Search Results

Search found 1587 results on 64 pages for 'pixel reaper'.

Page 60/64 | < Previous Page | 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64  | Next Page >

  • CSS RGBA border / background alpha double

    - by stockli
    I'm working on a website that has a lot of transparency involved, and I thought I would try to build it entirely in RGBA and then do fallbacks for IE. I need a "facebox" style border effect, where the outer border is rounded and is less opaque than the background of the box it surrounds. The last example from http://24ways.org/2009/working-with-rgba-colour seems to suggest that it's possible, but I can't seem to get it to work. When I try the following: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/> <title>RGBA Test</title> <style type='text/css'> body { background: #000; color: #fff; } #container { width: 700px; margin: 0 auto; background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); border: 10px solid rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1); padding: 20px; } </style> </head> <body> <div id='container'> This should look like a facebox. </div> </body></html> It seems like the background "extends" underneath the border of the element, which causes the pixel values to get added together. Thus, when both the background and the border are semi-transparent, the border will ALWAYS be more opaque than the background of the element. This is exactly the opposite of what I am trying to achieve, but it seems like it should be possible based on the examples I've seen. I should also add that I can't use another element inside the container, because I'm also going to use a border-radius on the container to get rounded corners, and webkit squares the corners of the child elements if they have a background assigned, which would essentially mean a rounded outer border with square contents. Sorry I can't post an image of this... Apparently I don't have enough rep to post an image.

    Read the article

  • How do I set libavcodec to use 4:2:2 chroma when encoding MPEG-2 4:2:2 profile?

    - by Mike Pollitt
    I have a project using libavcodec (ffmpeg). I'm using it to encode MPEG-2 video at 4:2:2 Profile, Main Level. I have the pixel format PIX_FMT_YUV422P selected in the AVCodecContext, however the video output I'm getting has all the colours wrong, and looks to me like the encoder is incorrectly reading the buffers as though it thinks it is 4:2:0 chroma rather than 4:2:2. Here's my codec setup: // // AVFormatContext* _avFormatContext previously defined as mpeg2video // // // Set up the video stream for output // AVVideoStream* _avVideoStream = av_new_stream(_avFormatContext, 0); if (!_avVideoStream) { err = ccErrWFFFmpegUnableToAllocateStream; goto bail; } _avCodecContext = _avVideoStream->codec; _avCodecContext->codec_id = CODEC_ID_MPEG2VIDEO; _avCodecContext->codec_type = CODEC_TYPE_VIDEO; // // Set up required parameters // _avCodecContext->rc_max_rate = _avCodecContext->rc_min_rate = _avCodecContext->bit_rate = src->_avCodecContext->bit_rate; _avCodecContext->flags = CODEC_FLAG_INTERLACED_DCT; _avCodecContext->flags2 = CODEC_FLAG2_INTRA_VLC | CODEC_FLAG2_NON_LINEAR_QUANT; _avCodecContext->qmin = 1; _avCodecContext->qmax = 1; _avCodecContext->rc_buffer_size = _avCodecContext->rc_initial_buffer_occupancy = 2000000; _avCodecContext->rc_buffer_aggressivity = 0.25; _avCodecContext->profile = 0; _avCodecContext->level = 5; _avCodecContext->width = f->GetWidth(); // f is a private Frame class with width, height properties etc. _avCodecContext->height = f->GetHeight(); _avCodecContext->time_base.den = 25; _avCodecContext->time_base.num = 1; _avCodecContext->gop_size = 12; _avCodecContext->max_b_frames = 2; _avCodecContext->pix_fmt = PIX_FMT_YUV422P; if (_avFormatContext->oformat->flags & AVFMT_GLOBALHEADER) { _avCodecContext->flags |= CODEC_FLAG_GLOBAL_HEADER; } if (av_set_parameters(_avFormatContext, NULL) < 0) { err = ccErrWFFFmpegUnableToSetParameters; goto bail; } // // Set up video codec for encoding // AVCodec* _avCodec = avcodec_find_encoder(_avCodecContext->codec_id); if (!_avCodec) { err = ccErrWFFFmpegUnableToFindCodecForOutput; goto bail; } if (avcodec_open(_avCodecContext, _avCodec) < 0) { err = ccErrWFFFmpegUnableToOpenCodecForOutput; goto bail; } A screengrab of the resulting video frame can be seen at http://ftp.limeboy.com/images/screen_grab.png (the input was standard colour bars). I've checked by outputting debug frames to TGA format at various points in the process, and I can confirm that it is all fine and dandy up until the point that libavcodec encodes the frame. Any assistance most appreciated! Cheers, Mike.

    Read the article

  • 3 embedded UIScrollView problem

    - by Infinity
    Hello guys! I have 3 UIScrollView. Here is a sample code, about how they are added in eachother: UIScrollView main; UIScrollView page1; UIScrollView page2; UIScrollView doublePage; UIView pageContent1; UIView pageContent2; UIView doublePageContent; int nrPages = 1; sw2 = 0; main = [[UIScrollView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, 768, 980)]; main.contentSize = CGSizeMake(768 * (nrPages - 1 + sw2), 980); page1.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 768, 980); page2.frame = CGRectMake(768, 0, 768, 980); pageNumber = i - 1 + sw2; (i is a variable in a for loop) doublePage.frame = CGRectMake(768 * (pageNumber - 1), 0, 768 * 2, 980); CGFloat contentWidth = [page1 bounds].size.width + [page2 bounds].size.width; CGFloat contentHeight = page1 ? self.page1.bounds.size.height : self.page2.bounds.size.height; doublePageContent = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, contentWidth, contentHeight)]; [page1 addSubview:pageContent1]; [page2 addSubview:pageContent2]; [doublePageContent addSubview:page1]; [doublePageContent addSubview:page2]; [doublePage addSubview:doublePageContent]; [main addSubview:doublepage]; And with this structure the main scrollview don't want to scroll. Without the doublepage scrollview it is working good. What do you think? What's the problem? I know this structure is a little weird, but I need this structure because other parts of the code. Edited, added the information about the sizes. If you need something more please tell me. And one more thing.. If I add 1 pixel to the width of the doublePage contentSize.width it scrolls, but a bit hard, so it scrolls first in the doublePage and then in the main.

    Read the article

  • problem in adding image to JFrame

    - by firestruq
    Hi, I'm having problems in adding a picture into JFrame, something is missing probebly or written wrong. here are the classes: main class: public class Tester { public static void main(String args[]) { BorderLayoutFrame borderLayoutFrame = new BorderLayoutFrame(); borderLayoutFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); borderLayoutFrame.setSize(600,600); borderLayoutFrame.setVisible(true); } } public class BorderLayoutFrame extends JFrame implements ActionListener { private JButton buttons[]; // array of buttons to hide portions private final String names[] = { "North", "South", "East", "West", "Center" }; private BorderLayout layout; // borderlayout object private PicPanel picture = new PicPanel(); // set up GUI and event handling public BorderLayoutFrame() { super( "Philosofic Problem" ); layout = new BorderLayout( 5, 5 ); // 5 pixel gaps setLayout( layout ); // set frame layout buttons = new JButton[ names.length ]; // set size of array // create JButtons and register listeners for them for ( int count = 0; count < names.length; count++ ) { buttons[ count ] = new JButton( names[ count ] ); buttons[ count ].addActionListener( this ); } add( buttons[ 0 ], BorderLayout.NORTH ); // add button to north add( buttons[ 1 ], BorderLayout.SOUTH ); // add button to south add( buttons[ 2 ], BorderLayout.EAST ); // add button to east add( buttons[ 3 ], BorderLayout.WEST ); // add button to west add( picture, BorderLayout.CENTER ); // add button to center } // handle button events public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent event ) { } } I'v tried to add the image into the center of layout. here is the image class: public class PicPanel extends JPanel { Image img; private int width = 0; private int height = 0; public PicPanel() { super(); img = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getImage("table.jpg"); } public void paintComponent(Graphics g) { super.paintComponents(g); if ((width <= 0) || (height <= 0)) { width = img.getWidth(this); height = img.getHeight(this); } g.drawImage(img,0,0,width,height,this); } } Please your help, what is the problem? thanks BTW: i'm using eclipse, which directory the image suppose to be in?

    Read the article

  • How do I do high quality scaling of a image?

