dots AND lines

If you are an avid Photoshop user, you might have this thought in your mind.

Or, if you think you are an expert in Photoshop (well, maybe you are), think again!

Here is an interesting compilation of Photoshop tips and tricks that might trigger your interest. Proudly compiled by Trevor Morris (his email, tmorris@fundy.net and website, http://user.fundy.net/morris/) for all of our knowledge! (Round of applause for him!) Check out the page! There, you can click to save a copy for yourself as well.

Think about this idea. Having a tool or application that can render your font type to mimic your handwriting whenever you type. Nothing like the usage of normal HANDWRITTEN style fonts, this tools can create a result that have the users strokes in their text differently, same letters be written differently, etc… Furthermore, any user now can create their own typeface out of their handwriting and now fonts do come with colours as well!

This is what FONTSELF is about.

“FONTSELF is a type project about handwriting and drawn writing. It provides the ability to create fonts that preserves the gestures of a given handwriting and the original look of the drawing appliance (ball-point pen, pencil, ink, paper, etc.). FONTSELF proposes intuitive tools to create and edit bitmap font (scanned letters) as well as solutions to use them and exchange them.”

Visit here to learn more and their online demo.

Mac OS X, if you have any interest to it, you will sure to know that Apple favors feline. Since they came out with OS X 10.0 they had been codenaming them after any known wild cats. It’s interesting. Here’s the list:

Nice, huh?

Check out this blog too. There are lotsa arguments to predict the next 10.5 codename. Someone vote for Garfield! Heh…

Vector graphics are the creation of digital images through a sequence of commands or mathematical statements that place lines and shapes in a given two-dimensional or three-dimensional space. In physics, a vector is a representation of both a quantity and a direction at the same time. In vector graphics, the file that results from a graphic artist’s work is created and saved as a sequence of vector statements. For example, instead of containing a bit in the file for each bit of a line drawing, a vector graphic file describes a series of points to be connected. One result is a much smaller file.

At some point, a vector image is converted into a raster graphics image, which maps bits directly to a display space (and is sometimes called a bitmap). The vector image can be converted to a raster image file prior to its display so that it can be ported between systems.

A vector file is sometimes called a geometric file. Most images created with tools such as Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw are in the form of vector image files. Vector image files are easier to modify than raster image files (which can, however, sometimes be reconverted to vector files for further refinement).

Animation images are also usually created as vector files. For example, Shockwave’s Flash product lets you create 2-D and 3-D animations that are sent to a requestor as a vector file and then rasterized “on the fly” as they arrive.

CONTRIBUTORS: Patrick O’Malley
LAST UPDATED: 24 Feb 2006
SOURCE: SearchWebServices.com Definitions (Powered by WhatIs.com) - Vector Graphics

Bitmap/Raster vs. Vector

When comes to digital pictures, you can categorise them into 2 kinds, Bitmap-based (or raster-based) and Vector-based files. These 2 types differ in the way computers analyze their content.

Vector-based images generally contain mathematically well-defined elements such as curves and shapes of various colours. Normally, you’ll found these elements in cliparts, western alphabets or Asian characters. However, it can also be pure graphics. Example, if a vector image contains a red dot, then information such as the location of the circle’s center point, the length of its radius, and the colour, red, would be the essential information for this image file.

Vector files are more suitable for illustrations that require precise measurements. Thanks to their mathematical attribute, they are easily scalable. The drawbacks, is that it is not suitable for for photo-realistic images such as a photograph because images of this type generally do not contain well-defined shapes and curves.

Extensions for vector image: *.SVG, *.EPS, *.AI, *CDR, or *.DWG.

Bitmap-based images do not rely on mathematical formulas to define their various elements. Each bitmap-based image is mapped into a grid. The size of the grid is based on the image’s resolution. For example, a bitmap-based image of 1 inch x 1 inch with a 600 dpi resolution would be defined by a grid of 600 x 600 pixels. Hence, a bitmap-based image is like a mosaic of pixels with each pixel holding a specific color value. (Imagine arranging small tiles with various colours to form a picture!)

This kind of file is more suitable for photo-realistic images that require complex color variations. And the con, they are not easily scalable because each bitmap image is mapped to a non-flexible grid. If a bitmap image were to be enlarged, it would lose its sharpness and edges would appear jagged/pixelated. Bitmap files are more common. Chances are you can get them anywhere in anytype of digital media.

