version 3.60

Table of Contents

Key Features

rXconvert  is a compact Microsoft Windows dialog-based application  for graphics files conversion and simple colour space and geometry transformations. It handles up to 1024 (conditional limit) input images at a time, thus being especially useful when a lot of scanned or grabbed (captured) images are to be scaled up or down, or/and rotated, [de]skewed, cropped, transformed to another colour space, another format ... - all done simultaneously (saving your time).  It can accept images from TWAIN devices, copy from or paste to Windows clipboard. It can monitor folders in background mode and perform "on the fly" conversion.
All settings are applied to selections in the output list before conversion.

Following is the table containing some of the main supported graphics files features. The following abbreviations
are used in it:

for formats names:

for colour schemes: for codecs:  for columns names:
Table I   Formats supported features:
Format multi interl com units transp dump codec bw  bw8 gray8 rgb4 rgb8 rgb24 rgb32
GIF *     lzw          
TIFF *     many *    
JPEG       jfif jpeg          
PCX           rle    
RAS           rle    
SGI           rle      
PBM                
BMP         rle4, rle8    
TGA         rle      
XPM                      
XWD                    
PNG     lz77              
PSD         rle    

Notes:

a) Some features are not supported with the format itself (according to its specification), some - by rXconvert.

b) GIF animation is supported.  For output only GIF89a is generated.

c) TIFF supported codecs:
    rle           CCITT Group 3 1D modified Huffman RLE
    g3            CCITT Group 3 fax encoding
    g4            CCITT Group 4 fax encoding
    lzw          TIFF Lempel-Ziv & Welch
    jpeg        JPEG DCT compression (according to post 6.0 version TN#2)
    next         NeXT 2-bit rle
    rlew         #1 with word alignment
    packbits  Macintosh rle
    thunder   ThunderScan rle
    lz77          Deflate

Specifying geometry transformations you can  scale, resize, redimension,  crop, rotate, flip, [de]skew using physical or abstract units.
Specifying convolution filters you can smooth or sharpen your image, remove video capture horizontal artifacts,...
You can also set a border for your output image.
Currently disk files, clipboard and TWAIN scanners are used for raster image source and  disk files and clipboard for destination.
Coming soon are some planned features; part of them are being tested right away, and  other depend on your feedback.

Options

Options setting is the first step you should perform prior to any other actions with rXconvert, for they predetermine its behaviour (like INPUT/OUTPUT lists forming).
Options modal dialogue presently consists of 4 property pages: General, Directories,  Log,  Formats.

Text formatting: all controls' names are italicized, bold, and dark red;  samples are just italicized. Popup menus items are italicized, bold, and dark yellow.

General

The page has the following controls

Multipictures input should be normally set (pressed) unless you wish to create output animation GIF or just store a lot of images in one TIFF. That will slow down the input list creating process when a lot of GIF or/and TIFF files are involved as input. From the other hand - you are able to choose definite single pictures from multipictures input files and get their Info or Preview. In the input list you'll see entries with number of picture info, e.g. beauty.gif; (12/150) - picture #12 out of 150 total in this gif-file.
No multiple pictures per output file would be then generated even for graphics formats supporting that feature.
The "ON" (pressed) state of the control is recommended as default.

Multipictures output  should be set if you wish to  create output animation GIF or store multiple images per output file. Note that in that case you'll see no multipictures input information even if one of the input files contain more than one picture per file. Nevertheless all input images will be treated separately while converting input to output.
When an output format doesn't support multiple images per file - output files' names will be generated automatically by appending a suffix corresponding to the number of input picture, e.g. beauty_3.jpg
So you may have one file name in the output list (e.g. beauty.jpg) but actually after converting a multipictures input file (e.g. beauty.gif containing say 3 pictures) - you'll have several files on disk if the output format doesn't support multiple images per file (in our case - beauty_001.jpg, beauty_002.jpg, beauty_003.jpg). Generated file name suffix  depends on Template Delimiter check box and number of Digits that you set at the same "General" property page of Options property sheet (see below).
This feature is subject to change to avoid situations when you press the "Postview" button   and get nothing.

Clear input on success  control button should be pushed if you'd like to clear input images list each time your conversion finishes successfully. Note that it will automatically result to output list cleaning as well.

Clear output on success feature may be useful when you are going to produce a set of different formats out of the same input list of images. Do not switch it "ON"  if you are going to experiment with colour, geometry and other transformations. In the latter case
you'd possibly like to switch off both of Clear.. features and switch Postview "ON"  to immediately watch the resulting picture.