    - by pbhogan
    I'm writing some code to scale a 32 bit RGBA image in C/C++. I have written a few attempts that have been somewhat successful, but they're slow and most importantly the quality of the sized image is not acceptable. I compared the same image scaled by OpenGL (i.e. my video card) and my routine and it's miles apart in quality. I've Google Code Searched, scoured source trees of anything I thought would shed some light (SDL, Allegro, wxWidgets, CxImage, GD, ImageMagick, etc.) but usually their code is either convoluted and scattered all over the place or riddled with assembler and little or no comments. I've also read multiple articles on Wikipedia and elsewhere, and I'm just not finding a clear explanation of what I need. I understand the basic concepts of interpolation and sampling, but I'm struggling to get the algorithm right. I do NOT want to rely on an external library for one routine and have to convert to their image format and back. Besides, I'd like to know how to do it myself anyway. :) I have seen a similar question asked on stack overflow before, but it wasn't really answered in this way, but I'm hoping there's someone out there who can help nudge me in the right direction. Maybe point me to some articles or pseudo code... anything to help me learn and do. Here's what I'm looking for: 1. No assembler (I'm writing very portable code for multiple processor types). 2. No dependencies on external libraries. 3. I am primarily concerned with scaling DOWN, but will also need to write a scale up routine later. 4. Quality of the result and clarity of the algorithm is most important (I can optimize it later). My routine essentially takes the following form: DrawScaled( uint32 *src, uint32 *dst, src_x, src_y, src_w, src_h, dst_x, dst_y, dst_w, dst_h ); Thanks! UPDATE: To clarify, I need something more advanced than a box resample for downscaling which blurs the image too much. I suspect what I want is some kind of bicubic (or other) filter that is somewhat the reverse to a bicubic upscaling algorithm (i.e. each destination pixel is computed from all contributing source pixels combined with a weighting algorithm that keeps things sharp. EXAMPLE: Here's an example of what I'm getting from the wxWidgets BoxResample algorithm vs. what I want on a 256x256 bitmap scaled to 55x55. And finally: the original 256x256 image

    Read the article

  • Opinions on collision detection objects with a moving scene

    - by Evan Teran
    So my question is simple, and I guess it boils down to how anal you want to be about collision detection. To keep things simple, lets assume we're talking about 2D sprites defined by a bounding box. In addition, let's assume that my sprite object has a function to detect collisions like this: S.collidesWith(other); Finally the scene is moving and "walls" in the scene can move, an object may not touch a wall. So a simple implementation might look like this (psuedo code): moveWalls(); moveSprite(); foreach(wall as w) { if(s.collidesWith(w)) { gameover(); } } The problem with this is that if the sprite and wall move towards each other, depending on the circumstances (such as diagonal moment). They may pass though each other (unlikely but could happen). So I may do this instead. moveWalls(); foreach(wall as w) { if(s.collidesWith(w)) { gameover(); } } moveSprite(); foreach(wall as w) { if(s.collidesWith(w)) { gameover(); } } This takes care of the passing through each other issue, but another rare issue comes up. If they are adjacent to each other (literally the next pixel) and both the wall and the sprite are moving left, then I will get an invalid collision since the wall moves, checks for collision (hit) then the sprite is moved. Which seems unfair. In addition, to that, the redundant collision detection feels very inefficient. I could give the player movement priority alleviating the first issue but it is still checking twice. moveSprite(); foreach(wall as w) { if(s.collidesWith(w)) { gameover(); } } moveWalls(); foreach(wall as w) { if(s.collidesWith(w)) { gameover(); } } Am I simply over thinking this issue, should this just be chalked up to "it'll happen rare enough that no one will care"? Certainly looking at old sprite based games, I often find situations where the collision detection has subtle flaws, but I figure by now we can do better :-P. What are people's thoughts?

    Read the article

  • When to call glEnable(GL_FRAMEBUFFER_SRGB)?

    - by Steven Lu
    I have a rendering system where I draw to an FBO with a multisampled renderbuffer, then blit it to another FBO with a texture in order to resolve the samples in order to read off the texture to perform post-processing shading while drawing to the backbuffer (FBO index 0). Now I'd like to get some correct sRGB output... The problem is the behavior of the program is rather inconsistent between when I run it on OS X and Windows and this also changes depending on the machine: On Windows with the Intel HD 3000 it will not apply the sRGB nonlinearity but on my other machine with a Nvidia GTX 670 it does. On the Intel HD 3000 in OS X it will also apply it. So this probably means that I'm not setting my GL_FRAMEBUFFER_SRGB enable state at the right points in the program. However I can't seem to find any tutorials that actually tell me when I ought to enable it, they only ever mention that it's dead easy and comes at no performance cost. I am currently not loading in any textures so I haven't had a need to deal with linearizing their colors yet. To force the program to not simply spit back out the linear color values, what I have tried is simply comment out my glDisable(GL_FRAMEBUFFER_SRGB) line, which effectively means this setting is enabled for the entire pipeline, and I actually redundantly force it back on every frame. I don't know if this is correct or not. It certainly does apply a nonlinearization to the colors but I can't tell if this is getting applied twice (which would be bad). It could apply the gamma as I render to my first FBO. It could do it when I blit the first FBO to the second FBO. Why not? I've gone so far as to take screen shots of my final frame and compare raw pixel color values to the colors I set them to in the program: I set the input color to RGB(1,2,3) and the output is RGB(13,22,28). That seems like quite a lot of color compression at the low end and leads me to question if the gamma is getting applied multiple times. I have just now gone through the sRGB equation and I can verify that the conversion seems to be only applied once as linear 1/255, 2/255, and 3/255 do indeed map to sRGB 13/255, 22/255, and 28/255 using the equation 1.055*C^(1/2.4)+0.055. Given that the expansion is so large for these low color values it really should be obvious if the sRGB color transform is getting applied more than once. So, I still haven't determined what the right thing to do is. does glEnable(GL_FRAMEBUFFER_SRGB) only apply to the final framebuffer values, in which case I can just set this during my GL init routine and forget about it hereafter?

    Read the article

  • How do I stack images to simulate depth using Core Animation?

    - by Jeffrey Berthiaume
    I have a series of UIImages with which I need to simulate depth. I can't use scaling because I need to be able to rotate the parent view, and the images should look like they're stacked visibly in front of each other, not on the same plane. I made a new ViewController-based project and put this in the viewDidLoad (as well as attached three 120x120 pixel images named 1.png, 2.png, and 3.png): - (void)viewDidLoad { // display image 3 UIImageView *three = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"3.png"]]; three.center = CGPointMake(160 + 60, 240 - 60); [self.view addSubview:three]; // rotate image 3 around the z axis // THIS IS INCORRECT CATransform3D theTransform = three.layer.transform; theTransform.m34 = 1.0 / -1000; three.layer.transform = theTransform; // display image 2 UIImageView *two = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"2.png"]]; two.center = CGPointMake(160, 240); [self.view addSubview:two]; // display image 1 UIImageView *one = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"1.png"]]; one.center = CGPointMake(160 - 60, 240 + 60); [self.view addSubview:one]; // rotate image 3 around the z axis // THIS IS INCORRECT theTransform = one.layer.transform; theTransform.m34 = 1.0 / 1000; one.layer.transform = theTransform; // release the images [one release]; [two release]; [three release]; // rotate the parent view around the y axis theTransform = self.view.layer.transform; theTransform.m14 = 1.0 / -500; self.view.layer.transform = theTransform; [super viewDidLoad]; } I have very specific reasons why I'm not using an EAGLView and why I'm not loading the images as CALayers (i.e. why I'm using UIImageViews for each one). This is just a quick demo that I can use to work out exactly what I need in my parent application. Is there some matrix way to translate these 2d images along the z-axis so they will look like what I'm trying to represent? I've gone through the other StackOverflow articles as well as the Wikipedia references, and have not found what I'm looking for -- although I might not necessarily be using the right terms for what I'm trying to do.

    Read the article

  • How to resize an openGL window created with wglCreateContext?

    - by Nick
    Is it possible to resize an openGL window (or device context) created with wglCreateContext without disabling it? If so how? Right now I have a function which resizes the DC but the only way I could get it to work was to call DisableOpenGL and then re-enable. This causes any textures and other state changes to be lost. I would like to do this without the disable so that I do not have to go through the tedious task of recreating the openGL DC state. HWND hWnd; HDC hDC; void View_setSizeWin32(int width, int height) { // resize the window LPRECT rec = malloc(sizeof(RECT)); GetWindowRect(hWnd, rec); SetWindowPos( hWnd, HWND_TOP, rec->left, rec->top, rec->left+width, rec->left+height, SWP_NOMOVE ); free(rec); // sad panda DisableOpenGL( hWnd, hDC, hRC ); EnableOpenGL( hWnd, &hDC, &hRC ); glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); glLoadIdentity(); glOrtho(-(width/2), width/2, -(height/2), height/2, -1.0, 1.0); // have fun recreating the openGL state.... } void EnableOpenGL(HWND hWnd, HDC * hDC, HGLRC * hRC) { PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR pfd; int format; // get the device context (DC) *hDC = GetDC( hWnd ); // set the pixel format for the DC ZeroMemory( &pfd, sizeof( pfd ) ); pfd.nSize = sizeof( pfd ); pfd.nVersion = 1; pfd.dwFlags = PFD_DRAW_TO_WINDOW | PFD_SUPPORT_OPENGL | PFD_DOUBLEBUFFER; pfd.iPixelType = PFD_TYPE_RGBA; pfd.cColorBits = 24; pfd.cDepthBits = 16; pfd.iLayerType = PFD_MAIN_PLANE; format = ChoosePixelFormat( *hDC, &pfd ); SetPixelFormat( *hDC, format, &pfd ); // create and enable the render context (RC) *hRC = wglCreateContext( *hDC ); wglMakeCurrent( *hDC, *hRC ); } void DisableOpenGL(HWND hWnd, HDC hDC, HGLRC hRC) { wglMakeCurrent( NULL, NULL ); wglDeleteContext( hRC ); ReleaseDC( hWnd, hDC ); }

    Read the article

  • OpenGL, how to set a monochrome texture to a colored shape?

