Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: oahvenla@vinkku.hut.fi (Osma Ahvenlampi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: SURVEY: Amiga picture viewers, version 2 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics Date: 15 Mar 1994 15:41:37 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 479 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <2m4kvh$mf7@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: oahvenla@vinkku.hut.fi (Osma Ahvenlampi) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: graphics, viewer, IFF, JPEG, GIF, freeware, shareware PRODUCT NAMES, AUTHOR INFORMATION, AVAILABILITY AIVE 1.0 by Laurent Vivier ALook 3.1 by Trevor Andrews Bview 1.06 by Joeri Alberty FastJPEG 1.10 by Christoph Feck FastView 2.01 by "KRUEMELMONSTER2000" GIF.datatype 39.3 by "Steve the G" GIF_view 4.4 by Lorenzo Musto HAMGIF 2.5 by Steven Bennett ILBM.datatype 40.2 by Commodore-Amiga, Inc. JPEG.datatype 39.1 by Steve Goddard Mostra 2.0 by Sebastiano Vigna MUGiff 1.4 by Mark Rose PPShow 4.0 by Nico Francois ShowGIF 1.01 by Christophe Passuello * ViewJpeg 1.0 beta by Viewtek 1.05 by Thomas Krehbiel VirtGIF 1.0 by Patrick Maloney VJPEG 0.01 by David Blevins ZGif 0.4 by Michael Zucchi ZGIF.datatype 39.7 by Michael Zucchi * ShowGIF is the CLI counterpart of FastGIF, a better known, GUI driven GIF viewer. ShowGIF is is distributed with FastGIF. All of the software in this review, with the exception of ILBM.datatype (a part of the AmigaDOS from version 3.0 upwards) is available on Aminet, the world wide network of ftp sites for Amiga software. For further information on Aminet, ftp to ftp.wustl.edu, directory /pub/aminet, and read the README file available there. BRIEF DESCRIPTION After getting a considerable amount of response from the quick and dirty picture viewer test I made a while ago, I decided a more thorough test would be in order. For this, a friend of mine was nice enough to loan me an A1200 so that I could include AGA specific software also. Thanks, Pekka! [MODERATOR'S NOTE: The original test was posted in c.s.a.reviews on 23 February 1994, and is found in our ftp archives in the file software/graphics/PictureViewerSurvey. - Dan] Only public domain, shareware, freeware and similar software is included, simply because I do not have access to enough commercial software, nor the time to learn to use it well enough to get a fair view of the capabilities. I felt that to avoid biasing, it would be better to restrict the test to freely available software. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS For more detailed information about the specific requirements of any of the programs, see their documentation. HARDWARE Some of the programs require the AGA chipset found on Amiga models A1200, A4000 and later. A few of the programs require a 68020 CPU or better. SOFTWARE Some of the programs require AmigaDOS version 2.0 or later, or, most notably in the case of the Datatypes, even AmigaDOS version 3.0 or later. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga A1200 Microbotics 1230XA, 50MHz 68030 board 2MB Chip RAM, 4MB Fast RAM 130MB hard drive Kickstart version 39.106, Workbench version 40.23 BACKGROUND The hardest part was deciding what to test. For reasons described above, I left all commercial software out of the test. None would have actually fit into the description of a "picture viewer" anyway, being complicated and feature-laden image conversion and manipulation software. Next, I decided, partly for the same reasons, to leave out all programs specifically made for image conversion and manipulation. So you won't find ADPro, ImageFX, ImageMaster, HamLabPlus, NETPBM, or any other similar programs