Replace input files on success may be used when you are short of disk space and have hundreds of files to be converted at a time. This situation is quite possible when you have a lot of uncompressed (dump) screen captures in BMP (DIB) format and have no spare place to convert all that stuff to. The converter would remove then the input file after all of the images it contains are successfully converted to output. When this option is "ON" - the input and output lists are cleared automatically, besides, the "ON" state is signaled with a red rectangle around "-" button. Be careful - the "minus" button clicking results to files removal!

Remove input files on success may be used when you have enough place for output, but wish all the input files be removed in one step (unlike one by one replacing in previous case) after successful conversion.  When this option is "ON" - the input and output lists are cleared automatically. besides, the "ON" state is signaled with a yellow rectangle around "-"  (minus) button.
This feature may be set "ON" using popup menu (click right mouse button while mouse cursor is within the input list rectangle, then go to Removing-->Images from list and source). Be careful - the "minus" button clicking results to files removal!

Interlace output if possible button should be set to checked state when you plan to place you images in the WWW. People having slow lines would have then the possibility to view your image before it's completely  loaded into their browser's frame and make a decision if they want to wait for it.  Alas, a lot of web-masters ignore the existence of slow lines and neglect the feature.

Auto list out  switch may be of some use if your destination and output format are always the same. It will speed the process a bit up.

I wish speed feature concerns only black&white and gray scale images that are to be scaled down. The "ON" state tells the converter to just skip image scanlines (vertical scaling) and pixels (horizontal scaling) when scaling it down. It results to speed increase. You should set the check "ON" unless you are scaling down some plots or drawings with thin (one pixel thick) lines.

I wish quality  feature concerns  only black&white and gray scale images that are to be scaled down. The "ON" state tells the converter to average the image scanlines (vertical scaling) and pixels (horizontal scaling) while scaling it down. That results in details preserving for b&w plots, for instance, and better gray scale images quality.

Overlay opaque  / Overlay transparent switches are used to tell the converter to overlay all input images onto one output. The sequence of placing them is defined with their sequence in the input list. The overlay mode may be changed  for selected output items in Settings->Other. It's important to define overlay output mode prior to creating the output list, because the latter would perform some specific (for overlay) operations, like calculating the resulting image dimensions considering geometry transformations, or defining the resulting colour scheme and possibility to perform the overlaying  onto the ordered output color space. If the input images are incompatible for overlay - a warning message is displayed, and you should change the output format. That may happen when you are trying to overlay paletted images (having, very naturally, different palettes) and to produce a paletted output. Just change you output then to rgb24 or rgb32.

Monitor INPUT switches ON/OFF the special converter mode "Monitoring". The "ON" state sets some flags and disables some controls as is needed for that special mode.

Monitor subdirs switches ON/OFF subdirectories recursive scanning while monitoring a specified folder.

Comments edit field is for those who wish once and forever set the text string that would appear in all the output files the converter produces, e.g. The image was prepared by Sam Cool, sam@cool.guy.gov. Though it's possible to enter different comment line for every new output file using the Settings->Format.

Temp Dir  edit field is for entering the temporary location to be used for Clipboard and TWAIN sources handling.

Template Delimiter check box when set serves as a flag to insert the underscore symbol between the generated output file name and the numeric suffix that follows. The range of Digits value that you may enter is within [1..7].

Standard out dialog  switch is used to choose the standard Windows "Save As" as a dialog for defining the type and place for resulting images.

Native out dialog  switch  is used to choose a native [tree] dialog to define the type and place for resulting images.

Apply out templates  switch is valid for native dialogue only. If set (pressed) - causes the tree control to include only the files of the type selected in the native dialogue, else - all files (except hidden ones) aer included.

Show out icons  switch is also valid for native dialogue only. Its pressed - causes the tree control to extract icons for all files that are included into the tree view control,  else - a standard (empty) icon is used instead. When the switch is reset - the tree appears with no visible delay even for directories containing a lot of files (like c:\windows).

Formats

This page contains only format specific features settings. Features like Interlacing, comments, multiple pictures per file, etc. are set elsewhere.

JPEG

Size - Quality balance slide control for JPEG  (with JPEG Q value displayed in digital form)  is used to set the balance between quality of an output image and its size you wish to gain. The default value for Q equal to 75 is generally used, which leads to significant compression ratio with good quality preserving. Deliberately the Q range was set to [20-95].
Discrete Cosine Transform algorithm may be chosen using the following radio buttons controls:

Slow but accurate integer DCT algorithm
Faster, less accurate integer DCT method
Floating-point: accurate DCT, fast on fast HW  - this one is set as default.

Entropy Optimization in most cases may be left unchecked.