Extensions for bitmap images: *.PSD, *.JPG, *GIF, *.TIF, or *.BMP.

In general, bitmap-based files require more computer memory for file storage than vector-based files. The former contains all information for every single pixel of the image while the latter contains only the defining mathematical formulas for each element within the image.

SOURCE: Mustek.com.tw - Bitmap vs. Vector

There’s now a new vector graphic editor online called Inkscape. Here’s what they got to say in their site.

Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Supported SVG features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, patterns, and grouping. Inkscape also supports Creative Commons meta-data, node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, text-on-path, flowed text, direct XML editing, and more. It imports formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and others and exports PNG as well as multiple vector-based formats.

Inkscape’s main goal is to create a powerful and convenient drawing tool fully compliant with XML, SVG, and CSS standards. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development.

For most people who uses computer for no more than any clerical tasks, they may miss out a lot of advantages in computer usage. However, I'm pretty sure they will be using computer to listen to CDs or watching movies like my sis. This they know all right, and they might think computers have this CD reading capability because users have demand for it. So, does that mean computer's CD-ROM drive is something added after CD is created?

Personally, I thought it was like that but I had a change of mind few years back when I got to know further about how data is stored and how computer read/write or manage them. In truth that they may not know, CD is not just a thing called, well, CD, or how CD is an entirely different thing from hard drive or thumb drive or floppy. Same applies to DVD, VCD, etc…

To put it simpler:
The fact is that CD contains .CDA file format, which represents the audio tracks that it contains inside. And CD is definitely widely used with lots of gadgets around able to recognise this .CDA files, such as any CD player or discman. However, imagine if there have been lots of devices that recognise, say, .VOX (VoxWare Audio) file, which is never heard of by most. If so, I'm pretty sure there will be no such thing called Audio CDs in this world and they may name it maybe VOX CDs?

Hey, have you bought the latest VOX by Linkin Park? Heh, sounds weird but that's how technology is!

Another real life situation is MP3 that is gaining popularity now. In fact, MP3 disc is just a simple data disc full of MP3 files! That's all! And people who doesn't know how data is stored will think MP3 disc is another new form of audio disc.

This is article maybe lame to some but I do face some people who doesn't know all this. Anyway, for further knowledge, here are lists of different audio and video file formats, common and uncommon, that I can find. BTW, if you think I got some points out wrong, tell me. I'm no God.

Personally, I have made the list of extensions for this post but it doesn't display properly. Sign… But the list of audio and video file extensions can be viewed at the following links:
• http://people.csail.mit.edu/tbuehler/video/extensions.html
• http://www.fileinfo.net/

Just when we are getting familiar with floppy disk, they came out compact disc (CD), which later can be utilised by any normal user as in CD-R and CD-RW (I used to remember CD being an unmodifiable hi-tech device as in Audio CDs and VCDs). And once I get to know how to burn a CD, they tempt me with DVD and all its alliances, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/+RW, DVD-RAM, or DVD+R DL. Check on DVD.

Now, I can't even afford to buy a combo drive yet, they pin me down to the floor with new generation disc, Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Below are brief descriptions from VideoHelp.

Blu-ray Disc (BD) is a next-generation optical disc format meant for storage of high-definition video and high-density data. The Blu-ray standard was jointly developed by a group of consumer electronics and PC companies called the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). As compared to the HD DVD format, its main competitor, Blu-ray has more information capacity per layer, 25 instead of 15 gigabytes, but may initially be more expensive to produce.
The site.

HD DVD (High Density Digital Versatile Disc or High Definition Digital Video Disc) is a digital optical media format which is being developed as one standard for high-definition DVD. HD DVD is similar to the competing Blu-ray Disc, which also uses the same CD-size (120 mm diameter) optical data storage media and 405 nm wavelength blue laser. HD DVD is promoted by Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo, and, most recently, Microsoft, HP [1], and Intel.
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I might as well pack up all my old 4 gig harddrives and throw them away. (Even there have been new small scale harddrive larger than 4 gig the size of a coin!) Blardy hell… I must've lived in a stone age still.