here. Sorry. What was left after this was the relatively simple programs meant for displaying pictures in various formats. Note that most, if not all, of these programs sacrifice quality for speed, unlike the dedicated converter programs. This time, AGA modes were used where applicable, and if the program supported them. No extra ECS-specific tests were made. If a program had two versions, an AGA specific and an ECS specific, the AGA specific one was used. Most programs in the review have a command line interface only, with perhaps the capability to read the options from icon tooltypes also. All tests were made using the command line interface, except in the case of ViewJpeg, which had a GUI interface only (and a horrible file requester, something that was quite common in the AmigaDOS 1.3 days). Originally, I intended to test AIVE 1.0 also. During the testing, it produced lots of alerts and even crashes, and thus I had to leave it out. From what I did find out, it was exceptionally slow and supported a subset of IFF ILBM only, so I don't think dropping it from the review changed the results too much. TABLE OF FEATURES Program IFF IFF24 PCHG GIF JPEG Mode DT Multi Slide FReq AGA ============================================================== ALook O - O - - - - O O O - Bview O - - - - - - - - O O FastJPEG - - - - O O - O O O * FastView O - - - - - - O - O - GIF.dt - - - O - NA NA NA NA NA O GIF_view - - - O - - - - - - - HAMGIF - - - O - - - O O - - ILBM.dt O - - - - NA NA NA NA NA O JPEG.dt - - - - O NA NA NA NA NA X Mostra O - O - - O - O O O O MUGiff O - - - - - - O - O - PPShow O O O O O O O O O O O ShowGIF - - - O - - - O O - O ViewJpeg - - - - O - - - - O - Viewtek O O O O O O O O O O O VirtGIF - - - O - - - - - - - VJPEG - - - - O - - - - - - ZGif - - - O - - - O - - * ZGIF.dt - - - O - NA NA NA NA NA X Key: O The program has this feature. - The program does NOT have this feature. * A separate version of the program has this feature. X AGA is required to run this program. NA Not applicable. In particular, datatypes do not have a user interface of their own, but require a viewer that supports datatypes (such as MultiView) as a front-end. Explanation of the columns: - IFF, IFF24, GIF and JPEG are picture formats. PCHG is an extension of the IFF ILBM format with a multipalette chunk mostly usable for HAM pictures. - DT means the program can use Datatypes to display pictures. - Mode means support for manual screenmode selection from the Display Database. - Multi means capability of showing multiple files on one invocation. - Slide means basic slideshow support, such as looping through the pictures, showing a picture for a specified time, and hidden decompression while showing another picture. - FReq means the pictures can be selected from a file requester. - AGA means the program supports AGA modes. PICTURES USED IN TESTING Two pictures were used in the testing. For a color picture, I decided to use a 597x796x24 scan of a Boris Vallejo painting, available on ftp.funet.fi as /pub/pics/art/BorisVallejo/bv9.jpg. This picture was downscaled and converted with the NETPBM image conversion package to all the formats used in the test, with the exception of the HAM6 version, which was converted with HamLabPlus as a PCHG HAM (using 12 color registers in the slicing). For black and white, I used a 600x787x1 clip art collage GIF which I also converted to IFF. Pic# Description 1 597x796x24 color JPEG 2 597x796x8 grayscale JPEG 3 298x796x6 lores/laced sliced (12) PCHG HAM6 4 597x796x8 hires/laced HAM8 5 299x398x4 16 color IFF 6 299x398x8 256 color IFF 7 600x768x1 B/W IFF 8 299x398x4 16 color GIF 9 299x398x8 256 color GIF 10 600x768x1 B/W GIF 11 299x398x24 IFF24 