add graphics in the OOo draw for some reason or another. I have done it before, but now it will not work. Also tried frontline with autotrace. This also does not do what I need plus what you see in the preview is not what you get in an image program and it make a 1.7meg file to 16 meg. Not useful at all. I just want to add outlines of the buildings on one layer, add water lines on another layer, and add electric lines on another layer. It is a PITA in Gimp or Krita, or does now work in anything else, unless someone knows how to copy/paste one graphic element, such as a rectangle. The help file for gimp and krita were of no help at all. Art

columbo

06:25

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Sunday 12 February 2006 00:19, Art Fore wrote:

...

I just want to add outlines of the buildings on one layer, add water lines on another layer, and add electric lines on another layer. It is a PITA in Gimp or Krita, or does now work in anything else, unless someone knows how to copy/paste one graphic element, such as a rectangle. The help file for gimp and krita were of no help at all.

I missed that in your original post. Did you look at KolourPaint? Pretty intuitive and it might be able to do what you want it to do (using 'paste from file') and it should be in your distribution. regards, columbo -- SUSE 9.3 Pro - KDE 3.5

Art Fore

07:28

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Sun, 2006-02-12 at 01:25 -0500, columbo wrote:

...

On Sunday 12 February 2006 00:19, Art Fore wrote:

...
I just want to add outlines of the buildings on one layer, add water lines on another layer, and add electric lines on another layer. It is a PITA in Gimp or Krita, or does now work in anything else, unless someone knows how to copy/paste one graphic element, such as a rectangle. The help file for gimp and krita were of no help at all.

I missed that in your original post. Did you look at KolourPaint? Pretty intuitive and it might be able to do what you want it to do (using 'paste from file') and it should be in your distribution.

regards, columbo -- SUSE 9.3 Pro - KDE 3.5

I am trying Inkscape. Works much better than Gimp or Krita for what I am trying to do. Just have to figure out to output the layers as separate file or hide some layers at will. Art

Jos van Kan

10:07

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

Art Fore wrote: (knip)

...

thanks for the info. After checking it out it is not what I need. I can open the .png file in Gimp, krita, or OOo Draw. Now problem is to be able to add lines, boxes etc. I can do that in Gimp krita, but I cannot make a box and copy it.

(knip) Sure you can. Draw a box on a separate (transparent) layer. Select the box from that layer and copy it. Now you can paste it anywhere. Only thing Gimp can't do is make coffee and I'm working on a plugin for that. ;-) Regards, -- Jos van Kan registered Linux user #152704

Art Fore

17:56

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Sun, 2006-02-12 at 11:07 +0100, Jos van Kan wrote:

...

Art Fore wrote: (knip)

...
thanks for the info. After checking it out it is not what I need. I can open the .png file in Gimp, krita, or OOo Draw. Now problem is to be able to add lines, boxes etc. I can do that in Gimp krita, but I cannot make a box and copy it.

(knip)

Sure you can. Draw a box on a separate (transparent) layer. Select the box from that layer and copy it. Now you can paste it anywhere.

Only thing Gimp can't do is make coffee and I'm working on a plugin for that. ;-)

Regards,

-- Jos van Kan registered Linux user #152704

Seems like a round-about way for a simple copy/paste. If it can do anything, then How do I get a line off horizontal by 5 deg to not be jagged? (tried grid setting of 1 pixel, still the same) even prints out this way on laserjet postscript printer with 1200 dpi resolution. (image is 1900X1200 resolution) How do I hide a layer I do not want printed? If you can do that, it sure is not obvious at all and there is noting in help that I could find. Art

Carl Hartung

23:27

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Sunday 12 February 2006 12:56, Art Fore wrote:

...

