From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Feb 10 14:03:19 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1863516A4CF; Thu, 10 Feb 2005 14:03:19 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtpq3.home.nl (smtpq3.home.nl [213.51.128.198]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6984043D5C; Thu, 10 Feb 2005 14:03:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dodell@sitetronics.com) Received: from [213.51.128.136] (port=39041 helo=smtp5.home.nl) by smtpq3.home.nl with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1CzEub-0005gh-GE; Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:03:17 +0100 Received: from cc740438-a.deven1.ov.home.nl ([82.72.18.239]:33889 helo=192.168.1.104) by smtp5.home.nl with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1CzEuZ-0004VJ-NB; Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:03:15 +0100 From: "Devon H. O'Dell" To: Erich Dollansky In-Reply-To: <420B6081.30206@pacific.net.sg> References: <200502091349.00708.algould@datawok.com> <200502092210.39490.algould@datawok.com> <1054192109.20050210101652@wanadoo.fr> <420B6081.30206@pacific.net.sg> Content-Type: text/plain Organization: SiteTronics Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:03:15 +0100 Message-Id: <1108044195.5517.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.0.2 (2.0.2-3) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-AtHome-MailScanner-Information: Please contact support@home.nl for more information X-AtHome-MailScanner: Found to be clean cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Logo Contest X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 14:03:19 -0000 [In reply to the huge number of misguided messages that have been rolling into my Inbox through last night and all of today.] I don't understand why you people are still battling on the subject. Some less-than-smart person has also started up an online petition which has gotten tons of people who DO NOT understand the situation to sign said petition. First: this is about PRINTING. What happens when you print any of the currently available FreeBSD logos? I'll tell you. Before going into this, I think I should explain a couple things about the press and about computer art. I'm sure some of you know this, but it is very apparent that some of you couldn't identify a raster image from a hole in the ground. When printing _any_ sort of art, there are certain things that need to be kept in mind. I'm keeping this simple. Do not get pedantic on me about this. First, I'd like to explain how things get printed on large media (large posters, signs, etc). Even some T-Shirt companies print their shirts this way. When printing on such media, you work with silk screens, conveniently named ``silkscreens.'' When printing, these screens are used to layer colors. Only one color can be printed at a time. When you print a Beastie that has 5 colors (using the EPS version as an example -- 5 colors because you don't have to print white), each color has to be pressed through the screen in a separate process. You can re-use screens across media. Thus, if you want to print 1,000 posters with the EPS of Beastie, you need to have 5 screens, and some poor worker (believe me, this is still hand-done in most places) has to print various parts of Beastie 5,000 times. What's the difference between raster and vector art? Raster art is what you usually see on the web. Files in GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP and other similar formats are all raster graphics. This basically means that the image is defined based on color values at certain pixels. Various formats have various ways to compress this, but that's basically how they all work. Vector art makes use of (unsurprisingly) vectors to determine how the image should be shown. The image is stored as mathematical data which describes where and how bezier curves should be formed, where lines are. Color can be added simply by giving these vectors a color property. If a shape is closed, you can even give it a fill. Indeed, you can even fill non-closed shapes by inferring their area based upon various different algorithms. The difference between raster and vector art is that rasterized images are generally only good for viewing on-screen. Unless your rasterized image is at a high quality with a high DPI, you can't do very much resizing without losing substantial quality (usually you can make them smaller and maintain a good quality, but making them larger usually removes quality directly). This is why you can't really enlarge digital photos and why when taking good pictures with a digital camera requires a camera with a high resolution. On the other hand, vector art can be resized to any size and maintain its original quality. So, when you get down to it, you really need to realize the problems: o The number of colors. The more colors an image has, the more it costs to print, for obvious reasons. The current FreeBSD logo not only makes use of a rasterized version of Beastie that is difficult to print at a high resolution, the text is beveled. There are tons of colors that would have to be removed or changed to print this on large media. Additionally, the raster would have to be traced, since I know of no raster version of Beastie that's larger than about 1200px wide. Printing the current logo is too expensive. o The ability to be resized. Even if this was traced by a program such as Inkscape (which makes use of some other tracing program, so I'm giving credit to the wrong place, sorry), there would be a substantial amount of quality lost. I know, because tracing even a small image (320x240) with a high number of scans (say 50) eats up about 500 MB RAM and comes close to hanging my dual P3 800. It might be doable at a reasonable speed on a AMD64 machine with 2 gigs of RAM; I wouldnt' be surprised if it wasn't. Converting the logo to something printable is too much of a PITA. o If we use the current vector version (the EPS version available in /usr/share/examples/BSD_daemon), we're losing a lot. It's not very detailed, it's not very pretty, and it still uses 5 colors, which is pretty expensive to print. o If we use either, you have to understand that either version is a bitch to print at a small size (for letterhead). The EPS is not well detailed, and the raster version still uses a lot of red ink :). The raster isn't very clear when printed in black and white, and the EPS still isn't pretty. This isn't about removing Beastie from FreeBSD. This is about a professional logo that can be easily printed on a wide variety of media including your computer screen, the head of your legal pads / A4s, a t- shirt, or a light tube for the side of a building. The fact that the accepted logo should be designed to not depict subjects which might be construed as harassing to another's beliefs, etc. is a perk. Not a pitfall. I plan to contribute. Kind regards, Devon H. O'Dell