    - by Santiago
    I'm developing on Android with OpenGL ES, I draw some cubes and I change its colors with glColor4f. Now, what I want is to give a more realistic effect on the cubes, so I create a monochromatic 8bit depth, 64x64 pixel size PNG file. I loaded on a texture, and here is my problem, witch is the way to combine the color and the texture to get a colorized and textured cubes onto the screen? I'm not an expert on OpenGL, I tried this: On create: public void asignBitmap(GL10 gl, Bitmap bitmap) { int[] textures = new int[1]; gl.glGenTextures(1, textures, 0); mTexture = textures[0]; gl.glBindTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, mTexture); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL10.GL_NEAREST); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL10.GL_LINEAR); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL10.GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL10.GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE); gl.glTexEnvf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL10.GL_REPLACE); GLUtils.texImage2D(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL10.GL_ALPHA, bitmap, 0); ByteBuffer tbb = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(texCoords.length * 4); tbb.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder()); mTexBuffer = tbb.asFloatBuffer(); for (int i = 0; i < 48; i++) mTexBuffer.put(texCoords[i]); mTexBuffer.position(0); } And OnDraw: public void draw(GL10 gl, int alphawires) { gl.glColor4f(1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.5f); //RED gl.glBindTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, mTexture); gl.glBlendFunc(GL10.GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL10.GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA); gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D); gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_BLEND); gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); gl.glTexCoordPointer(2, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, mTexBuffer); //Set the face rotation gl.glFrontFace(GL10.GL_CW); //Point to our buffers gl.glVertexPointer(3, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, vertexBuffer); //Enable the vertex and color state gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); //Draw the vertices as triangles, based on the Index Buffer information gl.glDrawElements(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, 36, GL10.GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, indexBuffer); //Disable the client state before leaving gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); gl.glDisable(GL10.GL_BLEND); gl.glDisable(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D); } I'm even not sure if I have to use a blend option, because I don't need transparency, but is a plus :)

    Read the article

  • OpenGL, how to set a monocrome texture to a colored shape?

    - by Santiago
    I'm developing on Android with OpenGL ES, I draw some cubes and I change its colors with glColor4f. Now, what I want is to give a more realistic effect on the cubes, so I create a monochromatic 8bit depth, 64x64 pixel size PNG file. I loaded on a texture, and here is my problem, witch is the way to combine the color and the texture to get a colorized and textured cubes onto the screen? I'm not an expert on OpenGL, I tried this: On create: public void asignBitmap(GL10 gl, Bitmap bitmap) { int[] textures = new int[1]; gl.glGenTextures(1, textures, 0); mTexture = textures[0]; gl.glBindTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, mTexture); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL10.GL_NEAREST); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL10.GL_LINEAR); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL10.GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE); gl.glTexParameterf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL10.GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE); gl.glTexEnvf(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL10.GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL10.GL_REPLACE); GLUtils.texImage2D(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL10.GL_ALPHA, bitmap, 0); ByteBuffer tbb = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(texCoords.length * 4); tbb.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder()); mTexBuffer = tbb.asFloatBuffer(); for (int i = 0; i < 48; i++) mTexBuffer.put(texCoords[i]); mTexBuffer.position(0); } And OnDraw: public void draw(GL10 gl, int alphawires) { gl.glColor4f(1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.5f); //RED gl.glBindTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, mTexture); gl.glBlendFunc(GL10.GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL10.GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA); gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D); gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_BLEND); gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); gl.glTexCoordPointer(2, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, mTexBuffer); //Set the face rotation gl.glFrontFace(GL10.GL_CW); //Point to our buffers gl.glVertexPointer(3, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, vertexBuffer); //Enable the vertex and color state gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); //Draw the vertices as triangles, based on the Index Buffer information gl.glDrawElements(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, 36, GL10.GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, indexBuffer); //Disable the client state before leaving gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); gl.glDisable(GL10.GL_BLEND); gl.glDisable(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D); } I'm even not sure if I have to use a blend option, because I don't need transparency, but is a plus :) Thank's

    Read the article

  • OpenGL Coordinate system confusion

    - by user146780
    Maybe I set up GLUT wrong. Basically I want verticies to be reletive to their size in pixels. Ex:right now if I create a hexagon, it hakes up the whole screen even though the units are 6. #include <iostream> #include <stdlib.h> //Needed for "exit" function #include <cmath> //Include OpenGL header files, so that we can use OpenGL #ifdef __APPLE__ #include <OpenGL/OpenGL.h> #include <GLUT/glut.h> #else #include <GL/glut.h> #endif using namespace std; //Called when a key is pressed void handleKeypress(unsigned char key, //The key that was pressed int x, int y) { //The current mouse coordinates switch (key) { case 27: //Escape key exit(0); //Exit the program } } //Initializes 3D rendering void initRendering() { //Makes 3D drawing work when something is in front of something else glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST); } //Called when the window is resized void handleResize(int w, int h) { //Tell OpenGL how to convert from coordinates to pixel values glViewport(0, 0, w, h); glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); //Switch to setting the camera perspective //Set the camera perspective glLoadIdentity(); //Reset the camera gluPerspective(45.0, //The camera angle (double)w / (double)h, //The width-to-height ratio 1.0, //The near z clipping coordinate 200.0); //The far z clipping coordinate } //Draws the 3D scene void drawScene() { //Clear information from last draw glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glLoadIdentity(); //Reset the drawing perspective glPolygonMode(GL_FRONT_AND_BACK, GL_FILL); glBegin(GL_POLYGON); //Begin quadrilateral coordinates //Trapezoid glColor3f(255,0,0); for(int i = 0; i < 6; ++i) { glVertex2d(sin(i/6.0*2* 3.1415), cos(i/6.0*2* 3.1415)); } glEnd(); //End quadrilateral coordinates glutSwapBuffers(); //Send the 3D scene to the screen } int main(int argc, char** argv) { //Initialize GLUT glutInit(&argc, argv); glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_RGBA | GLUT_DEPTH); glutInitWindowSize(400, 400); //Set the window size //Create the window glutCreateWindow("Basic Shapes - videotutorialsrock.com"); initRendering(); //Initialize rendering //Set handler functions for drawing, keypresses, and window resizes glutDisplayFunc(drawScene); glutKeyboardFunc(handleKeypress); glutReshapeFunc(handleResize); glutMainLoop(); //Start the main loop. glutMainLoop doesn't return. return 0; //This line is never reached } How can I make it so that a polygon of 0,0 10,0 10,10 0,10 defines a polygon starting at the top left of the screen and is a width and height of 10 pixels? Thanks

    Read the article

  • Weird Datagrid / paint behaviour

    - by Shane.C
    The scenario: A method sends out a broadcast packet, and returned packets that are validated are deemed okay to be added as a row in my datagrid (The returned packets are from devices i want to add into my program). So for each packet returned, containing information about a device, i create a new row. This is done by first sending packets out, creating rows and adding them to a list of rows that are to be added, and then after 5 seconds (In which case all packets would have returned by then) i add the rows. Here's a few snippets of code. Here for each returned packet, i create a row and add it to a list; DataRow row = DGSource.NewRow(); row["Name"] = deviceName; row["Model"] = deviceModel; row["Location"] = deviceLocation; row["IP"] = finishedIP; row["MAC"] = finishedMac; row["Subnet"] = finishedSubnet; row["Gateway"] = finishedGateway; rowsToAdd.Add(row); Then when the timer elapses; void timerToAddRows_Elapsed(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e) { timerToAddRows.Enabled = false; try { int count = 0; foreach (DataRow rowToAdd in rowsToAdd) { DGSource.Rows.Add(rowToAdd); count++; } rowsToAdd.Clear(); DGAutoDevices.InvokeEx(f => DGAutoDevices.Refresh()); lblNumberFound.InvokeEx(f => lblNumberFound.Text = count + " new devices found."); } catch { } } So at this point, each row has been added, and i call the re paint, by doing refresh. (Note: i've also tried refreshing the form itself, no avail). However, when the datagrid shows the rows, the scroll bar / datagrid seems to have weird behavour..for example i can't highlight anything with clicks (It's set to full row selection), and the scroll bar looks like so; Calling refresh doesn't work, although if i resize the window even 1 pixel, or minimize and maximise, the problem is solved. Other things to note : The method that get's the packets and adds the rows to the list, and then from the list to the datagrid runs in it's own thread. Any ideas as to something i might be missing here?

    Read the article

  • Is there anything wrong with my texture loading method ?

    - by José Joel.
    I'm a noob in openGL and trying to learn as much as possible. I'm using this method to load my openGL textures, loading every .png as RGBA4444. I'm doing anything incorrect ? - (void)loadTexture:(NSString*)nombre { CGImageRef textureImage =[UIImage imageWithContentsOfFile:[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:nombre ofType:nil]].CGImage; if (textureImage == nil) { NSLog(@"Failed to load texture image"); return; } textureWidth = NextPowerOfTwo(CGImageGetWidth(textureImage)); textureHeight = NextPowerOfTwo(CGImageGetHeight(textureImage)); imageSizeX= CGImageGetWidth(textureImage); imageSizeY= CGImageGetHeight(textureImage); GLubyte *textureData = (GLubyte *)calloc(1,textureWidth * textureHeight * 4); // Por 4 pues cada pixel necesita 4 bytes, RGBA CGContextRef textureContext = CGBitmapContextCreate(textureData, textureWidth,textureHeight,8, textureWidth * 4,CGImageGetColorSpace(textureImage),kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast ); CGContextDrawImage(textureContext, CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, (float)textureWidth, (float)textureHeight), textureImage); //Convert "RRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAA" to "RRRRGGGGBBBBAAAA" void *tempData = malloc(textureWidth * textureHeight * 2); unsigned int* inPixel32 = (unsigned int*)textureData; unsigned short* outPixel16 = (unsigned short*)tempData; for(int i = 0; i < textureWidth * textureHeight ; ++i, ++inPixel32) *outPixel16++ = ((((*inPixel32 >> 0) & 0xFF) >> 4) << 12) | // R ((((*inPixel32 >> 8) & 0xFF) >> 4) << 8) | // G ((((*inPixel32 >> 16) & 0xFF) >> 4) << 4) | // B ((((*inPixel32 >> 24) & 0xFF) >> 4) << 0); // A free(textureData); textureData = tempData; CGContextRelease(textureContext); glGenTextures(1, &textures[0]); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, textures[0]); glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGBA, textureWidth, textureHeight, 0, GL_RGBA, GL_UNSIGNED_SHORT_4_4_4_4 , textureData); free(textureData); glTexParameterf(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexParameterf(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); } And this is my dealloc method: - (void)dealloc { glDeleteTextures(1,textures); [super dealloc]; }

    Read the article

  • Java - StackOverflow Error on recursive 2D boolean array method that shouldn't happen.