How do I get a line off horizontal by 5 deg to not be jagged? (tried grid setting of 1 pixel, still the same) even prints out this way on laserjet postscript printer with 1200 dpi resolution. (image is 1900X1200 resolution)

Hi Art, Every bitmap I've ever zoomed into closely enough represents diagonal lines with sawtooths, excepting perfect 45 degree angles, of course. So, I'm pretty sure you are on the right track looking at vector solutions. Separate questions and a comment: What's your screen resolution?... and the bit-depth? (16-bit, 24-bit or 32 bit?) My normal desktop resolution is 1600x1200 dpi at 24 bits color depth (a.k.a. "True Color".) When I display a 24-bit color photograph on my screen at 100% zoom and capture a screenshot of it, the result looks as good as the original when I crop off the excess desktop. Back to your project: If I were you, I'd experiment with using a vector drawing program and setting the photograph, which is a bitmap, as the *background* (a.k.a. "canvas" in some programs.) The idea is to create your diagrams using vectors on one or more transparent layers over the bitmap canvas. Vectors scale and are much less susceptible to "jaggies" assuming you've got a decent printer/driver setup. The vector programs I've tried before and liked are: xfig (great for quick "one off" projects) dia (like xfig but oriented to "dia"grams and flow charts) Inkscape

...

How do I hide a layer I do not want printed? If you can do that, it sure is not obvious at all and there is noting in help that I could find.

Look for the Egyptian style "eye" with brow in the layers menu. Click on it to make the eye disappear and the visibility of the associated layer is turned off. Click it again to make it visible and the eye reappears. Of course, you'll have to have a demo file with pre-existing layers or make some layers yourself to see this. I'd strongly recommend you install the package GIMP Help and invest the time in reading it. I know it helped me a lot! The GIMP is truly awesome, but the learning curve can be steep because it has so many features. regards, Carl

Randall R Schulz

23:50

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

Carl, On Sunday 12 February 2006 15:27, Carl Hartung wrote:

...

On Sunday 12 February 2006 12:56, Art Fore wrote:

...
How do I get a line off horizontal by 5 deg to not be jagged? (tried grid setting of 1 pixel, still the same) even prints out this way on laserjet postscript printer with 1200 dpi resolution. (image is 1900X1200 resolution)

Hi Art,

Every bitmap I've ever zoomed into closely enough represents diagonal lines with sawtooths, excepting perfect 45 degree angles, of course.

Even then, it's a "sawtooth." A raster image can do no better. There is so-called anti-aliasing, which (conceptually) intersects the line (having a specific, non-zero width) with the pixel grid and then assigns pixel values that reflect the degree of overlap of the line's with each pixel. (It takes into account the background and foreground colors, too, of course.) The only alternative is to use a vector graphic representation (SVG would be the obvious choice in the Open Source world). But even then, since all common display devices in use today (both for printing on paper and the CRT or LCD monitor) are raster devices, the issue of how to best chose pixel values to minimize rasterization artifacts remains.

...

So, I'm pretty sure you are on the right track looking at vector solutions.

...

Back to your project: If I were you, I'd experiment with using a vector drawing program and setting the photograph, which is a bitmap, as the *background* (a.k.a. "canvas" in some programs.)

Given that the base image (the map) is given as a raster image supplied by a third party, that much cannot be changed. However a good tool for adding the overlays would be one that can do such overlay layers in vector format while accepting a raster image as the base or background layer. In other words, a hybrid drawing program. I don't know, offhand, whether GIMP can do this. The good news is that PostScript and PDF can accommodate this kind of mixture of raster and vector graphics. The other good thing about PostScript-based representations is the fact that PostScript rendering engines usually are finely tuned to the characteristics of the output device and usually produce the best output possible for any given device.

...

The idea is to create your diagrams using vectors on one or more transparent layers over the bitmap canvas. Vectors scale and are much less susceptible to "jaggies" assuming you've got a decent printer/driver setup. The vector programs I've tried before and liked are:

Vectors are not "less susceptible" to aliasing, they're immune to it. It's only when you must rasterize the vector image that the inevitable degradation occurs, but because the image itself is represented by vectors, it will render at any resolution on any device in the best manner available for that output device. Raster images rarely look good unless they're rendered at their native resolution. Scaling them down is far less degrading, especially if it's done with a good rescaling algorithm (pretty much anything other than a point-sampling algorithm).

...

...

regards,

Carl

Randall Schulz

Carl Hartung

13 Feb 13 Feb

00:51

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

Hi Randall, On Sunday 12 February 2006 18:50, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Even then, it's a "sawtooth."

