Designing Deckplans...

In TML Msg. Num. 7091 Caffine Achiever! (Ed F.) [email removed] writes:

> James T Perkins [email removed] writes:
>
> > Mark Cook has used a drawing program and came up with some of the best
> > deck plans I've ever seen. Check out the Elissa, Alcyon, and other deck
> > plans on ftp.engrg.uwo.ca, under the pbem directory. Also there are a
> > few more in the vehicles directory.

That drawing program is xgedit, a proprietary X11-based raster editor
that I developed for in-house graphics design, which working for
Hewlett-Packard.  It's not an HP product, and I retain the source
code rights, but since it was developed on HP time, I can't release
source without legal authorization from HP.  I *can* however, distribute
executables, assuming that I've got a UNIX platform available to compile
on.  Currently, I can make binaries avaible for HP and Sun workstations.
Sorry, but it's not portable to PC/DOS/Windows environments.  The editor
can read and write XBM, XWD, TIFF (1 & 4 channel), and raw Eroff files.
It can't read or write GIF, but I use Jef Poskanzer's PBMPlus utilities
to convert to and from GIF, so it's not much of an obstacle.

BTW, xgedit is a pure raster editor and does not come with any "pre-
constructed" components, like most architectural design software.
Thus, if you want to design starship deckplans, you have to draw
everything from scratch.  This is not as hard as it sounds, as you
can design 1 acceleration couch a pixel at a time in the zoom editor,
and then replicate it (rotated as necessary) anywhare on the ship.
I found that only the first ship was hard to design (as I was creating
all the components for the first time.)  After that, I just cut-n-pasted
a lot of stuff from the first ship to subsequent designs.

> > > Is it possible that we could come to some internal (to the TML)
> > > informal standard which would allow al of us to exchange deck plans? I
> > > have several (all of the hand-drawn variety) which I am rather happy
> > > about, bu have not been able to find a suitable medium for putting
> > > them in a computer.
> >
> > The best image format, that the greatest number of people can view and
> > manipulate, remains GIF.  A far second is, perhaps, MS-Windows MP.

I've conducted TML surveys on two seperate occasions.  The most
favored image format is GIF by a long stretch, following (I *think*)
by EPS raster.  I'm not sure about the second format, as I'm typing
this from work and my notes are on my (unreachable from here) workstation
at home. :^(

> If so perhaps we should make available some shareware Gif/BMP viewers
> at ftp.engrg.uwo.ca.  BTW how would one go about editing GIF images?

If you want a standard GIF viewer for UNIX/X11 environments, your
best choice is XV.  The source is available by anon. ftp from
export.lcs.mit.edu (look in ~/pub/contrib.)  I'm not sure about
PC platforms.  The PBMPlus utility source is also available in
that location.

Later,

mark f. cook * 2055 sw whiteside dr. * corvallis, or * [email removed]
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