    - by David W.
    Hey everyone, I'm working on a runnable java applet that has a fill feature much like the fill method in drawing programs such as Microsoft Paint. This is how my filling method works: 1.) The applet gets the color that the user clicked on using .getRGB 2.) The applet creates a 2D boolean array of all the pixels in the window, with the value "true" if that pixel is the same color as the color clicked on or "false" if not. The point of this step is to keep the .getRGB method out of the recursive method to hopefully prevent this error. 3.) The applet recursively searches the 2D array of booleans where the user clicked, recording each adjacent point that is "true" in an ArrayList. The method then changes each point it records to false and continues. 4.) The applet paints every point stored in the ArrayList to a user selected color. All of the above steps work PERFECTLY if the user clicks within a small area, where only a few thousand pixels or so have their color changed. If the user selects a large area however (such as about 360,000 / the size of the applet window), the applet gets to the recursive stage and then outputs this error: Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-1" java.lang.StackOverflowError at java.util.ArrayList.add(ArrayList.java:351) at paint.recursiveSearch(paint.java:185) at paint.recursiveSearch(paint.java:190) at paint.recursiveSearch(paint.java:190) at paint.recursiveSearch(paint.java:190) at paint.recursiveSearch(paint.java:190) at paint.recursiveSearch(paint.java:190) at paint.recursiveSearch(paint.java:190) (continues for a few pages) Here is my recursive code: public void recursiveSearch(boolean [][] list, Point p){ if(isValid(p)){ if(list[(int)p.y][(int)p.x]){ fillPoints.add(p); list[(int)p.y][(int)p.x] = false; recursiveSearch(list, new Point(p.x-1,p.y));//Checks to the left recursiveSearch(list, new Point(p.x,p.y-1));//Checks above recursiveSearch(list, new Point(p.x+1,p.y));//Checks to the right recursiveSearch(list, new Point(p.x,p.y+1));//Checks below } } } Is there any way I can work around an error like this? I know that the loop will never go on forever, it just could take a lot of time. Thanks in advance.

    Read the article

  • glReadPixels() returning non-accurate value

    - by max
    I'm trying to implement the flood fill algorithm. But glReadPixels() is returning float RGB values of a pixel which are slightly different from the actual value set by me, causing the algorithm to fail. Why is this happening? Outputting returned RGB values to check. #include<iostream> #include<GL/glut.h> using namespace std; float boundaryColor[3]={0,0,0}, interiorColor[3]={0,0,0.5}, fillColor[3]={1,0,0}; float readPixel[3]; void init(void) { glClearColor(0,0,0.5,0); glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); gluOrtho2D(0,500,0,500); } void setPixel(int x,int y) { glColor3fv(fillColor); glBegin(GL_POINTS); glVertex2f(x,y); glEnd(); } void getPixel(int x, int y, float *color) { glReadPixels(x,y,1,1,GL_RGB,GL_FLOAT,color); } void floodFill(int x,int y) { getPixel(x,y,readPixel); //outputting values here to check cout<<readPixel[0]<<endl; cout<<readPixel[1]<<endl; cout<<readPixel[2]<<endl; if( readPixel[0]==interiorColor[0] && readPixel[1]==interiorColor[1] && readPixel[2]==interiorColor[2] ) { setPixel(x,y); floodFill(x+1,y); floodFill(x,y+1); floodFill(x-1,y); floodFill(x,y-1); } } void display() { glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); glColor3fv(boundaryColor); glLineWidth(3); glBegin(GL_LINE_STRIP); glVertex2i(150,150); glVertex2i(150,350); glVertex2i(350,350); glVertex2i(350,150); glVertex2i(150,150); glEnd(); floodFill(200,200); glFlush(); } int main(int argc,char** argv) { glutInit(&argc,argv); glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_SINGLE | GLUT_RGB); glutInitWindowPosition(100,100); glutInitWindowSize(500,500); glutCreateWindow("Flood fill"); init(); glutDisplayFunc(display); glutMainLoop(); }

    Read the article

  • Looking for some help working with premultiplied alpha

    - by user315142
    I am trying to update a source image with the contents of multiple destination images. From what I can tell using premultiplied alpha is the way to go with this, but I think I am doing something wrong (function below). the image I am starting with is initialized with all ARGB values set to 0. When I run the function once the resulting image looks great, but when I start compositing on any others all the pixels that have alpha information get really messed up. Does anyone know if I am doing something glaringly wrong or if there is something extra I need to do to modify the color values? void CompositeImage(unsigned char *src, unsigned char *dest, int srcW, int srcH){ int w = srcW; int h = srcH; int px0; int px1; int px2; int px3; int inverseAlpha; int r; int g; int b; int a; int y; int x; for (y = 0; y < h; y++) { for (x= 0; x< w*4; x+=4) { // pixel number px0 = (y*w*4) + x; px1 = (y*w*4) + (x+1); px2 = (y*w*4) + (x+2); px3 = (y*w*4) + (x+3); inverseAlpha = 1 - src[px3]; // create new values r = src[px0] + inverseAlpha * dest[px0]; g = src[px1] + inverseAlpha * dest[px1]; b = src[px2] + inverseAlpha * dest[px2]; a = src[px3] + inverseAlpha * dest[px3]; // update destination image dest[px0] = r; dest[px1] = g; dest[px2] = b; dest[px3] = a; } } }

    Read the article

  • Adaptive ADF/WebCenter template for the iPad

    - by Maiko Rocha
    One of my WebCenter Portal customers was asking about adaptive design with ADF/WebCenter Portal and how they could go about creating an adaptive iPad template for their WebCenter Portal application. They were looking not only for the out-of-the-box support for mobile Safari which is certified against PS5+ (11.1.1.6) for ADF/WebCenter - but also to create a specific template to streamline their workflow on the iPad. Seems like they wanted something in the lines of Yahoo! Mail provides for the iPad - so the example I will use is shamelessly inspired by Y! Mail's iPad UI.  But first, let's quickly understand how can we bake in some adaptive goodness into ADF Faces. First thing we need to understand is, yes, there are a couple of constraints that we will need to work around, namely, the use or layout managers and skins. Please also keep in mind that I'm not and I don't pretend to be a web designer, much less an UX specialist, so feel free to leave your thoughts on the matter in the comments section. Now, back to the limitations. Layout Managers ADF Faces layout managers create an abstraction on top of the generated HTML code for a page so a developer doesn't need to be worried about how to size and dimension the UI layout (eg, af:panelStretchLayout). Although layout managers are very helpful, in this specific situation we will need to know a little bit more of how the final HTML is being rendered so we can apply the CSS class accordingly and create transition containers where the media queries will be applied - now, if you're using 11gR2 (11.1.2.2.3) there's the new component af:panelGridLayout (here and here) that will greatly improve creating responsive templates and pages because it is based on the grid/fluid systems and will generate straight out to DIVs on your final page. For now, I'm limited to PS5 and the af:panelStretchLayout component as a starting point because that's the release my customer is on. Skins You won't be able to use media queries, or use anything with "@" notation on the skin CSS file - the skin pre-processor will remove all extraneous "@" from the CSS file. The solution is to split your CSS in two separate files: a skin CSS file and plain CSS where you will add the media queries. The issue here is that you won't be able to use media queries for any faces components. We can, though, still apply the media queries for the components like af:panelGroupLayout and af:panelBorderLayout through their styleClass property to enable these components to be responsive to to the iPad orientation, by changing its dimensions, font sizes, hide/show areas, etc. Difference between responsive and adaptive design The best definition of adaptive vs responsive web design I could find is this: “Responsive web design,” as coined by Ethan Marcotte, means “fluid grids, fluid images/media & media queries.” “Adaptive web design,” as I use it, is about creating interfaces that adapt to the user’s capabilities (in terms of both form and function). To me, “adaptive web design” is just another term for “progressive enhancement” of which responsive web design can (an often should) be an integral part, but is a more holistic approach to web design in that it also takes into account varying levels of markup, CSS, JavaScript and assistive technology support. Responsive/adapative web design is much more than slapping an HTML template with CSS around your content or application. The content and application themselves are part of your web design - in other words, a responsive template is just an afterthought if it is not originating from a responsive design the involves the whole web application/s. Tips on responsive / adapative design with ADF/WebCenter Some of the tips listed below were already mentioned in multiple blog posts about ADF layout and skinning, but it is still worth remembering: a simple guideline for ADF/WebCenter apps would be to first create a high-level group of devices, for example: smartphones, tablets,  and desktop. For each of these large groups, create the basic structure to provide responsiveness: a page template, a skin, and an external CSS: pagetemplate_smartphone.jspx, smartphone_skin.css, smartphone-responsive.css pagetemplate_tablet.jspx, tablet_skin.css, tablet-responsive.css pagetemplate_desktop.jspx, desktop_skin.css, desktop-responsive.css These three assets can be changed on the fly through an user-agent check on the server side, delivering the right UI to the right device. Within each of the assets, you can make fine adjustments for each subgroup of devices with media queries - for example, smart phones with different screen dimensions and pixel density. Having these three groups and the corresponding assets per group seem to be a good compromise between trying to put everything on a single set of assets - specially considering the constraints above - and going to the other side of the spectrum to create assets per discrete device (iPhone4, iPhone5, Nexus, S3, etc.). Keep in mind that these are my rules and are not in any shape or form a best practice - this is how it fits best for the scenarios I've been working with. If you need to use HTML tags on your page, surround them with af:group to protect the DOM structure For stretchable/fluid layouts: Use non-stretching containers: panelGroupLayout, panelBorderLayout, … panelBorderLayout can be used to approximate HTML table component To avoid multiple scroll bars, do not nest scrolling PanelGroupLayout components. Consider layout="vertical" For stretchable/fluid layouts: Most stretchable ADF components also work in flowing context with dimensionsFrom="auto" To stretch a component horizontally, use styleClass="AFStretchWidth" instead of  "width:100%" Skinning Don't use CSS3 @media, @import, animations, etc. on skin css files. They will be removed. CSS3 properties within a class (box-shadow, transition, etc.) work just fine. Consider resetting some skin classes to better control their rendering: body {color: inherit;font: inherit;} af|document {-tr-inhibit: all;} af|commandLink {-tr-inhibit: all;} af|goLink {-tr-inhibit: all;} af|inputText::content {font: inherit;} Specific meta tags and CSS properties: Use  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, minimum-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0"/> to avoid zooming (if you want) Use -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch to enable native momentum scrolling within overflown areas (here) Use text-rendering: optmizeLegibility to improve readability. (here) User text-overflow: ellipsis to gracefully crop overflown text. (here) The meta-tags are included in each and every page in the metaContainer facet of af:document tag. You can also use a javascript to inject the meta-tags from the template. For the purpose of the example, I wanted to use as few workarounds as possible.   The iPad template and sample application This sample application has been built as a WebCenter Portal application, but you will also be able to reuse the template and techniques on your vanilla ADF application. Keep in mind that I'm neither a designer nor a CSS specialist, so please don't bash me too much on the messy CSS file you'll find on the application.  I've extended the provided PreferencesBean class that comes with WebCenter Portal and added code to dinamically change the template and skin on the fly.   This is the sample application in landscape orientation: This is the sample application in portrait orientation - the left side menu hides automatically based on a CSS media query: Another screenshot with a skinned popup opened: This is a sample application for you to play with - ideally you shouldn't use it as a starting point. On the left side bar you will find links rendered from a WebCenter Portal navigation model - the link triggers a full request through an af:goLink, while the light blue PPR button triggers a PPR navigation. The dark blue toolbar buttons at the top don't have any function,while the Approve and Reject buttons show a skinned popup. The search box of course doesn't have any behavior attahed to it either. There's a known issue right now with some PPR calls that are randomly generating a 403 error redirecting to the login page - I didn't have time to investigate if this is iOS6 specific or not - if you have any insights please let me know your findings. You can download the sample here.