Not if it's one pixel wide and exactly 45 degrees off the x or y axis. :-)

...

A raster image can do no better.

That was my point, wasn't it? Even with anti-aliasing, when you zoom in close enough the "sawtooth" construction is visible. You can't avoid it because that effect, or characteristic, is inherent to the technology. Try 'zooming' your face right up to an HDTV display... at some point the pixel construction becomes visible and the "jaggies" appear.

...

The only alternative is to use a vector graphic representation

Wasn't that my recommendation?

...

... However a good tool for adding the overlays would be one that can do such overlay layers in vector format while accepting a raster image as the base or background layer. In other words, a hybrid drawing program.

What he needs is a professional grade vector drawing program that provides for the use of bitmaps as a "canvas" or "background." Illustrator has this capability. I don't know if it has been implemented in Inkscape, yet. If not, I'm sure it is on the drawing board (pun intended.) :-)

...

The good news is that PostScript and PDF can accommodate this kind of mixture of raster and vector graphics. The other good thing about PostScript-based representations is the fact that PostScript rendering engines usually are finely tuned to the characteristics of the output device and usually produce the best output possible for any given device.

Now *this* part of the solution didn't occur to me because Art is still trying to clear the first hurdle. When the artwork is appropriately 'married' to the bitmaps he'll want to print it out. I agree... Postscript is the obvious choice.

...

Vectors are not "less susceptible" to aliasing, they're immune to it.

Wrong. They can't be considered "immune" when the only available output devices are raster. See my HDTV comment, above.

...

It's only when you must rasterize the vector image that the inevitable degradation occurs, but because the image itself is represented by vectors, it will render at any resolution on any device in the best manner available for that output device.

I used a lot less words to say exactly the same thing: "Vectors scale and are much less susceptible to "jaggies" " :-) Carl

Randall R Schulz

01:03

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

Carl, On Sunday 12 February 2006 16:51, Carl Hartung wrote:

...

Hi Randall,

On Sunday 12 February 2006 18:50, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...
Even then, it's a "sawtooth."

Not if it's one pixel wide and exactly 45 degrees off the x or y axis. :-)

Nonsense. Pixels have rectangular boundaries. That's all there is to it.

...

...

...
Vectors are not "less susceptible" to aliasing, they're immune to it.

Wrong. They can't be considered "immune" when the only available output devices are raster. See my HDTV comment, above.

They absolutely are immune to such artifacts. Vectors (and cubic or bicubic splines or any other kind of parametric curve) are mathematical objects. They simply don't have any "rough edges" or aliasing. Things only depart from the mathematical precision when a physical display device enters the picture.

...

...
It's only when you must rasterize the vector image that the inevitable degradation occurs, but because the image itself is represented by vectors, it will render at any resolution on any device in the best manner available for that output device.

I used a lot less words to say exactly the same thing: "Vectors scale and are much less susceptible to "jaggies" " :-)

You mislead when you say "less susceptible." They are, plain and simple, immune to it. And you were only talking about drawing lines and curves on a raster. My point here is that changing the size or resolution of an existing raster image also encounters related but distinct problems. Feel free to use as few words as you like. Zero's always a safe choice.

...

Carl

Randall Schulz

Carl Hartung

01:46

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Sunday 12 February 2006 20:03, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Nonsense. Pixels have rectangular boundaries. That's all there is to it.

Who told you this? It's not true! There are even imaging applications that let you specify rectangular or circular pixels.

...

They absolutely are immune to such artifacts.

Nonsense. Show me a real life demonstration of this supposed "immunity." You cannot, ergo the "immunity" is only theoretical.

...

You mislead when you say "less susceptible." They are, plain and simple, immune to it.

See my point above. I think you are being misleading by insisting on imposing theoretical perfection in a real life, practical circumstance.

...

And you were only talking about drawing lines and curves on a raster. My point here is that changing the size or resolution of an existing raster image also encounters related but distinct problems.

Feel free to use as few words as you like. Zero's always a safe choice.

