PixTools / View for UNIX

Toolkit

PixTools / View is an easily integrated facility for the management, scaling, and rotation of binary, grayscale, and color raster images. It provides software functionality faster than many dedicated hardware solutions in today's workstation environments. The programming interface (API) is host- independent and supported on a growing number of platforms. PixTools / View for UNIX from Peabody Systems is supported on SCO UNIX and UnixWare, Linux on Intel processors, Solaris SPARC and x86, IBM RS/6000 AIX and HP 9000 series 700 HP-UX and is completely compatible with the versions of PixTools / View from Pixel Translations, Inc. for Microsoft Windows 95/NT.

PixTools / View provides:

compressed in-memory storage of images for fast access and low memory usage
fast rotation of images in 90 degree increments
arbitrary rational number scale factors, separate for X and Y
arbitrary rectangle clipping for fast scroll and repaint
scaling with variable black or white biasing for readability
optional true scale-to-gray (anti-aliasing) with brightness and contrast control
full 8-bit grayscale and 24-bit color support (some platforms only)
palette conversion and dithering for display of 24-bit images on 8-bit displays (some platforms only)
file I/O libraries for easy implementation of popular file formats and compression schemes
transparent support of Cornerstone ImageAccel and Sigma Designs hardware acceleration (some platforms only)
transparent accelerated printing support for Fujitsu PP10i and Xionics XipPrint (for HP laser printers)
complete annotation capabilities such as highlighting, line drawing, redaction and text overlay (some platforms only)

The PixTools / View Toolkit includes complete documentation, code examples, and a license to use the libraries for development and testing purposes (note that redistribution requires additional license fees). Source code examples include several complete applications with view and print capabilities.

The current release includes improved support for multi-page documents. Page images are automatically cached and prefetched to maximize performance within available memory constraints. Document-oriented functions allow the programmer to specify the file(s) which compose a document; each file may contain one or more images. The images are accessed on a page number basis, without regard to the file name or record designator of the image source.

PixTools / View is a library which typically uses 100-200 kB per page for storage. The library is very fast -- Pixel Translations decompression and image manipulation libraries are widely regarded as the fastest in the industry.

The toolkit API uses two primary data structures:

PIXM_PAGE holds the image data and characteristics of an image (width, height, resolution)
PIXM_SETTINGS holds the description of a desired piece of image (scale factor, rotation, offset)

The API allows the user to create and load a Page with compressed or uncompressed image data; then a "get rectangle" call is made with a Settings which is appropriate for the view or print operation. In this single call, the image is decompressed, scaled, rotated and palettized as specified to create an output bitmap that can then be used directly for printing or display.

Function Overview

Page functions

PageNew: Create a new page storage structure
PageGet: Get an attribute value from a page storage structure
PageSet: Set attribute values in a page storage structure
PageStore: Transfer a buffer of image data (compressed or uncompressed) into a page storage structure
PageEnd: All data has been transferred
PageFree: Destroy a page storage structure and free all related resources

Settings functions

SettingsNew: Create a new settings structure
SettingsGet: Get an attribute value from a settings structure
SettingsSet: Set an attribute value in a settings structure
SettingsCopy: Create a copy of a settings structure
SettingsFree: Destroy a settings structure and free all related resources

Attributes include X and Y offset, width, height, X and Y scale factor, rotation, brightness / contrast.

Display functions

RectGet: Using a Page structure and a Settings structure, retrieve the selected scaled and rotated image rectangle into the supplied buffer (platform independent)
RectPaint: Using a Page structure, a Settings structure, and a Window handle, paint the selected scaled and rotated image rectangle into the Window (platform dependent)

Data types

Data types accepted by the library include:

uncompressed byte-aligned
uncompressed word-aligned
uncompressed double-word-aligned
Group 3 1-D
Group 3 2-D
modified Group 3
Group 4
PCX compressed
packbits compressed
LZW (GIF and TIFF)
JPEG
CALS

In addition, the images can be in single or multiple strips, one or more files, and in any bit order.

Use with PixTools / Scan

PixTools / View can be integrated easily with PixTools / Scan for the control of desktop scanners. In conjunction with PixTools / Scan, the View toolkit provides scan-and-rotate functionality for 11" wide scanners. By scanning in "landscape" mode and rotating on-the-fly, performance increases of up to 20% can be achieved. The toolkit rotation capability allows handling over 100 pages per minute on modern workstations.

Peabody Systems
270 North Buckskin
Orange, CA 92869-4404
telephone: (714) 639-8643
fax: (714) 639-2817
Email: sales@peabody.com

PixTools is a registered trademark of Pixel Translations, Inc. (a division of Input Software)
All other product names are trade and service marks of their respective companies.