    Read the article

  • XNA Notes 010

    - by George Clingerman
    With GDC 2011 wrapping up there were a LOT of great interviews and posts with and about XNA and XBLIG and some of our more notorious developers. Definitely worth spending many, many hours watching, listening and reading all those. Very inspiring! Also, don’t forget to get signed up for Dream Build Play! And just as an early warning reminder do NOT, I repeat do NOT wait to submit your game the last day. There are major issues submitting the last day every year and you do not want all your hard work to be hanging on whether your entry actually went through in that last day. Plan on submitting a few days if not a week before. I’m serious, you’ll thank yourself later! Now on to what’s happening in the XNA community! Time Critical XNA News: PAX East Meet Up (really wish I was going!) http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/71921/439262.aspx Want to stay panicked about the countdown to Dream Build Play? Mike McLaughlin shares his DBP countdown clock http://twitter.com/#!/mikebmcl/status/44454458960252928 XNA Team: Nick Gravelyn Only needs less than 600 new users in his unique marketing plan for Pixel Man 2 http://nickgravelyn.com/pixelman2/ And hares his ad revenue numbers with his XNA WP7 games http://theoneswiththelight.com/2011/my-results-with-ad-revenue-for-wp7-games/ XNA MVPs: Andy “The ZMan” Dunn posts his 15,000th App Hub forum post and shares a few thoughts on the MVP summit http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/77625.aspx Chris Williams shares his thoughts on the MVP summit http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/03/07/144229.aspx XNA Developers: Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best games Wraps up GDC http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/gdc-2011-wrapped.html And shares the wonderful screenshots from Serious Sam. (I’m so jealous people at PAX East willl be playing a demo of this game!) http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/serious-sam-double-d.html James Silva of Ska Studios announces http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/09/vampire-smile-at-hotel-sierra/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/08/vengeance-begins-april-6th/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/04/good-morning-gato-52/ Michael McLaughlin writes an extremely useful set of tips for XNA WP7 developers http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/03/10/tips-for-xna-wp7-developers.aspx Robert Boyd “the one man XBLIG improving machine” posts his 9 tips for marketing an Xbox LIVE Indie Gam http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110309/7183/9_Tips_for_XBLIG_Marketing.php http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/77534/470586.aspx#470586 And shares his day by day experience at GDC this year http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7118/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_1.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7123/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_2.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110303/7129/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_3.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7133/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_4.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7160/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_5.php Phillipe Da Silva releases new IGF Pong Sample preview http://www.vimeo.com/20904070 Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): Gamergeddon posts XBox Indie Game Roundup for March 6th http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/03/06/xbox-indie-game-round-up-march-6th/ Dealspwn interviews FortressCraft developer Projector Games http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-minecraft-clones-venting-haters-part-1/ http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-part-2-trials-tribulations-indie-development/ Writings of Mass Destruction continues the Xbox LIVE Indie Game a day campaign, here’s his take on FishCraft (be sure to check out his other posts!) http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/03/05/day-116-fishcraft/ Tom Ogburn shares his GDC notes on the XBLIG panel jotted quickly while attending the panel http://twitter.com/#!/TOgburn/status/44454191028125696 http://www.starlitskygames.com/blogs/site_news/archive/2011/03/06/802.aspx Dave Voyles of Armless Octopus has crazy good coverage on XNA and Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers at GDC 2011. Interviews and articles all extremely well done! http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/06/gdc-2011-successful-indie-developers-share-insight-on-microsofts-self-publishing-service/ There’s honestly so many posts and interviews you should just hit his front page and scroll down through all of the latest ones. http://www.armlessoctopus.com/ GameMarx Episode 12 http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/27/ep-12-march-4-2011.aspx B.U.T.T.O.N now on Steam! http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/03/button_party_game_now_on_steam.php German Xbox Dashboard gets review program from GamePro http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/07/gamepo-indie-review-show-debuts-on-german-xbox-dashboard/ XboxIndies.com (one of the best XNA sites out there at this point!) continues to add review sites to it’s main review feed. (And don’t forget to play with that awesome XBLIG pivot control!) http://xboxindies.com/ Kris Steele of FunInfused Games shares early footage of his game World of Chalk http://twitter.com/#!/kriswd40/status/45007114371989504 Raymond Matthews of Darkstarmatryx reviews FunInfused Games Abduction Action http://www.darkstarmatryx.com/?p=264 TheVideoGamerRob reviews Zombie Football Carnage http://videogamerrob.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/xblig-review-zombie-football-carnage/ XBLIG Square Off Making the Jump to WP7 http://www.wp7connect.com/2011/03/08/xblig-square-off-will-make-the-jump-to-windows-phone/ Mommy’s Best Games making the news round with their Serious Sam announcement http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/09/serious-sam-gets-serious-indie-cred-with-new-indie-series/ Most quoted and linked XBLIG article of the week with the least amount of actual facts and reporting. Shared only because it makes me sad that this is the best coverage we get. (Hey reporters, there’s LOT and LOTS of XBLIG and XNA experts you can contact if you need to check up on facts or wonder why on questions like, Why can’t XBLIGs have Nazis? There’s actually a real answer for that..) http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/06/xblig-facts-nazi-killing-a-no-no-revenue-a-yes-yes/ XNA Development: Mort8088 has been in an XNA tutorial writing frenzy releasing 4 XNA 4.0 entry level tutorials this week! http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-0-intro/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-1-fonts/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-2-sprites/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-3-input-from-keyboard/ Interesting discussion on what it means to be a community (you do have to sign up to be a member of the XNA UK forums to read it...) http://twitter.com/#!/XNAUK/status/44705269254594560 Slyprid continues his incredible pace on Transmute and shares screens of his new Animation Builder http://twitter.com/#!/slyprid/status/45169271847911424 http://forgottenstarstudios.com/blog/ Philippe Da Silva wants to know who is using IGF for their games. If it’s you, drop him a note letting him know! http://twitter.com/#!/philippedasilva/status/44325893719588864 New Sunburn Video Tutorials released http://www.synapsegaming.com/blogs/fivesidedbarrel/archive/2011/03/07/new-documentation-video-tutorials.aspx Loading and rendering animated collada models using XNA 4.0 http://bunkernetz.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/loading-and-rendering-animated-collada-models-using-xna-4-0/ XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 6 Accelerometer Input http://buzzgamesnews.blogspot.com/2011/03/xna-for-silverlight-developers-part-6.html

    Read the article

  • I want to change DPI with Imagemagick without changing the actual byte-size of the image data