SPEED OF THE PROGRAMS The timing of the programs was done using the Spy System 3 system performance monitor package, and the CPUTime command. This program runs the program given to it as a command line argument, and after the program has finished, reports the real time and CPU time taken by the program. In the following table I have listed the real time. While on first thought, CPU time might have been more truthful, it would have not included the time used to access the disk. Some of the programs use asynchronous file I/O, decompressing at the same time as reading from the disk, while others first read a bit, then decompress, read a bit more, etc. Given the same decompression routine, a program using asynchronous I/O can be significantly faster, although the CPU time taken would be the same. This is why real time is listed. See the end of this article for the listing of both real and CPU time. The times are in seconds, and include all initializations and cleaning up the program made before and after displaying the picture. If the program wasn't capable of exiting immediately after displaying the picture, the number includes the time it took me to press the mouse button, ESCAPE, ENTER, or whatever the program required to exit. Datatypes were timed using Viewtek with the DT option. It should be kept in mind that the times below are the results of one iteration only. That is, I tested the programs once. There might be random errors that repeated testing could have eliminated. This is especially true with the viewers that could not exit automatically, where my own reaction time might account for most of the time. The CPU time could be nearer to the truth in these cases. Program 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ALook - - 3.2 - 1.8 - 1.6 - - - - Bview - - - 7.4 2.7 - 2.6 - - - - FastJPEG 14.3 6.9 - - - - - - - - - FastView - - - - 7.9 - 3.6 - - - - GIF.dt - - - - - - - 3.1 4.7 4.5 - GIF_view - - - - - - - 14.3 17.9 19.1 - HAMGIF - - - - - - - 7.4 6.9 4.7 - ILBM.dt - - - 6.1 1.9 2.7 1.9 - - - - Mostra - - 2.7 5.8 1.4 2.2 1.2 - - - - MUGiff - - - - 5.0 - 2.4 - - - - PPShow 18.9 9.5 2.9 5.3 1.6 2.3 1.8 2.4 3.3 3.3 4.6 ShowGIF - - - - - - - 5.9 4.1 3.3 - ViewJpeg 57.9 24.1 - - - - - - - - - Viewtek 40.4 10.6 3.6 7.6 1.9 3.0 1.9 3.3 4.6 5.6 19.8 VirtGIF - - - - - - - 21.6 25.1 63.6 - VJPEG 123.6 * - - - - - - - - - ZGIF - - - - - - - 4.7 2.3 X - ZGIF.dt - - - - - - - 2.2 2.7 2.6 - * VJPEG crashed on a grayscale JPEG. X For some unknown reason, ZGif showed only a blank screen on the large black and white GIF. JPEG.datatype crashed for some unknown reason on every try. Others have reported it working, but I was not able to get it work. NOTES ON QUALITY My experience has been that on an ECS Amiga, FastJPEG produces by far the best result from a JPEG picture. In HAM8 mode on an AGA machine, the dithering is not that critical, and thus the difference in quality between FastJPEG and other JPEG viewers is less. FastJPEG also has a "dirty" option, which turns off dithering and speed up the displaying considerably. With this option, the resulting picture is very close to Viewtek quality. PPShow has a problem when rendering 24-bit to HAM. While this is only a marginal problem on HAM8, it shows up extremely clearly on ECS machines and HAM6 mode. The result is hard to describe, but diagonal and vertical lines of high contrast are messy. Some of the viewers convert 256 color GIFs to HAM6. This is a two-sided matter. While this is the only practical way of displaying the pictures in color on ECS machines, HAM6 resolution is not that good. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES I've collected here some notes that I felt might be of some use to the readers. Viewtek can show 256 color IFFs even on ECS Amigas. It will render them in HAM6 mode, and the result is identical to a 256 color GIF. In addition, it shows HAM8 pictures on ECS machines, but seems to simply strip two bitplanes out, and not do any rendering to HAM6. The result is quite weird looking. Gif_view, HAMGIF, VirtGIF and Viewtek show 256 color GIFs in HAM6 on ECS machines. Other GIF-capable viewers show them in 16 grayscales. Viewtek and PPShow can also play ANIMs. MICRO REVIEW In my opinion, the overall quality of a display viewer can be judged from three roughly equal parts: flexibility, speed, and display quality. What follows is a quick assessment of the viewers in this test in the comp.sys.amiga.reviews micro-review format. ALook | Trevor Andrews | *+ Bview | Joeri Alberty | *+ FastJPEG | Christoph Feck | **** FastView | "KRUEMELMONSTER 2000" | * GIF.datatype | "Steve the G" | **+ GIF_view | Lorenzo Musto | * HAMGIF | Steven Bennett | *+ ILBM.datatype | Commodore-Amiga, Inc. | *** Mostra | Sebastiano Vigna | *** MUGiff | Mark Rose | * PPShow | Nico Francois | ****+ ShowGIF | Christophe Passuello | **+ ViewJpeg | | * Viewtek | Thomas Krehbiel | ***+ VirtGIF | Patrick Maloney | * VJPEG | David Blevins | * ZGif | Michael Zucchi | **+ ZGIF.datatype | Michael Zucchi | **** CONCLUSIONS PPShow was great all around. You will probably want a fast viewer that can display a lot of things with good to reasonable quality, and PPShow fits the description. The JPEG and IFF24 display quality leave room for improvement, but both are fast. In case you're willing to use several viewers, I would recommend using FastJPEG for JPEGs. It is a bit faster than PPShow, and a lot better quality. If you happen to be a speed freak, or use a slow machine, you might want to consider using the ZGIF.datatype with PPShow for GIF pictures. Viewtek used to be the best all-around viewer available, and it still is quite nice. It has a lot of options, but suffers from number of bugs and chronic slowness. Personally, I'm surprised it is thought to be a fast viewer. SPECIAL NEWSFLASH FOR AMIGADOS 3.x USERS At the last moment, I decided to try Tron's PCX datatype (TPD.lha on Aminet) on a 256-color conversion of the JPEG used in the above tests. It is significantly faster than the other PCX Datatype (PCX.lha on Aminet) I've seen. The times to display the picture were 8.6 seconds (TPD) and 12.4 seconds (PCX). LOG OF THE TESTS The results of each test are given, with the picture number (see the PICTURES USED IN TESTING section, above) preceding each result. ALook 3: Real 00:00:03.202, PCPU 00:00:01.163, TCPU 00:00:01.163 5: Real 00:00:01.755, PCPU 00:00:00.824, TCPU 00:00:00.824 7: Real 00:00:01.594, PCPU 00:00:00.733, TCPU 00:00:00.733 Bview 4: Real 00:00:07.367, PCPU 00:00:02.377, TCPU 00:00:02.377 5: Real 00:00:02.735, PCPU 00:00:00.784, TCPU 00:00:00.784 7: Real 00:00:02.623, PCPU 00:00:00.722, TCPU 00:00:00.722 FastView 5: Real 00:00:07.910, PCPU 00:00:05.321, TCPU 00:00:05.321 7: Real 00:00:03.561, PCPU 00:00:02.449, TCPU 00:00:02.449 FastJPEG 1: Real 00:00:14.273, PCPU 00:00:12.610, TCPU 00:00:12.610 2: Real 00:00:06.888, PCPU 00:00:05.765, TCPU 00:00:05.765 Gif_view 8: Real 00:00:14.342, PCPU 00:00:03.799, TCPU 00:00:03.799 9: Real 00:00:17.904, PCPU 00:00:07.829, TCPU 00:00:07.829 10: Real 00:00:19.124, PCPU 00:00:10.081, TCPU 00:00:10.081 HAMGIF 8: Real 00:00:07.408, PCPU 00:00:06.327, TCPU 00:00:06.327 9: Real 00:00:06.868, PCPU 00:00:05.783, TCPU 00:00:05.783 10: Real 00:00:04.742, PCPU 00:00:03.918, TCPU 00:00:03.918 Mostra 3: Real 00:00:02.672, PCPU 00:00:00.738, TCPU 00:00:00.738 4: Real 00:00:05.813, PCPU 00:00:01.317, TCPU 00:00:01.317 5: Real 