OK, Randall, you've proven you have some knowledge but, from a *practical* standpoint, has this tangent contributed one bit to the resolution of Art's original problem? I don't think it has. That's why I hate these kinds of unnecessary technical "wee wee" contests. If you'd weighed the real value of offering your unnecessary 'corrections' to my original advice, maybe "zero" words would have been better choice this time? Anyway, the lights just flickered (winter storm) so I've gotta shut down. Carl

Randall R Schulz

02:35

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

Carl, On Sunday 12 February 2006 17:46, Carl Hartung wrote:

...

On Sunday 12 February 2006 20:03, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...
Nonsense. Pixels have rectangular boundaries. That's all there is to it.

Who told you this? It's not true! There are even imaging applications that let you specify rectangular or circular pixels.

My god! What are you talking about? Pixels are display device entities. Are you thinking of half-tone screens? They are completely different things. The only control you have over the nature of the pixels is choice of which device use use to render the image. Software cannot (CAN NOT) do that.

...

...
They absolutely are immune to such artifacts.

Nonsense. Show me a real life demonstration of this supposed "immunity." You cannot, ergo the "immunity" is only theoretical.

You insist on conflating the mathematical object and its rendering. You started by saying that lines drawn on raster devices had the jaggies (which they do--at all angles except those of the raster axes). Then you said vector drawing was "less susceptible" to this problem. Either it is exactly as susceptible, 'cause to view such a line or curve it has to be rendered, or it is entirely immune to such effects because the line or curve itself is a mathematical entity defined over the reals. Mixing them up just confuses the issue and leads to incorrect understandings.

...

...
You mislead when you say "less susceptible." They are, plain and simple, immune to it.

See my point above. I think you are being misleading by insisting on imposing theoretical perfection in a real life, practical circumstance.

On the contrary, I'm insisting on making the proper distinctions between the principals and the engineering practice. You're muddling the issue by refusing to separate the two.

...

...

...
Feel free to use as few words as you like. Zero's always a safe choice.

OK, Randall, you've proven you have some knowledge but, from a *practical* standpoint, has this tangent contributed one bit to the resolution of Art's original problem? I don't think it has. That's why I hate these kinds of unnecessary technical "wee wee" contests. If you'd weighed the real value of offering your unnecessary 'corrections' to my original advice, maybe "zero" words would have been better choice this time?

Yeah. I've worked in digital and print imaging in both raster and vector realms. I know something about the principles (the math) and the practical matters (the subtleties of film, ink, paper, CRT and LCD displays). As to why I correct you: When I see someone post incorrect, misleading or oversimplified information and I know it, I like to correct it. There's too much confusion afoot and knowingly letting it stand is not cool to me. That's why I challenge fallacies when I see them.

...

Anyway, the lights just flickered (winter storm) so I've gotta shut down.

Carl

Don't lick any flag poles or lamp posts. Randall Schulz

Art Fore

04:57

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Sun, 2006-02-12 at 18:35 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Carl,

On Sunday 12 February 2006 17:46, Carl Hartung wrote:

...
On Sunday 12 February 2006 20:03, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...
Nonsense. Pixels have rectangular boundaries. That's all there is to it.

Who told you this? It's not true! There are even imaging applications that let you specify rectangular or circular pixels.

My god! What are you talking about? Pixels are display device entities. Are you thinking of half-tone screens? They are completely different things. The only control you have over the nature of the pixels is choice of which device use use to render the image. Software cannot (CAN NOT) do that.

...
...
They absolutely are immune to such artifacts.

Nonsense. Show me a real life demonstration of this supposed "immunity." You cannot, ergo the "immunity" is only theoretical.

You insist on conflating the mathematical object and its rendering.

You started by saying that lines drawn on raster devices had the jaggies (which they do--at all angles except those of the raster axes). Then you said vector drawing was "less susceptible" to this problem. Either it is exactly as susceptible, 'cause to view such a line or curve it has to be rendered, or it is entirely immune to such effects because the line or curve itself is a mathematical entity defined over the reals.

Mixing them up just confuses the issue and leads to incorrect understandings.

...
...
You mislead when you say "less susceptible." They are, plain and simple, immune to it.

See my point above. I think you are being misleading by insisting on imposing theoretical perfection in a real life, practical circumstance.

On the contrary, I'm insisting on making the proper distinctions between the principals and the engineering practice. You're muddling the issue by refusing to separate the two.

...
...

...
Feel free to use as few words as you like. Zero's always a safe choice.

OK, Randall, you've proven you have some knowledge but, from a *practical* standpoint, has this tangent contributed one bit to the resolution of Art's original problem? I don't think it has. That's why I hate these kinds of unnecessary technical "wee wee" contests. If you'd weighed the real value of offering your unnecessary 'corrections' to my original advice, maybe "zero" words would have been better choice this time?

Yeah. I've worked in digital and print imaging in both raster and vector realms. I know something about the principles (the math) and the practical matters (the subtleties of film, ink, paper, CRT and LCD displays).

As to why I correct you: When I see someone post incorrect, misleading or oversimplified information and I know it, I like to correct it. There's too much confusion afoot and knowingly letting it stand is not cool to me.

That's why I challenge fallacies when I see them.

...
Anyway, the lights just flickered (winter storm) so I've gotta shut down.

Carl

Don't lick any flag poles or lamp posts.

Randall Schulz

I did not get into the discussion on pixels, but I do understand the difference between raster and vector, etc. I can see where the line is jagged because of low resolution, completely understandable. What I don't understand in Gimp, I see the jaggies on the display, but when I print it out on a 600 dpi printer, I would expect them to be much smoother than on a 100 dpi screen. When I look at the same drawing with the rectangles added in Inkscape, I do not see the jaggies anywhere near as much on screen, that is, they are not as obvious. Guess the Pixel resolution for that must be based on the drawing and not the screen resolution in Gimp, where in Inkscape, it is based on the screen resolution, when translated to postscript for a 600 dpi printer, it becomes even less obvious. Is that right? Art

Randall R Schulz

05:16

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

Art, On Sunday 12 February 2006 20:57, Art Fore wrote:

...

...

I did not get into the discussion on pixels, but I do understand the difference between raster and vector, etc. I can see where the line is jagged because of low resolution, completely understandable. What I don't understand in Gimp, I see the jaggies on the display, but when I print it out on a 600 dpi printer, I would expect them to be much smoother than on a 100 dpi screen. When I look at the same drawing with the rectangles added in Inkscape, I do not see the jaggies anywhere near as much on screen, that is, they are not as obvious. Guess the Pixel resolution for that must be based on the drawing and not the screen resolution in Gimp, where in Inkscape, it is based on the screen resolution, when translated to postscript for a 600 dpi printer, it becomes even less obvious. Is that right?

Inkscape is a vector graphics drawing program. GIMP is a raster image processor. When you create a drawing in GIMP there is a specific resolution associated with it. If you generate the image for 96 or 100 DPI (screen resolution) and then print it on a medium resolution device such as a laser printer, you will notice the scaling up (from 100 to, say 300 or 600 DPI) required to render that image at the proper absolute size on paper. When you create a drawing in Inkscape, there is no intrinsic resolution associated with the image. Only physical dimensions of the lines and curves that make it up. Thus whether rendered on a low-resolution device (a monitor), a medium-resolution device (laser printer) or a high-resolution device (phototypesetter) an optimal rendering for that device at its native resolution is produced. PostScript (and by extension, PDF) has both vector and raster image capabilities, so a single PostScript page can include raster images and vector components.

...

Art

Randall Schulz

Art Fore

06:30

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Sun, 2006-02-12 at 21:16 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Art,

On Sunday 12 February 2006 20:57, Art Fore wrote:

...
...

I did not get into the discussion on pixels, but I do understand the difference between raster and vector, etc. I can see where the line is jagged because of low resolution, completely understandable. What I don't understand in Gimp, I see the jaggies on the display, but when I print it out on a 600 dpi printer, I would expect them to be much smoother than on a 100 dpi screen. When I look at the same drawing with the rectangles added in Inkscape, I do not see the jaggies anywhere near as much on screen, that is, they are not as obvious. Guess the Pixel resolution for that must be based on the drawing and not the screen resolution in Gimp, where in Inkscape, it is based on the screen resolution, when translated to postscript for a 600 dpi printer, it becomes even less obvious. Is that right?