    - by user1694803
    I feel so horribly sorry that I have to ask this question here, but after hours of researching how to do an actually very simple task I'm still failing... In Gimp there is a very simple way to do what I want. I only have the German dialog installed but I'll try to translate it. I'm talking about going to "Picture-PrintingSize" and then adjusting the Values "X-Resolution" and "Y-Resolution" which are known to me as so called DPI values. You can also choose the format which by default is "Pixel/Inch". (In German the dialog is "Bild-Druckgröße" and there "X-Auflösung" and "Y-Auflösung") Ok, the values there are often "72" by default. When I change them to e.g. "300" this has the effect that the image stays the same on the computer, but if I print it, it will be smaller if you look at it, but all the details are still there, just smaller - it has a higher resolution on the printed paper (but smaller size... which is fine for me). I am often doing that when I am working with LaTeX, or to be exact with the command "pdflatex" on a recent Ubuntu-Machine. When I'm doing the above process with Gimp manually everything works just fine. The images will appear smaller in the resulting PDF but with high printing quality. What I am trying to do is to automate the process of going into Gimp and adjusting the DPI values. Since Imagemagick is known to be superb and I used it for many other tasks I tried to achieve my goal with this tool. But it does just not do what I want. After trying a lot of things I think this actually is be the command that should be my friend: convert input.png -density 300 output.png This should set the DPI to 300, as I can read everywhere in the web. It seems to work. When I check the file it stays the same. file input.png output.png input.png: PNG image data, 611 x 453, 8-bit grayscale, non-interlaced output.png: PNG image data, 611 x 453, 8-bit grayscale, non-interlaced When I use this command, it seems like it did what I wanted: identify -verbose output.png | grep 300 Resolution: 300x300 PNG:pHYs : x_res=300, y_res=300, units=0 (Funny enough, the same output comes for input.png which confuses me... so this might be the wrong parameters to watch?) But when I now render my TeX with "pdflatex" the image is still big and blurry. Also when I open the image with Gimp again the DPI values are set to "72" instead of "300". So there actually was no effect at all. Now what is the problem here. Am I getting something completely wrong? I can't be that wrong since everything works just fine with Gimp... Thanks for any help in this. I am also open to other automated solutions which are easily done on a Linux system...

    Read the article

  • Using Lightbox with _Screen

    Although, I have to admit that I discovered Bernard Bout's ideas and concepts about implementing a lightbox in Visual FoxPro quite a while ago, there was no "spare" time in active projects that allowed me to have a closer look into his solution(s). Luckily, these days I received a demand to focus a little bit more on this. This article describes the steps about how to integrate and make use of Bernard's lightbox class in combination with _Screen in Visual FoxPro. The requirement in this project was to be able to visually lock the whole application (_Screen area) and guide the user to an information that should not be ignored easily. Depending on the importance any current user activity should be interrupted and focus put onto the notification. Getting the "meat", eh, source code Please check out Bernard's blog on Foxite directly in order to get the latest and greatest version. As time of writing this article I use version 6.0 as described in this blog entry: The Fastest Lightbox Ever The Lightbox class is sub-classed from the imgCanvas class from the GdiPlusX project on VFPx and therefore you need to have the source code of GdiPlusX as well, and integrate it into your development environment. The version I use is available here: Release GDIPlusX 1.20 As soon as you open the bbGdiLightbox class the first it, VFP might ask you to update the reference to the gdiplusx.vcx. As we have the sources, no problem and you have access to Bernard's code. The class itself is pretty easy to understand, some properties that you do not need to change and three methods: Setup(), ShowLightbox() and BeforeDraw() The challenge - _Screen or not? Reading Bernard's article about the fastest lightbox ever, he states the following: "The class will only work on a form. It will not support any other containers" Really? And what about _Screen? Isn't that a form class, too? Yes, of course it is but nonetheless trying to use _Screen directly will fail. Well, let's have look at the code to see why: WITH This .Left = 0 .Top = 0 .Height = ThisForm.Height .Width = ThisForm.Width .ZOrder(0) .Visible = .F.ENDWITH During the setup of the lightbox as well as while capturing the image as replacement for your forms and controls, the object reference Thisform is used. Which is a little bit restrictive to my opinion but let's continue. The second issue lies in the method ShowLightbox() and introduced by the call of .Bitmap.FromScreen(): Lparameters tlVisiblilty* tlVisiblilty - show or hide (T/F)* grab a screen dump with controlsIF tlVisiblilty Local loCaptureBmp As xfcBitmap Local lnTitleHeight, lnLeftBorder, lnTopBorder, lcImage, loImage lnTitleHeight = IIF(ThisForm.TitleBar = 1,Sysmetric(9),0) lnLeftBorder = IIF(ThisForm.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(3)) lnTopBorder = IIF(ThisForm.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(4)) With _Screen.System.Drawing loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(ThisForm.HWnd,; lnLeftBorder,; lnTopBorder+lnTitleHeight,; ThisForm.Width ,; ThisForm.Height) ENDWITH * save it to a property This.capturebmp = loCaptureBmp ThisForm.SetAll("Visible",.F.) This.DraW() This.Visible = .T.ELSE ThisForm.SetAll("Visible",.T.) This.Visible = .F.ENDIF My first trials in using the class ended in an exception - GdiPlusError:OutOfMemory - thrown by the Bitmap object. Frankly speaking, this happened mainly because of my lack of knowledge about GdiPlusX. After reading some documentation, especially about the FromScreen() method I experimented a little bit. Capturing the visible area of _Screen actually was not the real problem but the dimensions I specified for the bitmap. The modifications - step by step First of all, it is to get rid of restrictive object references on Thisform and to change them into either This.Parent or more generic into This.oForm (even better: This.oControl). The Lightbox.Setup() method now sets the necessary object reference like so: *====================================================================* Initial setup* Default value: This.oControl = "This.Parent"* Alternative: This.oControl = "_Screen"*====================================================================With This .oControl = Evaluate(.oControl) If Vartype(.oControl) == T_OBJECT .Anchor = 0 .Left = 0 .Top = 0 .Width = .oControl.Width .Height = .oControl.Height .Anchor = 15 .ZOrder(0) .Visible = .F. EndIfEndwith Also, based on other developers' comments in Bernard articles on his lightbox concept and evolution I found the source code to handle the differences between a form and _Screen and goes into Lightbox.ShowLightbox() like this: *====================================================================* tlVisibility - show or hide (T/F)* grab a screen dump with controls*====================================================================Lparameters tlVisibility Local loControl m.loControl = This.oControl If m.tlVisibility Local loCaptureBmp As xfcBitmap Local lnTitleHeight, lnLeftBorder, lnTopBorder, lcImage, loImage lnTitleHeight = Iif(m.loControl.TitleBar = 1,Sysmetric(9),0) lnLeftBorder = Iif(m.loControl.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(3)) lnTopBorder = Iif(m.loControl.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(4)) With _Screen.System.Drawing If Upper(m.loControl.Name) == Upper("Screen") loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(m.loControl.HWnd) Else loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(m.loControl.HWnd,; lnLeftBorder,; lnTopBorder+lnTitleHeight,; m.loControl.Width ,; m.loControl.Height) EndIf Endwith * save it to a property This.CaptureBmp = loCaptureBmp m.loControl.SetAll("Visible",.F.) This.Draw() This.Visible = .T. Else This.CaptureBmp = .Null. m.loControl.SetAll("Visible",.T.) This.Visible = .F. Endif {loadposition content_adsense} Are we done? Almost... Although, Bernard says it clearly in his article: "Just drop the class on a form and call it as shown." It did not come clear to my mind in the first place with _Screen, but, yeah, he is right. Dropping the class on a form provides a permanent link between those two classes, it creates a valid This.Parent object reference. Bearing in mind that the lightbox class can not be "dropped" on the _Screen, we have to create the same type of binding during runtime execution like so: *====================================================================* Create global lightbox component*==================================================================== Local llOk, loException As Exception m.llOk = .F. m.loException = .Null. If Not Vartype(_Screen.Lightbox) == "O" Try _Screen.AddObject("Lightbox", "bbGdiLightbox") Catch To m.loException Assert .F. Message m.loException.Message EndTry EndIf m.llOk = (Vartype(_Screen.Lightbox) == "O")Return m.llOk Through runtime instantiation we create a valid binding to This.Parent in the lightbox object and the code works as expected with _Screen. Ease your life: Use properties instead of constants Having a closer look at the BeforeDraw() method might wet your appetite to simplify the code a little bit. Looking at the sample screenshots in Bernard's article you see several forms in different colors. This got me to modify the code like so: *====================================================================* Apply the actual lightbox effect on the captured bitmap.*====================================================================If Vartype(This.CaptureBmp) == T_OBJECT Local loGfx As xfcGraphics loGfx = This.oGfx With _Screen.System.Drawing loGfx.DrawImage(This.CaptureBmp,This.Rectangle,This.Rectangle,.GraphicsUnit.Pixel) * change the colours as needed here * possible colours are (220,128,0,0),(220,0,0,128) etc. loBrush = .SolidBrush.New(.Color.FromArgb( ; This.Opacity, .Color.FromRGB(This.BorderColor))) loGfx.FillRectangle(loBrush,This.Rectangle) EndwithEndif Create an additional property Opacity to specify the grade of translucency you would like to have without the need to change the code in each instance of the class. This way you only need to change the values of Opacity and BorderColor to tweak the appearance of your lightbox. This could be quite helpful to signalize different levels of importance (ie. green, yellow, orange, red, etc...) of notifications to the users of the application. Final thoughts Using the lightbox concept in combination with _Screen instead of forms is possible. Already Jim Wiggins comments in Bernard's article to loop through the _Screen.Forms collection in order to cascade the lightbox visibility to all active forms. Good idea. But honestly, I believe that instead of looping all forms one could use _Screen.SetAll("ShowLightbox", .T./.F., "Form") with Form.ShowLightbox_Access method to gain more speed. The modifications described above might provide even more features to your applications while consuming less resources and performance. Additionally, the restrictions to capture only forms does not exist anymore. Using _Screen you are able to capture and cover anything. The captured area of _Screen does not include any toolbars, docked windows, or menus. Therefore, it is advised to take this concept on a higher level and to combine it with additional classes that handle the state of toolbars, docked windows and menus. Which I did for the customer's project.