TIFF

Strip size edit control is used to define TIFF strip size. It may be a very useful feature if you are going to produce TIFF files for applications that feel bad dealing with strip sizes more than XXX bytes.
Mbytes, Kbytes, bytes push-like radio buttons are just additional convenience for strip size specifying.

PBM, PGM, PPM

ASCII radio button sets plain ASCII representation for Jef Poskanzer's format output.

Binary radio button sets binary (much more compact in comparison to ASCII) format output data representation.

GIF89a

Transp. check box defines whether transparency index should be set for an output gif-file. Note that you may define the background transparency reference point using Preview popup menu item BG reference point.
Note, that if you want to create an output GIF-image with transparent background specified - you should use Preview and in Settings->Other define and apply background colour to selected output gif-files. The input file should be also GIF.

Delay(.01s) edit box is for setting the default GIF animation delay time in hundredth of a second. That is if you create some GIF animation file this value would be "assigned" to each GIF "frame", unless you change it for selected ones using Settings->OtherGIF delay(.01s).
Animation is set automatically when you create a 'Multipictures output' gif file (press   'Multipictures output' button in Options->General). Don't forget to specify some output name while choosing the output path, else you'll have as many output images as there are in the input list.

Creating an Input Images List

As was mentioned above you should look up and set options before advancing further. To avoid possible errors the Settings button is disabled as soon as you begin adding images to the input list. At that being done - your are ready to form an input list. You may do it  by clicking   ("plus") button. A standard Windows "Open" dialogue will be displayed with an option of extended selection if the input raster source is FILE (default). The input raster image source may be changed/selected with the help of a popup menu that appears on clicking the right mouse button the the cursor is within the input list rectangular area. You'll have to make a choice of images source from the submenu Input from...., so each time you press the "plus"  button - an image will be added to the input list either from disk files, or from clipboard, or from your TWAIN scanner.
Only those graphics formats files that are presently supported by the converter are appended to the list. For corrupted files there'll be error notification sound while forming the list.  Note the source and file type display at the top of the input list.
It's useful to remind, that Windows "Open" dialogue exchanges the first and last items for multiple files selection when this selection is done in one set from beginning to the end (setting an anchor and dragging with "Shift" key pressed the left mouse button). So, if the sequence of images in the input list is critical (say, for creating an output animation gif-file) you should set the selection anchor at the last desired item and drag mouse cursor to the top.

You can press this   button as many times as you need to append different files from different locations to the input list. Note that the last source path and file type are preserved till  the next dialogue opening.
Use mouse left button with Shift and Ctrl keyboard keys to make an extended selection in the input list.

If you need the DIB contents of Windows clipboard to be included into your input images list - you should use popup menu Input from...>Clipboard.  A temporary Windows BMP file is created in the directory, that you have specified using Options->General (Temp Dir), and the input list is automatically appended with this item. It has the name like Clipxxx.bmp set, where xxx is the number of files you've already extracted from clipboard up to this time.  The same is true when you choose Input from...>Scanner popup menu item, with the single difference of temporary file name - it will be Scanxxx.bmp. Besides, you'll have to choose your data source, where the converter is to acquire images from each time you press the "plus" button.

The "minus" button   serves to remove selected items from the list. Be careful if there's a yellow or red rectangle displayed around it:  that denotes corresponding files removal on pressing the button. This files-removing feature may be switched on/off in Options->General. (Replace input files and Remove input files) or setting/resetting check-marks in the popup submenu Removing.

In the process of adding new items to the list converter gathers all the information that might be needed for conversion into other output format. You may view it in two ways: either by invoking the "Input Info" dialogue  window by pressing   button or choosing the popup menu item "Info", or highlighting (selecting) an input list item and holding left mouse button pressed. In the latter case brief info may be viewed in the status control (at the main dialogue bottom) in the following format:
width x height in pixels (picture #/out of total number) [format/format version] interlaced flag [colour scheme/bits per pixel/color channels number/number of palette entries] [codec/compression ratio] [file size in kbytes/bytes].

The predestination of another button -   is simple: just to invert the input list selection. The same effect has the popup menu selection named Invert.

Still another button for list selection manipulations -  serves to clear any selection (as in calculator). The same effect has the popup menu selection named Clear.

The   button denotes screen display and pressing it invokes Preview.    When Preview is on the screen - another button becomes enabled - histogram button  . These buttons are enabled only for single input list item selection. The same may be done with popup menu choice Preview and Histogram. You may use Preview to cast away unnecessary images from the list (or/and from disk) before converting them.

The following buttons and corresponding popup menu items act as triggers switching dialogues on/off:  .

With the help of these buttons  (or appropriate popup menu commands) you are supposed to be able to create any input images list.
There are some  accelerators keys that have the same effect as these buttons. 

