FalCAM Tripod ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ˝ 1995/96 Black Scorpion Software Ltd All third party trademarks and copyrights mentioned in this manual are recognised as being the property of the owner. Liability Titan Designs Ltd, Black Scorpion Software Ltd, and the authors make no warranty of any kind with regard to this material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Neither the authors nor producers can be held responsible for any incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishings, performance, or use of this material. Titan Designs also reserve the right to insert, remove or change features to the program specifications without prior notice. E & O. E. Errors and Omissions Excepted. FALCAM TRIPOD FalCAM Tripod derives its name from being a specific Atari Falcon product that is used with a Camera in conjunction with Expos‚ to produce high resolution, 24-bit colour, digitised images. Because the Falcon is limited in not being able to transfer data across the bus quickly enough, this can only be achieved if the camera is completely stable (ideally, a Tripod). Hence the name 'FalCAM Tripod'. Although the same principle can be used to digitise images directly from a Video Cassette Recorder [VCR], providing perfect freeze frame is available, we thought the name 'FalVCR Freeze Frame' didn't work quite so well! OVERVIEW FalCAM Tripod operates as a 640x480, 256-colour program. Much in the same way that Black Scorpion's other programs, APEX and BSS Debug, Tripod does not use GEM (apart from the File Selector), thus alleviating any restrictions that can be met - anyway it looks a damn sight prettier! 'Tripod' uses clever software trickery to enlarge and enhance the image way beyond the normal specification of Expos‚ and the Atari Falcon. It is therefore possible to achieve superb, high-resolution images up to 24-bit true colour. Various preset resolutions are available ranging from the lowest achievable resolution on the Falcon (320x200) right up to a massive 1024x768. MEMORY CONSIDERATIONS Because of the huge memory overheads needed to display and process the image, Tripod needs every available byte when used on a 4MB Falcon to achieve the larger resolution capture. This means running a GEM Desktop at a minimal resolution, for instance 640x240 monochrome (see below), with no ACCessories or AUTO-loading programs present. This does not prevent Tripod from capturing images but prevents higher resolution images from being saved to disk. A 4-color Desktop will corrupt the screen when attempting to save the file, i.e. switching back to the GEM File Selector from within Tripod. DISK CONTENTS On the floppy disk the following files can be located; TRIPOD.PRG - The executable program file. TRIPOD.TXT - A text file detailing any alterations to the program or manual since this document was produced. CARD_TRI.TGA - Sample Targa image created using FalCAM Tripod. 768x576.JPG - Sample JPEG image created using FalCAM Tripod. USING FALCAM TRIPOD Firstly it is important to remember that FalCAM Tripod is not dependant on the GEM Desktop being configured correctly for resolution or colour palette. This means that a Desktop with minimum resolution/colour has the advantage of saving internal memory which may be needed to use Tripod at the higher resolutions. Users of 14MB Falcons can ignore this. To achieve successful images with Tripod depends on various factors. Firstly it is most important that the image to be digitised, and the camera, are perfectly still - any movement of either will create a blurred image. With a VCR these same problems do not exist but high quality images can only be achieved providing your equipment has perfect freeze frame. Most modern VCRs also have Jog Shuttle and/or single frame advance to enable accurate cueing of the tape, and remove any 'jitter' from the still image. Once the image is completely stable then the results should be of a very high quality. IMAGE TYPES Twelve preset resolutions are supplied and were chosen to give the widest range of usable images to cater for many uses. Of these the following were selected for more obvious reasons; 768x576 - Full PAL Broadcast This resolution would normally be used for when full overscanned PAL broadcast images are required on RGB monitors. 384x288 - Quarter PAL Broadcast The quarter PAL resolution has many advantages; non-interlaced and full overscanning on RGB monitors and smaller filesize. For these reasons Quarter PAL should not be ignored! 