In this disk you will find 'PD software' wich can help you write  programs
to display or modify graphics on the Amiga with capabilities wich  are not
yet fully implemented in the commercial software. The most important thing
is that you can display all lo-res pictures (even with interlace/overscan)
with more color than usual.

In the disk you will find utilities to  convert  pictures  from GIF to HAM
and viceversa, utilities to display pictures with BEAM, SHAM, CTBL chunks,
and well commented source code ready to modify and use.

There are the original IFF_sources for reading and writing IFF_ILBM files.

CAMG, CRNG, CCRT chunks added by Carolyn Schepner of Commodore Amiga, Inc.

They have been slightly modified  by Diego Perini of Quest, to compile and
link with 16-bit libraries both with Lattice and Aztec  compilers/linkers.

Minor changes done : "L"'s appended to all constants, all "int"'s  changed
to "long"'s, all untyped functions such as "sizeof" typecasted  to (LONG).

Major changes done : ILBM routines know the new chunk type "BEAM" proposed
by Quest. Holds one palette for every scan line. It allows lot of colors !

It differs from 'SHAM' in that it really use a different palette for every
scan line considering both frames (even/odd) of interlaced pictures so for
a 512 line picture there are 512 palette not 256 like in SHAM. This allows
for much sharper (defined) pictures. It will be incorporated in digitizers
allowing all low-resolution modes of Amiga to take advantage of this.

The program can't show hi-res pictures. Hi-res does not allow  palettes of
4096 colors on each line, just 16 out of 4096. This looks great,  but this
hogs the machine disallowing multitasking wich is the best of Amiga !!!

Furthermore this way of doing palette changes on every line let  the 68000
to run at full speed without any intervention nor interruption.  Only  the
copper is doing crazy things to follow up with the beam speed.  This  will
let developers include this display mode in program for image manipulation
paint (?), ray-tracing/rendering, digitizers, scanners, etc...

Conversion tools already exists on many bulletin boards or on BIX. See for
ShamView3.zoo, TmpToDP, HamGIF, AmGIF to convert GIF picture to SHAM.

We still do not have original pictures that show the  full  capability  of
our display routines. We would appreciate very much any contribution.

We are especially looking for contact with ASDG, NewTek, and all the other
implementing dynamic-res in their wonderful software, Rhett Andersen  that
gave me ideas on implementing this mode and Jonathan Hue wich have a  very
good 24 bit to HAM conversion algorithm from what I have seen.

All Electronic Arts routines are public domain. Quest routines are pd too!

For more information consult:

Amiga ROM Kernel Refernce Manual : Includes & Autodocs - Revised & Updated

or contact Diego Perini c/o:

                            Quest Software

                       Via Elena da Persico, 24

                           37136 Verona - IT

                        Tel/Fax: (045) - 585302

or on BIX as 'dperini'.

                                                         Enjoy it !!!


PS: Please if you downloaded this, let me hear your comments/suggestions.