And there's another way to append the list:  the converter accepts "dragged and dropped files", and even directories. In the latter case you'll be prompted to confirm your wish to add all the graphics files (certainly, from the list of supported formats) from  this and all recursively located directories.

Preview

When single item is selected in the input images list the button   is enabled and you make click it to see a preview of the selected image. The same may be done with popup menu Item Preview.  Images are always scaled to fit the preview dialogue window. When preview is active - another button becomes enabled - histogram button  . Besides you can invoke preview specific popup menu that have the following items:

Display RGB check - switches on/off RGB value tooltip display;
Display Coordinates check - switches on/off x,y cursor coordinate display (may be  used together with crop choice);
Histogram colour mask - switches colour mask on/off. If histogram is on the screen - it's possible to view red, green and blue channels separately by selecting it with histogram popup menu. If histogram is not active - switching this menu item check results to luminance image display;
Crop rectangle - switches cropping rectangle on: pressing left mouse button, dragging it and then releasing lets you choose a rectangle to be cropped. It should be used together with Settings->Geometry.
BG reference point menu item choosing lets you  specify background colour reference point to be used for the output (when Settings->Other property page  is active that would choose stamps background colour).
FG reference point menu item choosing lets you  specify foreground colour reference point to be used for the output (when Settings->Other property page  is active that would choose colour for labels and border).

Note, that when you are fitting some output settings performing step-by-step test conversions and "postviewing" the results, you may want to speed the testing up by clearing the input  selection (just press   button) and thus redrawing only output.
There are some  accelerators keys that you may use to speed your work up. 

Creating an Output Images List

When you add one item at least to the input list - the button   at the bottom of the output list becomes enabled as well as the popup menu item Output to... , and you can create an output list. Note that unlike the input list - the output is always formed in one step. Each   button pressing results to the output list rebuilding. In case your destination and output format are always the same - Auto list out  switch, set in Options->General,  may help you speed up a little.
So, when you press this "plus" button or select popup menu item Output to...->File(s) - Windows "Save as" dialogue appears on the screen. Output specification  will be changed in future, presently you should specify the output in one of two possible forms: either like <name.ext> or like <*.ext>. Save as type combo box selection has no effect.
Note the destination and file type display at the top of the output list.

If you need input image to be put to Windows clipboard - choose Output to...->Clipboard popup menu item.

If  a single file path or name is to be changed after it has been included into the output list - select Edit popup menu item. The menu item becomes enabled for single-file selections in the output list. The dialogue that appears on the screen enables you to edit the output advancing up and down the list with the help of these buttons: .  Any change will take effect  if you press Apply to selected button, unless you set the checkbox right next to   "up/down"   buttons. The box when checked makes "up/down" buttons to send  "apply" message before progressing any further. Cancel button or Esc key exits the dialogue.

As soon as there's at least one output item in the list - Settings button becomes enabled and you may specify a number of settings to be applied to the output extended selection.

The very same buttons as those at the input list bottom can be seen at the bottom of the output list, but there's a difference in their purposes for two of them:
the "plus" button  , as was mentioned above, each time rebuilds the output list, but not appends to it;
the "minus" button   clears the whole output list, but not the selection only as for input.

Next two buttons   have exactly the same function as they have for the input list.

If you press the "info"  button  (or select Info popup menu item) having single item  selected in the output list before conversion - you'll normally invoke the "Output Info" dialogue with "File open error" string for the output file name If you do it after conversion - you'll get valid information on the output image (file).

The same is true for "Postview" button   (and Postview popup menu item).

Like for the input - the "Histogram" button  for the output becomes enabled only after the "Postview" dialogue is active.

The following buttons and corresponding popup menu items act as triggers switching dialogues on/off:  .
There are some  accelerators keys that you may use to speed your work up. 

 Settings

The "Settings" property sheet modeless dialogue is for users who tightly deal with graphics files handling and are using them in their daily work. Its use assumes that you browse the output list making selections and applying settings for those selections. After all is done - just press Convert button and watch the progress of the conversion process.
Note, that all settings that you choose, are applied to the output list selections only after you press Apply to Selected button.

Format

This property page lets you choose or change output format, codec, colour space (scheme), units for selected items.  All possible variants along with features supported are listed above.
Use "Auto" feature for these settings unless you really need to change something. "Auto" checks the input image parameters  and makes the best fit for the output, having considered the output format supported features.
For example, you may be not aware of the units, supported by the output format according to its specification; or codec, etc.
Note that combo boxes contain different lists for different graphics formats, to help you avoid some feature setting choice, which is not supported either by the converter or is not defied in format specification.