00:00:01.424, PCPU 00:00:00.378, TCPU 00:00:00.378 6: Real 00:00:02.238, PCPU 00:00:00.565, TCPU 00:00:00.565 7: Real 00:00:01.163, PCPU 00:00:00.294, TCPU 00:00:00.294 MUGiff 5: Real 00:00:05.040, PCPU 00:00:00.466, TCPU 00:00:00.466 7: Real 00:00:02.426, PCPU 00:00:00.414, TCPU 00:00:00.414 PPShow 1: Real 00:00:18.753, PCPU 00:00:16.895, TCPU 00:00:16.895 2: Real 00:00:09.490, PCPU 00:00:07.960, TCPU 00:00:07.960 3: Real 00:00:02.906, PCPU 00:00:00.885, TCPU 00:00:00.885 4: Real 00:00:05.348, PCPU 00:00:01.399, TCPU 00:00:01.399 5: Real 00:00:01.600, PCPU 00:00:00.519, TCPU 00:00:00.519 6: Real 00:00:02.298, PCPU 00:00:00.719, TCPU 00:00:00.719 7: Real 00:00:01.803, PCPU 00:00:00.503, TCPU 00:00:00.503 8: Real 00:00:02.364, PCPU 00:00:01.091, TCPU 00:00:01.091 9: Real 00:00:03.251, PCPU 00:00:01.774, TCPU 00:00:01.774 10: Real 00:00:03.265, PCPU 00:00:01.985, TCPU 00:00:01.985 11: Real 00:00:04.451, PCPU 00:00:01.873, TCPU 00:00:01.873 ShowGIF 8: Real 00:00:05.875, PCPU 00:00:00.631, TCPU 00:00:00.631 9: Real 00:00:04.128, PCPU 00:00:00.730, TCPU 00:00:00.730 10: Real 00:00:03.250, PCPU 00:00:00.831, TCPU 00:00:00.831 VirtGIF 8: Real 00:00:21.579, PCPU 00:00:15.867, TCPU 00:00:15.867 9: Real 00:00:25.079, PCPU 00:00:18.480, TCPU 00:00:18.480 10: Real 00:01:03.563, PCPU 00:00:53.264, TCPU 00:00:53.264 VJPEG 1: Real 00:02:03.594, PCPU 00:01:47.554, TCPU 00:01:47.554 2: VJPEG crashed on a grayscale JPEG Viewtek 1: Real 00:00:40.351, PCPU 00:00:37.964, TCPU 00:00:37.964 2: Real 00:00:10.576, PCPU 00:00:08.796, TCPU 00:00:08.796 3: Real 00:00:03.619, PCPU 00:00:01.126, TCPU 00:00:01.126 4: Real 00:00:07.555, PCPU 00:00:01.864, TCPU 00:00:01.864 5: Real 00:00:01.924, PCPU 00:00:00.564, TCPU 00:00:00.564 6: Real 00:00:02.957, PCPU 00:00:00.870, TCPU 00:00:00.870 7: Real 00:00:01.892, PCPU 00:00:00.554, TCPU 00:00:00.554 8: Real 00:00:03.300, PCPU 00:00:01.867, TCPU 00:00:01.867 9: Real 00:00:04.556, PCPU 00:00:02.858, TCPU 00:00:02.858 10: Real 00:00:05.630, PCPU 00:00:04.184, TCPU 00:00:04.184 11: Real 00:00:19.838, PCPU 00:00:15.922, TCPU 00:00:15.922 ZGif 8: Real 00:00:04.725, PCPU 00:00:00.620, TCPU 00:00:00.620 9: Real 00:00:02.326, PCPU 00:00:00.880, TCPU 00:00:00.880 10: for some reason, ZGif only showed a blank screen on this GIF ViewJpeg 1: Real 00:00:57.889, PCPU 00:00:48.617, TCPU 00:00:48.617 2: Real 00:00:24.114, PCPU 00:00:16.502, TCPU 00:00:16.502 JPEG.datatype crashed the test machine. The problem could not be found. GIF.datatype 8: Real 00:00:03.071, PCPU 00:00:01.867, TCPU 00:00:01.867 9: Real 00:00:04.690, PCPU 00:00:03.074, TCPU 00:00:03.074 10: Real 00:00:04.521, PCPU 00:00:03.185, TCPU 00:00:03.185 ZGIF.datatype 8: Real 00:00:02.157, PCPU 00:00:00.866, TCPU 00:00:00.866 9: Real 00:00:02.721, PCPU 00:00:01.295, TCPU 00:00:01.295 10: Real 00:00:02.591, PCPU 00:00:01.292, TCPU 00:00:01.292 ILBM.datatype 4: Real 00:00:06.051, PCPU 00:00:01.720, TCPU 00:00:02.211 5: Real 00:00:01.946, PCPU 00:00:00.563, TCPU 00:00:00.627 6: Real 00:00:02.657, PCPU 00:00:00.837, TCPU 00:00:00.963 7: Real 00:00:01.945, PCPU 00:00:00.552, TCPU 00:00:00.608 ---- 256 color 608x796 PCX picture: PCX.datatype Real 00:00:12.403, PCPU 00:00:08.577, TCPU 00:00:08.577 TPD.datatype Real 00:00:08.603, PCPU 00:00:05.658, TCPU 00:00:05.658 DISCLAIMER The author of this article cannot be held liable for any damage or loss that might result from this article. In case of doubt, interpret any information contained herein as lies and bad jokes. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION All tests made by Osma Ahvenlampi. This review is Copyright 1994 Osma Ahvenlampi. Distribution through any channels permitted. --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews