Graphics Programming

Above image was rendered from this iconic photo from the National Explorer.

I don't know anything about this subject. It's always interesting when people are passionate about things. Especially odd things that not many people know about. Is there a practical/commercial value to this program? Or is it mostly in the realm of art? I mean art can also be very commercial, but it's nice to find a practical niche for a product.

Like WB is mostly about art, but not only, there are practical benefits of being able to change font size, colors etc.

Anyway, good job. Those who know anything about lithography will probably appreciate it.

I guess it's an art thing. ;)   It's still used today (look at the portraits on US currency). I see a lot of other applications, from sandblast mask, etching, tattoo stencils, desktop publishing. Getting a '2 color' solution of a full color image suitable for different mediums (granite, wood, glass, skin) is rather tricky and having options for alternate styles is a good thing. I have not seen this style replicated (easily). I think this might be viable but maybe not.

Have you consider it being a plugin for PS or the ilks?? It may commercially viable. 

I do want to investigate creating a plugin for Adobe Photoshop, Corel Photo-Paint for bitmaps; Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, and AutoCAD for vector.

Also this style is used in stuff like this:

http://www.bicyclecards.com/product/bicycle-u-s-presidents-playing-cards/?sf85421289=1#filter

yes,it's very artistic.   

Contact Adobe and see what they say. At worst they'll say no. Worth a shot.

The screenshots are from a work in progress software application you're writing?

The top one is, yes. The second one is what output looks like in CorelDRAW. The software is approaching completion.

Dude this is amazing...
I did couple of skins here on wincustomize when i found myself more interested in photography.
Started out with a affordable camera and meanwhile use Pro gear.
Sometimes i wish to have a tool like this to play around with, that beeing said if you need someone for beta testing im here holding my arm up    gimme 

 

I will be looking for beta testers. Right now I'm adding as many halftoning effects that I can dream up. I figure the more things it can do, the better my chances are of actually selling it.

I tell my friends that I'm the guy who writes really cool software that no one would ever want. I am hoping to break out of that with this one.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing out there that does this.  You can approach this in Photoshop but it's convoluted and tedious.

My biggest fear is that if I show these big guys some of the stuff it can do, they just go ahead and write their own, leaving me with nothing for all the work I've done.

A copyright would not cover this sort of thing. I would probably need to patent the process... and that costs a ton.

That's a legitimate fear but if they had wanted to write a module like this themselves they would have already.  The plug-in idea someone suggested is a good one as it won't be seen as competition to the big guys.

My intent from the beginning was for this to be a tool to be used in conjunction with Illistrator / CorelDRAW / CAD. The plug-in thing would be perfect, but also having it run stand alone would be a big plus.

I might see about selling it myself once enough polish has been added, and it's gone through a successful beta. Possibly on Amazon ( as I don't want to be bothered with all the mucking about with running an eCommerce website, handling CC payments, etc.). There are a lot of options. Finding the one that works best for me will be the hard one. I could sell the source / project out right for a big bag of money and be done with it, or let a publisher sell it for me and they send me my cut, or I could try to sell it myself.

-----------------Patent rant-----------------------

If they do the work themselves, you can't really complain even if it sucks that they stole your idea. Being inspired is fair play, in fact it's how progress happen. Patents do nothing but hamper innovation. Only the big guys can afford to defend patents. Microsoft gets 10-15 bucks for every Android phone sold, because they have a patent for scrollbars (or something stupid like that). Anyway, meaningless patents that should never have been approved in the first place. Microsoft chose to not tax desktop Linux for scrollbars, because it would just look bad. How can you own an idea? It just shows how mean this world is. Steve Jobs had his end-of-page-bounce-back-animation patent that Samsung "stole". Samsung did copy Apple and they paid for it. What's wrong with copying I say? What's wrong with using the knowledge that already exists?

Then there is pure evil. Companies that want to patent seeds (food), DNA (babies?). Air and water are probably next.

The only legitimate patents that I can think of are related to brand names because it's like identity theft. You can't make computers with the Apple logo, that would be purposefully wanting to deceive people. Software licensing is a different topic. I feel it makes sense as long as reverse-engineering is allowed. Like React OS is reverse-engineering Windows XP/Server 2003.

----------------End patent rant------------------

Anyway, secrets are fair play. Guard your source code if you want to make money. Sometimes people are naive. Like the Apple developer who wanted his application in the Mac store. He had figured out how to sync OSX and iOS through wifi, when Apple only had USB-sync.

He submitted his source code to Apple, but his app was rejected for some reason. Apple did get back to him saying that they were impressed and that he was welcome to apply for a position at Apple. The developer didn't start working for Apple. Instead he found himself in the audience half a year later when Apple introduced the new big feature (wifi sync). Since he didn't work for Apple he couldn't know if it was his code that was being used. I guess he won't submit source code anymore.

Fair point. I have zero intention of releasing code, or even mentioning algorithms, until I have a truck load of money. You've restored my calm.

I've just spent the last few week coming up with a software activation system that I am happy with. I realize that no software is hacker proof, but I went to great lengths to make it a royal pain in the ass. lol.

I best describe it as a Rube Goldberg state machine interlaced into the workings of the application. haha.

that means you are ready for beta invites  :P send me one cant wait

I'll take a beta copy as well (use a timed license key).

Currently I have it rigger to run for 30 days before it either expires (and the Save function doesn't get hooked up any more) or you apply an activation key. It seems like standard fare for software these days.

I am currently typing up documentation for use in a little HTML based help viewer I put together. Once that's done, I need to put together a Inno installation process and it should be ready for testing. I do have one memory leak in the rendering engine but that is not a show stopper at this point. I will find it eventually. haha

I will keep all here in mind when it comes to testing. I imagine some skinners could make an old timey WindowBlind using it or something.

I still am unsure on what to do with it once it's ready for prime time; sell it outright to someone, or self publish (on Amazon or Steam).

Peace
Dan

What development system are you using?  VS usually helps out detecting the source of the memory leak.  I know, my software used to leak like a sieve.    

The first beta version is available on my website in the miscellaneous section at www.vtxemu.com.

It would be inapropriate to comment on it here (as it is not directly related to StarDock or it's products) but can be used in the creation of art assets for use with their products.

Anyone here is free to give it a spin. 30 day free trial. That should give us time to hammer out bugs and stuff. We can do another round at anytime before that if need be.

I am accepting open discussion about this beta on my VTX Facebook page.
Have fun, Make art!
Dan

for some strage reason i get 1.00 is an invalid float message whenever i try to open a image be it gif bmp jpeg.
Press OK to ignore and risk data corruption Press cancel to kill the program.
whenever i proceed there wont be any visual of the picture, only the Layer Color tab on the right will show the image under the Original state.
Any suggestions?