You may enter Comments or order Interlaced output at this property page. And don't you forget to click on Apply to Selected.

Geometry

This property page is for geometry transformation setting. Some controls have a checkbox nearby. When a box is checked and you press the Apply to Selected button - a corresponding setting is applied to the output list selection, if not - then the setting is ignored.  Some controls are mutually dependent, so they become enabled or disabled when you set checks.

Scale X,Y edit controls are used to define the scaling factor. Preserve aspect ratio check affects the input.

Size W,H  edit controls are for specifying new image sizes (Width and Height). If there's a single item selection in the  output list - the controls are defaulted with corresponding values.  Preserve aspect ratio check and Units combo box selection affect  the input. Using the Units combo box you can enter the sizes in physical units, but note that the possibility to do it in all possible units - is just for your convenience. To set definite output physical unit - you should select it in Settings->Format.
In case of multiple ouput list selections there's a special possibility to specify either a single dimension (X or Y) or both, which you usually have for creating thumbnails. If you specify
1) X=A and Y=0 - that means that all the  images are to be scaled with a factor that yields output width=A;
2) X=0 and Y=B - that means that all the  images are to be scaled with a factor that yields output height=B;
3) X=A and Y=B - that means that all the  images are to be scaled with appropriate factor:
                                a) min(scaleX,scaleY)  if you answer  "Yes" to "...fit within" (after "Apply to selected" pressed);
                                b) max(scaleX,scaleY)  if you answer  "No" to "...fit within" (after "Apply to selected" pressed);
I dare say that the case 3a is what you really might need producing thumbnails from input images with different sizes and when all of the resulting images are to fit within some bounding rectangle AxB (say 128x128 pixels).

Page W,H edit controls - are for output page size specifying. They may (and should) be used together with Offset X,Y specifying to get a definite image layout. Also the RBG BG button and controls become enabled for you to define the margins fill colour.

Offset X,Y edit controls define the image offset. It's possible to just enter offsets here and leave alone Page W,H controls if you need some space added at the top or bottom of the image or at the top and left, top and right, etc.
Try zero and negative values to get all combinations. Use RGB BG button and edit controls to specify background  color for resulting empty spaces filling.

Crop X1,Y1 edit controls - are for the upper left crop rectangle coordinates specification (in pixels) and
Crop X2,Y2 - are for the lower right. The best way is to use them simultaneously with Preview  with crop rectangle switched on.  Note that croppinng is allowed for multiple ouput list selection. But this should be used when you are sure that the specified cropping rectangle would fit all of the images sizes. The situation when you have a lot of grabbed video or scanned pictures with the same dimensions is just the case for it.

Res X,Y edit controls let you enter desired output resolution. When Reset to Defaults button is pressed they are initialized with current screen resolution values. No use setting Size W,H in physical units when resolution is undefined.

Skew X,Y edit controls - are for specifying the skew angles in the range [-45.0...+45.0] (in degrees) along X and Y axes.
The following color schemes are currently supported: gray8, rgb8, rgb24, rgb32.
It's recommended for use when small angle rotations are needed: skew is much faster and more precise. Another case when you might need it - to produce minimum image distortion when rotating by arbitrary angles. For that - specify the same skew angle for both axes. That results to image increase by 1/cos(angle) factor, but minimizes distortions.
Use RGB BG button and edit controls to specify background  color for resulting empty spaces filling.
Use Clip check box to preserve initial image dimensions.

Rotate combo box lets you select rotation angle  from the set of 90 degrees multiples (0,90,180,270) or enter any arbitrary value.  For the latter case - use RGB BG button and edit controls to specify background  color for resulting empty spaces filling and set Clip check box if initial image dimensions are to be preserved.

Flip combo box  lets you select image flipping from the following predefined list : None, Horizontal, Vertical, Both.

Units combo box  lets you select a physical unit from the following list of units supported with the converter:  abstract (pixels for raster images), cm, inch, m, mm, point, twip (1/72 inch), point (1/20 point).

Page combo box is for selecting one of predefined standard output page sizes: from A4 to A0, D and E.

Landscape radio button check tells the converter to swap width and height of the standard Page size selected.

Portrait radio button (default) check sets the larger page dimension for image height.

Preserve aspect ratio check box affects sizes and scale and results to recalculating one of dimensions when the other is changed.

Clip check box when marked - tells the converter to preserve the output image dimensions for operations that may change them automatically (rotation by an arbitrary angle, skewing).

RGB BG button invokes Windows standard colour choice dialogue. You may enter the RGB value manually in the edit control in the following format : r, g, b. This colour is used to fill empty space that may appear as the result of arbitrary angle rotation, skew, or when image offsets are specified.

Reset to Defaults button pressing resets all values and initializes resolution edit controls with current screen resolution in dpi (dots per inch).

Apply to Selected button applies the values having check box set to the output selection list.

Filter

Filter property page contains output image postprocessing settings switches.

Filters group.

Filters combo box lets you choose one of predefined convolution filters:

Despeckle check box check tells the converter to  run the median filter algorithm:  for n*n rectangle centred around each  pixel,  its values are replaced with median value.

Invert check box check forces the converter to invert the image (produce a "negative").

Dither radio buttons let you choose dithering algorithm. The default method (Uniform quantization with Floyd-Steinberg) is the fastest one, when reducing the number of colors from "true" to 256-entries palette. When you are converting to BW output that would be printed out - use Ordered dithering and select dither Matrix size. The matrix size may vary from 1x1 (with predefined luminance threshold equal to 127 resulting to emulation of two output shades of gray) to 16x16 (emulation of 16 shades of gray). Note that Postview may produce artifacts not present in the resulting image. That's just the scaling-down effect, when skipping scanlines (outputting every n-th).

Effects group contains currently several effects useful for creating backgrounds from images (see Table II below).

Apply to Selected button assigns the settings to selected items.
 
 
Table II   Filters and effects (color and geometry)  supported color schemes:
Filter/Effect bw  bw8 gray8 rgb4 rgb8 rgb24 rgb32
Skew    
Filters    
Emboss        
Dissolve      
Noise      
Oil Paint    
Pixelate        
Spread    
Edge      

Notes: if some effect or filter is not present in the table - that means it supports all of the color schemes above (like "Invert").

Other

Border check box enables the border width setting for selected output images.

Width (pixels) edit control is for specifying the border width in pixels. Note that the image dimensions stay unchanged: the border drawing goes inward.

RGB FG button invokes Windows standard colour choice dialogue. You may enter the RGB value manually in the edit control in the following format : r, g, b.(e.g. 128 196 255) This colour is used to draw borders. Note that for paletted output you should enter just one number indicating the palette index to be used to draw the border!

Note: Border, Width (pixels) and RGB FG controls go in double set for double border drawing. If you need just one - don't set the second check box. Both (inner and outer borders go inward, the second overlapping the first. For outward going one - use Geometry->Page W,H + RGB BG). So specifying widths for borders be sure to make inner width larger than the outer one! 

RGB BG button invokes Windows standard colour choice dialogue. You may enter the RGB value manually in the edit control in the following format : r, g, b.(e.g. 128 196 255) This colour defines transparent background color for overlays.

Overlay transparent / Overlay opaque radio buttons let you choose overlay mode for output selections. They are enabled when either transparent or opaque mode is set in Options->General. On this property page you may change them as you wish. Remember that input images sequence is important when overlaying them onto a single output image.

Label check box enables the specified (in edit control) text label be placed atop of each of the selected output image. Note that label overlaying is the last operation that is performed on the ouput image file before closing.

Font... button invokes the standard True Type font choice dialogue. Note that you may choose any possible font size and color, but it would be adjusted to the output image color scheme and sizes.

Label X,Y  edit controls are just   the relative coordinates of the text box upper left corner.

RGB FG button for labels invokes Windows standard colour choice dialogue. You may enter the RGB value manually in the edit control in the following format : r, g, b.(e.g. 128 196 255). This colour is used to draw letters. For paletted output you should use Preview  to   choose foreground and background colours (clicking the right mouse button to invoke the popup menu where you should choose BG or FG reference point).

Opaque/Transp. check for labels switches on/off opaque/transparent text overlaying mode. Default state is transparent mode for which you may enter the percent (only rgb24 and rgb32 colour schemes are supported).

Stamp check box enables the specified (in edit control) graphics file  be placed atop of each of the selected output image. Note that stamp overlaying is performed just before label is.

File... button invokes the standard OpenFile dialogue. Note that the stamp file itself may have any of the supported formats and color schemes (see Table I).

Stamp X,Y  edit controls are just   the relative coordinates of the stamp image upper left corner.

RGB BG button for stamps invokes Windows standard colour choice dialogue. You may enter the RGB value manually in the edit control in the following format : r, g, b.(e.g. 128 196 255). This colour is used to define whether a pixel belongs to background and if it should be overlaid in transparent mode. You may use Preview  to   choose background colour (clicking the right mouse button to invoke the popup menu where you should choose BG reference point), including your stamp file into the Input list (but don't forget to delete it from there before converting).

Opaque/Transp. check for labels switches on/off opaque/transparent stamp overlaying mode. Default state is opaque mode. You may enter the percent  of transparency for stamps as well (only rgb24 and rgb32 colour schemes are supported).