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 - VGA Provided to conform to standard VGA resolutions, for compatibility with PC programs amongst others. The other presets conform to standard or enhanced Expos‚ resolutions. STARTING TRIPOD To start the digitising process, click once with the left-mouse button over the Preview Window, which currently holds the "BSS TRIPOD" logo. The 256-colour image can now be seen updating the window. Clicking on any of the preset resolution options will enlarge or reduce the window accordingly, and the speed of update also changes correspondingly. When selecting the higher resolutions the Preview window may not change size, as this is limited to the available screen area in which the Preview operates. PHASE SHIFT Because it is not possible for the software to determine which interlaced scan line is being initially captured from Expose', the end-result can occassionally result in a slight horizontal 'saw-tooth' effect on any sharply defined edges; INCORRECT: Alternate scan lines are captured; 2,4,6,8 ... then 1,3,5,7 ... etc. and displayed; 2,1,4,3,6,5,8,7 ... CORRECT: Alternate scan lines are captured; 1,3,5,7... then 2,4,6,8, ... etc. and displayed; 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 ... To get around the problem, Tripod now includes a [PHASE SHIFT] button which can be used to grab the scan lines either way round and allow a comparison of the images. The best way to use this new button is to select the 512x512 resolution setting and wait for two passes before examining any diagonal line. Now click the [PHASE SHIFT] button and compare the same line. Is it worse or better? The difference will only be slight, but noticable. Whichever "phase" gives the cleaner result on this line is the one to use. Now select the resolution you require and digitise away. Please note that this does not set up Tripod indefinately, so it will be necessary to use [PHASE SHIFT] each time to ensure 'clean' grabs. SHUTTER The Shutter allows for different levels of exposure to achieve digitised image having different colour depths. Using the maximum shutter time for instance, permits images of 27-bit true colour to be created, whereas a single snap is considerably quicker but the resultant 15-bit image will be of lower quality. NOTE: Whatever shutter time is selected, Tripod always saves images at 24-bit true-colour - but the quality of the image is still better at 27-bit, as opposed to 15-bit! To initialise the image to a particular preset resolution, firstly click on the button. To the left of the colour-depth 'table' two indicators show the progress; Yellow - Indicates the image is being processed Green - Indicates the image has been processed Once the yellow indicator has reached the colour-depth required, the button can be pressed. Tripod will then finish the process for that colour-depth and the screen update will, after a short period, display the interpolated image in 256-colours. The image can now be saved to disk. If the resultant image is not required, click on the Preview Window to restart the digitising process. SAVING THE FILE TO DISK Depending on the eventual use of the digitised image, one consideration ought to be borne in mind before using the highest resolution at the greatest colour depth, i.e. the resultant filesize. As Tripod saves images in an uncompressed 24-bit true-colour Targa format (irrespective of the actual bit-planes captured), the filesizes of each image can be extremely large at the higher resolutions. On a 4MB Falcon with 65MB hard disk drive, it is therefore not practical to keep digitising images at the highest resolution as this only allows 27 images to be stored, assuming very little else existed on your drive! Nevertheless, professional videographers would in all probability require this level, having 14MB of memory and large hard drives. The table below gives an insight into a direct comparison between different resolutions and the resultant filesize. RESOLUTION FILESIZE 512x384 590KB 640x480 922KB 768x576 1.33MB 800x600 1.44MB 1024x768 2.36MB !!! Although all these images (apart from 1024x768) will fit neatly onto a single, high density floppy disk, we recommend that the larger files are either archived using STZIP (or similar) or the APEXJPEG.CPX is used to create JPEG files. It is extremely doubtful if users of 4MB machines can use the 1024x768 preset resolution. This will be indicated if the first Yellow light of the bar does not come on. SAVE Click on when you are satisfied with the image presentation within the Preview Window. The Status bar indicates the progress of the file saving, with the different coloured indicators relating to specific parts of the interpolation process. After creating the image, if the first Yellow light of the bar does not come on, this almost certainly indicates insufficient memory. EXIT Click on the button to exit Tripod. Fancy that!