Re: Binary standards for images and sounds

[Mark Wedel <>]

 I have this further to say about the XPM image data:

 Even without the XPM library, it probably would not be difficult to
write code to interpert and XPM library.  The file I wrote to convert many
small programs to montage images (ie, a large XPM image) was not that
difficult, and handles the color information properly (ie, it does not
drop monochrome information).  The only thing that the xpmtopix program
lacks is multiple character depth on input or output.  That could
probably be added in without a lot of effort.

 And while the data is not compact for XPM files, it is very compressible.
You (Carl) have been talking about how the links wil be compressing the
text information.  The XPM data will be compressed just as nicely.

 Also, clients probably should not be requesting new image files all that
often.

 On the client side, after receiving the image in XPM format, the
client could write it out in whatever form suits its best (which would
mostly likely be its native format for that system type (on PC/mac systems
at least)).  In any proposed format for image data, this would likely
be done.

 Also, unless you have several image transmission formats (ie, different
depending on the depth of the image), you may not save much with a different
method.  XPM uses 8 bits per pixel, and that would probably be the same
for most any transmission method for color or greyscale systems.

 Also, the images need to be in an editable format at least at some stage.
If you send them down the line in some other format, that conversion from
XPM needs to be done someplace, and then the client converts the
transmitted format to something yet again.  Why not just let the client
convert the XPM image.

 The XPM library source is quite small (less than a 100K tar gzipped
file).  And for clients, much of that code would not be needed (ie,
reading from certain specific things or writing would not be needed.)
I think you (Carl) are greatly over estimating how difficult it would be to
write a program that converts from XPM format.

 --Mark