Note: the current label and stamp implementation is targeted to simple cases of batch labels and stamps placing, i.e. you are not allowed to specify different labels and stamps for different output selections.
 
Table III   Stamps and Labels (special raster overlays)  supported color schemes:
Overlay bw  bw8 gray8 rgb4 rgb8 rgb24 rgb32
Stamp      
Label  

 

GIF Delay(.01s) check and edit boxes are for specifying a time delay equal to the number of hundredths of a second that must elapse after a GIF "frame" has been displayed. It is applicable for selections, so you may vary it getting th effect you wish. Thus you may create GIF-animated banners of your own along with simple gif-animation. The default value is set in Options->Formats.

Apply to Selected button assigns the settings to selected items.

Convert Progress

When input and output lists are ready - you may press the Convert button.  When mouse cursor is focused on the button (before clicking on it) - tooltip shows how many images are going to be converted. Conversion progress dialogue will appear on the screen (after the button  click) showing the percentage of current item processing and that of the total.  Two buttons may be pressed: Stop or  Cancel  - the first completes the current conversion and then terminates, the latter - terminates the process right away. Thus the consequences of the action are up to you. The current input and output are displayed at the top of the dialogue window, and the total percentage - as the window capture, so you could watch it in minimized window state.
When thread finished - an "All in all" time spent is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of main dialog. The time being shown is the time span between the moment you click the Convert button and the moment the progress dialog is closed. So it shows the overall time you've spent for the operation.

Postview

This feature is automatically switched on after the conversion process has been terminated, unless you'd set the option of clearing the output list "ON". It uses the same dialogue window as the Preview and has exactly the same popup menu, described above. Postview is invoked by pressing the button  at the bottom of the output list or by just pressing v  or V when the mouse focus is in the OUTPUT box and some item selected.

Histogram

When Preview or Postview dialogue window is on the screen - the "Histogram" button   becomes enabled letting you view an image histogram.
You may just press h  or H to view the histogram.
By default, the luminance histogram is displayed. Luminance or colour channels (from 0 to 255) - are along the X-axis, while relative input in % - is along Y-axis.
Press the right mouse button while the mouse cursor is within the histogram dialogue window to invoke popup menu.
It has the following items:
Display Channel check when ON - results to displaying the intensity channel No;
Red, Blue, Green checks - set colour mask and display the corresponding colour component histogram;
Luminance check - makes the image in gray scale be displayed.
If you set the check Histogram colour mask using the popup menu for Preview - you'll watch the selected colour component of the image.
The relative colour component integral percentage is displayed as caption on the window frame.
Presently the histogram feature has only illustrative or informative goal, but it's planned to be used for equalization and other colour correcting procedures.

Input and Output Images and Files Info

The first nice possibility to view images info - is to press and hold left mouse button while the cursor is located on some item in the input list as was described above.  Another way - is to press the "info" button   or select Info popup menu item or press i or I. Both act as triggers, switching On/Off the "Info" dialogue.  The description of what you see there follows.

Image

Image group contains the image No out of Total (e.g. (12/150) and file name e.g. beauty.gif).

Format group contains the format Name and Version items. Both brief and full format names are displayed as well as the format originator, e.g.
   Name : JPEG (JPEG File Interchange Format)
   Version: JFIF v1.01 (C-Cube Microsystems)

Codec group contains the used codec Name, both brief and full,  Compression ratio and Interlaced flag, e.g.
   Name:  JPEG (JFIF JPEG)
   Compression ratio:  18.640
   Interlaced :   (checked)

Color space group contains the following information:  colour space Name, both brief and full, Bits per pixel, colour Channels, Palette entries number, e.g.
   Name: rgb24 (True colors (8bpc))   // 8 bits per channel;
   Bits per pixel : 24                      // totally
   Channels :  3                              // sometimes called "colour planes" or "colour components"
   Palette entries: 0                               // no palette for "true colors"

Dimensions group contains information on image sizes and resolutions: in Pixels: Width  Height (always displayed), the same in physical units and  Resolution X Y (displayed only in case the resolution information is present in a graphics file), e.g.
   Pixels:  Width 1427  Height 500
   inches: Width   4.76 Height 1.67
   Resolution: X 300.0 Y 300.0

Comments field contains comments supplied with the graphics file you are examining. You may scroll the line horizontally up to its maximum limit of 1024 symbols.

General

Image group contains the same information as for Image property page.

The rest of the page resembles (and it was done on purpose) the standard Windows property page:

Type: shows the file type, e.g.
   Type : 2D raster graphics file.