Inkscape is a vector graphics drawing program. GIMP is a raster image processor.

When you create a drawing in GIMP there is a specific resolution associated with it. If you generate the image for 96 or 100 DPI (screen resolution) and then print it on a medium resolution device such as a laser printer, you will notice the scaling up (from 100 to, say 300 or 600 DPI) required to render that image at the proper absolute size on paper.

When you create a drawing in Inkscape, there is no intrinsic resolution associated with the image. Only physical dimensions of the lines and curves that make it up. Thus whether rendered on a low-resolution device (a monitor), a medium-resolution device (laser printer) or a high-resolution device (phototypesetter) an optimal rendering for that device at its native resolution is produced.

PostScript (and by extension, PDF) has both vector and raster image capabilities, so a single PostScript page can include raster images and vector components.

...
Art

Randall Schulz

Thanks for the info. Hadn't thought of it that way before. Guess it hadn't dawned on me that postscript handles bitmaped graphics. Art

Art Fore

02:00

New subject: [SLE] Need advice

On Sun, 2006-02-12 at 18:27 -0500, Carl Hartung wrote:

...

On Sunday 12 February 2006 12:56, Art Fore wrote:

...
How do I get a line off horizontal by 5 deg to not be jagged? (tried grid setting of 1 pixel, still the same) even prints out this way on laserjet postscript printer with 1200 dpi resolution. (image is 1900X1200 resolution)

Hi Art,

Every bitmap I've ever zoomed into closely enough represents diagonal lines with sawtooths, excepting perfect 45 degree angles, of course. So, I'm pretty sure you are on the right track looking at vector solutions.

Separate questions and a comment: What's your screen resolution?... and the bit-depth? (16-bit, 24-bit or 32 bit?) My normal desktop resolution is 1600x1200 dpi at 24 bits color depth (a.k.a. "True Color".) When I display a 24-bit color photograph on my screen at 100% zoom and capture a screenshot of it, the result looks as good as the original when I crop off the excess desktop.

Back to your project: If I were you, I'd experiment with using a vector drawing program and setting the photograph, which is a bitmap, as the *background* (a.k.a. "canvas" in some programs.)

The idea is to create your diagrams using vectors on one or more transparent layers over the bitmap canvas. Vectors scale and are much less susceptible to "jaggies" assuming you've got a decent printer/driver setup. The vector programs I've tried before and liked are:

xfig (great for quick "one off" projects) dia (like xfig but oriented to "dia"grams and flow charts) Inkscape

...
How do I hide a layer I do not want printed? If you can do that, it sure is not obvious at all and there is noting in help that I could find.

Look for the Egyptian style "eye" with brow in the layers menu. Click on it to make the eye disappear and the visibility of the associated layer is turned off. Click it again to make it visible and the eye reappears. Of course, you'll have to have a demo file with pre-existing layers or make some layers yourself to see this.

I'd strongly recommend you install the package GIMP Help and invest the time in reading it. I know it helped me a lot! The GIMP is truly awesome, but the learning curve can be steep because it has so many features.

regards,

Carl

Screen resolution is 1920X1200 on a 24 inch LCD display. Printer is Laserjet 2300 with 600 dpi resolution and postscript. Art

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Art Fore
Carl Hartung
Carlos E. R.
columbo
James Knott
Jerry Feldman
Jim Flanagan
Jos van Kan
ken
Patrick Shanahan
Per Jessen
Randall R Schulz

Need advice

Art Fore

James Knott

Art Fore

Jim Flanagan

ken

Carlos E. R.

Carlos E. R.

Carlos E. R.

Carlos E. R.

Carlos E. R.

Carl Hartung

Carlos E. R.

Carlos E. R.

Carlos E. R.

Jerry Feldman

Art Fore

columbo

Art Fore

columbo

Art Fore

Art Fore

Carl Hartung

Carl Hartung

Carl Hartung

Art Fore

Art Fore

Art Fore

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