    Read the article

  • SSAO Distortion

    - by Robert Xu
    I'm currently (attempting) to add SSAO to my engine, except it's...not really work, to say the least. I use a deferred renderer to render my scene. I have four render targets: Albedo, Light, Normal, and Depth. Here are the parameters for all of them (Surface Format, Depth Format): Albedo: 32-bit ARGB, Depth24Stencil8 Light: 32-bit ARGB, None Normal: 32-bit ARGB, None Depth: 8-bit R (Single), Depth24Stencil8 To generate my random noise map for the SSAO, I do the following for each pixel in the noise map: Vector3 v3 = Vector3.Zero; double z = rand.NextDouble() * 2.0 - 1.0; double r = Math.Sqrt(1.0 - z * z); double angle = rand.NextDouble() * MathHelper.TwoPi; v3.X = (float)(r * Math.Cos(angle)); v3.Y = (float)(r * Math.Sin(angle)); v3.Z = (float)z; v3 += offset; v3 *= 0.5f; result[i] = new Color(v3); This is my GBuffer rendering effect: PixelInput RenderGBufferColorVertexShader(VertexInput input) { PixelInput pi = ( PixelInput ) 0; pi.Position = mul(input.Position, WorldViewProjection); pi.Normal = mul(input.Normal, WorldInverseTranspose); pi.Color = input.Color; pi.TPosition = pi.Position; pi.WPosition = input.Position; return pi; } GBufferTarget RenderGBufferColorPixelShader(PixelInput input) { GBufferTarget output = ( GBufferTarget ) 0; float3 position = input.TPosition.xyz / input.TPosition.w; output.Albedo = lerp(float4(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f), input.Color, ColorFactor); output.Normal = EncodeNormal(input.Normal); output.Depth = position.z; return output; } And here is the SSAO effect: float4 EncodeNormal(float3 normal) { return float4((normal.xyz * 0.5f) + 0.5f, 0.0f); } float3 DecodeNormal(float4 encoded) { return encoded * 2.0 - 1.0f; } float Intensity; float Size; float2 NoiseOffset; float4x4 ViewProjection; float4x4 ViewProjectionInverse; texture DepthMap; texture NormalMap; texture RandomMap; const float3 samples[16] = { float3(0.01537562, 0.01389096, 0.02276565), float3(-0.0332658, -0.2151698, -0.0660736), float3(-0.06420016, -0.1919067, 0.5329634), float3(-0.05896204, -0.04509097, -0.03611697), float3(-0.1302175, 0.01034653, 0.01543675), float3(0.3168565, -0.182557, -0.01421785), float3(-0.02134448, -0.1056605, 0.00576055), float3(-0.3502164, 0.281433, -0.2245609), float3(-0.00123525, 0.00151868, 0.02614773), float3(0.1814744, 0.05798516, -0.02362876), float3(0.07945167, -0.08302628, 0.4423518), float3(0.321987, -0.05670302, -0.05418307), float3(-0.00165138, -0.00410309, 0.00537362), float3(0.01687791, 0.03189049, -0.04060405), float3(-0.04335613, -0.00530749, 0.06443053), float3(0.8474263, -0.3590308, -0.02318038), }; sampler DepthSampler = sampler_state { Texture = DepthMap; MipFilter = Point; MinFilter = Point; MagFilter = Point; AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp; }; sampler NormalSampler = sampler_state { Texture = NormalMap; MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear; AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp; }; sampler RandomSampler = sampler_state { Texture = RandomMap; MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear; }; struct VertexInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TextureCoordinates : TEXCOORD0; }; struct PixelInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TextureCoordinates : TEXCOORD0; }; PixelInput SSAOVertexShader(VertexInput input) { PixelInput pi = ( PixelInput ) 0; pi.Position = input.Position; pi.TextureCoordinates = input.TextureCoordinates; return pi; } float3 GetXYZ(float2 uv) { float depth = tex2D(DepthSampler, uv); float2 xy = uv * 2.0f - 1.0f; xy.y *= -1; float4 p = float4(xy, depth, 1); float4 q = mul(p, ViewProjectionInverse); return q.xyz / q.w; } float3 GetNormal(float2 uv) { return DecodeNormal(tex2D(NormalSampler, uv)); } float4 SSAOPixelShader(PixelInput input) : COLOR0 { float depth = tex2D(DepthSampler, input.TextureCoordinates); float3 position = GetXYZ(input.TextureCoordinates); float3 normal = GetNormal(input.TextureCoordinates); float occlusion = 1.0f; float3 reflectionRay = DecodeNormal(tex2D(RandomSampler, input.TextureCoordinates + NoiseOffset)); for (int i = 0; i < 16; i++) { float3 sampleXYZ = position + reflect(samples[i], reflectionRay) * Size; float4 screenXYZW = mul(float4(sampleXYZ, 1.0f), ViewProjection); float3 screenXYZ = screenXYZW.xyz / screenXYZW.w; float2 sampleUV = float2(screenXYZ.x * 0.5f + 0.5f, 1.0f - (screenXYZ.y * 0.5f + 0.5f)); float frontMostDepthAtSample = tex2D(DepthSampler, sampleUV); if (frontMostDepthAtSample < screenXYZ.z) { occlusion -= 1.0f / 16.0f; } } return float4(occlusion * Intensity * float3(1.0, 1.0, 1.0), 1.0); } technique SSAO { pass Pass0 { VertexShader = compile vs_3_0 SSAOVertexShader(); PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 SSAOPixelShader(); } } However, when I use the effect, I get some pretty bad distortion: Here's the light map that goes with it -- is the static-like effect supposed to be like that? I've noticed that even if I'm looking at nothing, I still get the static-like effect. (you can see it in the screenshot; the top half doesn't have any geometry yet it still has the static-like effect) Also, does anyone have any advice on how to effectively debug shaders?

    Read the article

  • Developing with Fluid UI – The Fluid Home Page

    - by Dave Bain
    v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} The first place to start with Fluid UI is with the Fluid Home Page. Sometimes it’s referred to as the landing page, but it’s formally called the Fluid Home Page. It’s delivered with PeopleTools 8.54, and the nice thing about it is, it’s a component. That’s one thing you’ll discover with Fluid UI. Fluid UI is built int PeopleTools with Fluid UI. The Home Page is a component, the tiles or grouplets are group boxes, and the search and prompt pages are just pages. It makes it easy to find things, customize and brand the applications (and of course to see what’s going on) when you can open it in AppDesigner. To see what makes a component fluid, let’s start with the Fluid Home Page. It’s a component called PT_LANDINGPAGE. You can open it in AppDesigner and see what’s unique and different about Fluid UI. If you open the Component Properties dialog, you’ll see a new tab called Fluid On the Component Properties Fluid tab you’ll see the most important checkbox of all, Fluid Mode. That is the one flag that will tell PeopleSoft if the component is Fluid (responsive, dynamic layout) or classic (pixel perfect). Now that you know it’s a single flag, you know that a component can’t be both Fluid UI and Classic at the same time, it’s one or the other. There are some other interesting fields on this page. The Small Form Factor Optimized field tells us whether or not to display this on a small device (think smarphone). Header Toolbar Actions offer standard options that are set at the component level so you have complete control of the components header bar. You’ll notice that the PT_LANDINGPAGE has got some PostBuild PeopleCode. That’s to build the grouplets that are used to launch Fluid UI Pages (more about those later). Probably not a good idea to mess with that code! The next thing to look at is the Page Definition for the PT_LANDINGPAGE component. When you open the page PT_LANDINGPAGE it will look different than anything you’ve ever seen. You’re probably thinking “What’s up with all the group boxes”? That is where Fluid UI is so different. In classic PeopleSoft, you put a button, field, group, any control on a page and that’s where it shows up, no questions asked. With Fluid UI, everything is positioned relative to something else. That’s why there are so many containers (you know them as group boxes). They are UI objects that are used for dynamic positioning. The Fluid Home Page has some special behavior and special settings. The first is in the Web Profile Configuration settings (Main Menu->PeopleTools->Web Profile->Web Profile Configuration from the main menu). There are two checkboxes that control the behavior of Fluid UI. Disable Fluid Mode and Disable Fluid On Desktop. Disable Fluid Mode prevents any Fluid UI component from being run from this installation. This is a web profile setting for users that want to run later versions of PeopleTools but only want to run Classic PeopleSoft pages. The second setting, Disable Fluid On Desktop allows the Fluid UI to be run on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, but prevents Fluid UI from running on a desktop computer. Fluid UI settings are also make in My Personalizations (Main Menu->My Personalizations from the Main Menu), in the General Options section. In that section, each user has the choice to determine the home page for their desktop and for tablets. Now that you know the Fluid UI landing page is just a component, and the profile and personalization settings, you should be able to launch one. It’s pretty easy to add a menu using Structure and Content, just make sure the proper security is set up. You’ll have to run a Fluid UI supported browser in order to see it. Latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and IE will do. Check the certification page on MOS for all the details. When you open the first Fluid Landing Page, there’s not much there. Not to worry, we’ll get some content on it soon. Take a moment to navigate around and look at some of the header actions that were set up from the component properties. The home button takes you back to the classic system. You won’t see any notifications and the personalization doesn’t have any content to add. The NavBar icon on the top right has a lot of content, including a Navigator and Classic home. Spend some time looking through what’s available. Stay tuned for more. Next up is adding some content. Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