Location: contains the full file path, e.g.
    Location: D:\rx\grSamples\jpg

Size: displays the file size in kilobytes and bytes, e.g.
   Size : 69 kbytes (70965 bytes)

MS-DOS name: contains MS DOS short file name, e.g.
   MS DOS name: GIWAL~1.JPG

Created: contains the file creation date/time stamp, e.g.
   Created : Fri Sep 18 03:29:16 1988

Modified: contains the file last modifications date/time stamp, e.g.
   Modified: Fri Sep 18 08:22:10 1988

Accessed: contains the file last access date/time stamp, e.g.
   Accessed: Tue Sep 22 00:00:00 1998

Attributes: contains Read-only, Archive, Hidden, System checkboxes set or empty.

Monitoring

Monitoring is a feature that enables you monitor folders (mainly), i.e. to watch for any changes in a specified INPUT directory (optionally - recursively) and to produce "on the fly" conversion to a specified OUTPUT directory and into a specified graphics format. All done in "background"  mode by a thread with the lowest priority - not to bother your main current work (supposed scanning, capturing, or other graphics tasks). Monitoring is set ON/OFF in Options->General (see there Monitor INPUT and  Monitor subdirs). When you set it ON - you would see the enabled button Monitor.  Note that the small buttons also become available - they are for specifying the INPUT folder to be monitored  and the OUTPUT folder and format (to convert to and into). The INPUT and OUTPUT may be specified manually in edit controls (just under the input and output boxes titles on the top). In the latter case you should specify the input and output as follows: 
INPUT: <full path>, e.g. c:\temp\scans ,OUTPUT: <full path>\*.<ext>, e.g.   d:\temp\out\*.jpg
Monitor would convert all formats it supports currently - so the input template for extensions would be always *.*.
To stop (or just pause) the monitor - press the Stop button. It would also reset the statistics displayed in the status bar: the total number of input files converted to output path/format and the total time it has taken.

Warning. Images converted "on the fly" are always replaced with converted ones. The monitored folder should be initially empty or at least contain no files you wouldn't like to convert. All non-graphics files in the monitored folder would slow down the conversion process as they would be always opened in  format auto-detection  procedure. All of the above is especially true when recursive subdirectories are scanned.

In monitor mode you may still (as in "normal" one) drop files dragged from wherever into the INPUT box, but they would automatically be converted to output/format and replaced with converted ones.
You might as well wish to just copy files from somewhere to the monitored directory - it would also work ok, though the feature is primarily supposed to be used as a background graphics files handler while scanning or capturing images (some scanner manufacturers (even HP) use software that produces graphics files with errors when you set compression "On"; while capture devices software normally wouldn't perform any compression for speed reasons and produce large BMP files).

Accelerators

You may use the following accelerator keys to speed up your work. Note that a key effects the INPUT or OUTPUT depending on mouse focus.
key => button with the same effect:
+ or Ins (plus or insert ~ add) => ;
- or Del (minus or delete ~ remove selection)=> ;
* (asterisk ~ invert selection)=> ;
c (or C ~ clear selection) =>;
m (or M ~ monitor) =>;
i (or I ~ info) =>;
v (or V ~ view) =>;
h (or H ~ histogram) =>.

The rest keys are as follows:

Alt - O => Options;
Alt - A => About;
Alt - H => Help;
Alt - C => Convert;
Alt - M => [start] Monitor;
Alt - P => Stop [monitor];
Alt - X => Exit;

About

The "About" dialogue appears on the screen when you press the About button, which acts as a trigger. The dialogue contains the Version number, Credits, your License (name and serial number),  Statistics and Contact info.
Statistics group display the following information for you:
Output files generated - quite obvious, it shows how many files you've generated with rXconvert.
Total input volume -  shows the integral size of all input files you've converted to some output.
Number of launches - number of times you launched the converter.

Exit

If you press the Exit button - all the dialogues windows' placements are preserved for your next session, else (if you press Esc to exit the application) - they are not.

Known Bugs

Simultaneous use of some geometric transformations may produce an undesired result.

Planned Features

The implementation of the following planned features depends in part from your feedback. I'm not sure all of them should be included into the converter. A lot of good shareware products vanished into the thin air trying to include as many features as possible, thus turning into "universal" barely working crocodiles. If you know how to do it, it's not the reason to do it.

Just the list of "TO DO"s:

Contact Info

Address:   Bogolubov ave 33-606,   Dubna, Moscow reg.,141980, Russia.
Phone:      (office)   7-096-21-63646;        (home)  7-096-21-32509       (GMT+3)
E-mail:     gromov@cv.jinr.dubna.su
WWW:     http://www.jinr.ru/~gromov
Copyright © by Basil Gromov, 01-Nov-2000