    Read the article

  • Goodbye my beloved Nexus One, hello Windows Phone 7

    - by George Clingerman
    Last night my wife’s Nexus One finally bit the dust. You may not know but I’ve been nursing her Nexus One one along for quite a while after her screen shattered. I was able to replace it on my own (go me!) but little quirks have been popping up and the phone was quickly deteriorating. Lately it’s been the power button. Wifey would often have to press the power button several times to get her phone to turn on and last night it just wouldn’t wake up again. I took it apart and tried my best to see if I could somehow make it live once again but no luck this time. It was finally ready to retire. We looked at first for a replacement phone for her but she wasn’t really seeing anything she liked. So I decided to make the ultimate sacrifice and offer up my much loved Nexus One and I would then get a new Windows Phone 7 device. I love T-Mobile for my service so my choices were immediately limited to basically just a single phone. The HTC HD7. I read reviews and they were all over the board from people loving to people hating the phone but I decided, hey, why not, let’s take this plunge. And I did. I’ve only had the phone for about two days now so below is my list of first reaction pros/cons. These are basically things I’ve missed or things I’ve noticed that I really like about my new Windows Phone. Cons: * No Google Talk – I used this a LOT on my Nexus. I’ve found an application called “Flory” but it’s just an ok substitute, not the same as the full featured GTalk I had on my Nexus. * Seesmic is limited– I loved the way Seesmic worked on my Nexus. It was my mobile twitter client of choice. Everything about it worked really well. On Windows Phone 7 it’s just ok. I don’t get notification of new tweets, it’s several clicks to even see a new tweet. It’s definitely got some more development before it has the same features as it did on my Nexus. * Buttons don’t give great feedback – I’d read this on the reviews about the HTC HD7 and I’m finding it true myself. Pressing the buttons on the side of the phone and the power button on the top is finicky and I have to be looking at my phone to make sure I actually got them to press. * Web browsing is slow – I’m not sure what’s up with this, I’m connected to my wireless network at my house but it’s noticeably slower on my WP7 device than my Nexus. I even switched back to verify and it’s definitely true. Retrieving tweets, hitting up the XNA forums and just general web activities are all much slower on my WP7. I can’t think of any reason this would be true but it almost seems like it’s not using my wireless for everything.   Pros: * It’s pretty – the phone is really gorgeous. I loved the form of my Nexus One by the HTC HD7 is just as pretty, maybe even prettier! It’s got a nice large, bright screen. It feels good in my hand. And it even has a little kickstand to set the phone up for movie watching. Definitely a gorgeous phone. * LIVE integration – I lost a lot of nice integration with Google services but I gained a lot of integration with LIVE services that I also use. Now I can see when I get new GMail messages AND Hotmail messages. And having the Xbox LIVE integration is admittedly cool as well. * Tile notification rock – The Windows Phone 7 commercials are TRYING to get this message out but they’re doing a really poor job of this. Tile notifications really do save you from your phone. I have a whole little mini-informational dashboard at a glance. I unlock my phone and at a glace I can see new IMs, new mail messages, software updates etc. All just letting me know in the tiles I have arranged. That’s pretty cool. * The interface works really well – I feel super hip and cool swiping and sliding things around on my Windows Phone 7. Everything works that way and it’s great and fast and really good looking. I’m all about me feeling cool. * I’m gaming more – I had gotten a few games on my Nexus One but there really weren’t a lot of good developers flocking to the service. Just browsing through the Windows Phone 7 marketplace I’m already seeing a ton of games I want to try and buy. And I sat down and bet Pixel Man 0 just yesterday on my phone. I’m already gaming more than I did on my Nexus One. * Netflix integration is fantastic - It works just like it does on my Xbox 360 and I love having this feature on my phone. * It’s basically a Zune – I’ve been taking my Zune to work and listening to music off of that while I code. I no longer need to take it with me, now I just sync songs onto my phone and it’s my new Zune. I freaking love that. One less device to carry around.   All in all my cons have really little to do with the phone (just the buttons and the web browsing) and more to do with the applications needing to catch up a bit to what I’m used to. And the Pros are things that ARE phone specific so I’m seeing that as a good sign that I’m going to be very happy with my Windows Phone 7. So Wifey is happy having her Nexus One again, I’m happy with my new Windows Phone 7. Life is good. Now I just need to make a game to pay for it….

    Read the article

  • Why Is Vertical Resolution Monitor Resolution so Often a Multiple of 360?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Stare at a list of monitor resolutions long enough and you might notice a pattern: many of the vertical resolutions, especially those of gaming or multimedia displays, are multiples of 360 (720, 1080, 1440, etc.) But why exactly is this the case? Is it arbitrary or is there something more at work? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Trojandestroy recently noticed something about his display interface and needs answers: YouTube recently added 1440p functionality, and for the first time I realized that all (most?) vertical resolutions are multiples of 360. Is this just because the smallest common resolution is 480×360, and it’s convenient to use multiples? (Not doubting that multiples are convenient.) And/or was that the first viewable/conveniently sized resolution, so hardware (TVs, monitors, etc) grew with 360 in mind? Taking it further, why not have a square resolution? Or something else unusual? (Assuming it’s usual enough that it’s viewable). Is it merely a pleasing-the-eye situation? So why have the display be a multiple of 360? The Answer SuperUser contributor User26129 offers us not just an answer as to why the numerical pattern exists but a history of screen design in the process: Alright, there are a couple of questions and a lot of factors here. Resolutions are a really interesting field of psychooptics meeting marketing. First of all, why are the vertical resolutions on youtube multiples of 360. This is of course just arbitrary, there is no real reason this is the case. The reason is that resolution here is not the limiting factor for Youtube videos – bandwidth is. Youtube has to re-encode every video that is uploaded a couple of times, and tries to use as little re-encoding formats/bitrates/resolutions as possible to cover all the different use cases. For low-res mobile devices they have 360×240, for higher res mobile there’s 480p, and for the computer crowd there is 360p for 2xISDN/multiuser landlines, 720p for DSL and 1080p for higher speed internet. For a while there were some other codecs than h.264, but these are slowly being phased out with h.264 having essentially ‘won’ the format war and all computers being outfitted with hardware codecs for this. Now, there is some interesting psychooptics going on as well. As I said: resolution isn’t everything. 720p with really strong compression can and will look worse than 240p at a very high bitrate. But on the other side of the spectrum: throwing more bits at a certain resolution doesn’t magically make it better beyond some point. There is an optimum here, which of course depends on both resolution and codec. In general: the optimal bitrate is actually proportional to the resolution. So the next question is: what kind of resolution steps make sense? Apparently, people need about a 2x increase in resolution to really see (and prefer) a marked difference. Anything less than that and many people will simply not bother with the higher bitrates, they’d rather use their bandwidth for other stuff. This has been researched quite a long time ago and is the big reason why we went from 720×576 (415kpix) to 1280×720 (922kpix), and then again from 1280×720 to 1920×1080 (2MP). Stuff in between is not a viable optimization target. And again, 1440P is about 3.7MP, another ~2x increase over HD. You will see a difference there. 4K is the next step after that. Next up is that magical number of 360 vertical pixels. Actually, the magic number is 120 or 128. All resolutions are some kind of multiple of 120 pixels nowadays, back in the day they used to be multiples of 128. This is something that just grew out of LCD panel industry. LCD panels use what are called line drivers, little chips that sit on the sides of your LCD screen that control how bright each subpixel is. Because historically, for reasons I don’t really know for sure, probably memory constraints, these multiple-of-128 or multiple-of-120 resolutions already existed, the industry standard line drivers became drivers with 360 line outputs (1 per subpixel). If you would tear down your 1920×1080 screen, I would be putting money on there being 16 line drivers on the top/bottom and 9 on one of the sides. Oh hey, that’s 16:9. Guess how obvious that resolution choice was back when 16:9 was ‘invented’. Then there’s the issue of aspect ratio. This is really a completely different field of psychology, but it boils down to: historically, people have believed and measured that we have a sort of wide-screen view of the world. Naturally, people believed that the most natural representation of data on a screen would be in a wide-screen view, and this is where the great anamorphic revolution of the ’60s came from when films were shot in ever wider aspect ratios. Since then, this kind of knowledge has been refined and mostly debunked. Yes, we do have a wide-angle view, but the area where we can actually see sharply – the center of our vision – is fairly round. Slightly elliptical and squashed, but not really more than about 4:3 or 3:2. So for detailed viewing, for instance for reading text on a screen, you can utilize most of your detail vision by employing an almost-square screen, a bit like the screens up to the mid-2000s. However, again this is not how marketing took it. Computers in ye olden days were used mostly for productivity and detailed work, but as they commoditized and as the computer as media consumption device evolved, people didn’t necessarily use their computer for work most of the time. They used it to watch media content: movies, television series and photos. And for that kind of viewing, you get the most ‘immersion factor’ if the screen fills as much of your vision (including your peripheral vision) as possible. Which means widescreen. But there’s more marketing still. When detail work was still an important factor, people cared about resolution. As many pixels as possible on the screen. SGI was selling almost-4K CRTs! The most optimal way to get the maximum amount of pixels out of a glass substrate is to cut it as square as possible. 1:1 or 4:3 screens have the most pixels per diagonal inch. But with displays becoming more consumery, inch-size became more important, not amount of pixels. And this is a completely different optimization target. To get the most diagonal inches out of a substrate, you want to make the screen as wide as possible. First we got 16:10, then 16:9 and there have been moderately successful panel manufacturers making 22:9 and 2:1 screens (like Philips). Even though pixel density and absolute resolution went down for a couple of years, inch-sizes went up and that’s what sold. Why buy a 19″ 1280×1024 when you can buy a 21″ 1366×768? Eh… I think that about covers all the major aspects here. There’s more of course; bandwidth limits of HDMI, DVI, DP and of course VGA played a role, and if you go back to the pre-2000s, graphics memory, in-computer bandwdith and simply the limits of commercially available RAMDACs played an important role. But for today’s considerations, this is about all you need to know. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.     

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64  | Next Page >