Re: FM+SGML: slow screen redraw

[Jay Smith <jay@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark,

Your slow screen redraw problem is probably because 1) you are using
TIFFs and 2) you did not mention it, but if you are working over a
network, and the TIFFs are on the server, that will do it too.

We do not use TIFFs for two reasons; this is one of them.  (The other
reason is that most/every program interprets the TIFF image data and
does so potentially differently; thus the same image *might* print
differently from application to application or version to version.)

For ALL our images we use EPS format files with a 1-bit preview.  EPS
is a file format, not just a type of image (i.e. not just vector). 
(Most/all [?] applications only read the EPS header and preview data
and do *not* interpret the image data.)

EPS files tend to be twice the size of TIFFs, thus there is a bit of a
problem there.  However, in my opinion, you will have more consistent
image appearance over time.  Also, the 1-bit previews write to the
screen very quickly -- though they look terrible.  For our purpose,
the important thing is to know the size and to be able to generally
tell that it is a picture of a person and not a horse (or whatever).

If EPS is not a satisfactory answer, then you will have to have your
images on a local hard disk and pay some money for the biggest,
fastest graphics card you can find -- with a huge amount of memory. 
Also, the fastest internal (bus?) speed of the computer for
communications between the graphics card and the main board -- double
that and you *may* halve your redraw time.

I am also sending (to you only; others by request) a bit that I wrote
on benefits and drawbacks of using EPS images.

-- 
Jay Smith

e-mail: jay@jaysmith.com

The Press for History(tm), The Press for Education(tm), 
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mark barratt wrote:
> 
> I have a series of SGML jobs used to produce (among other things)
> full-colour printed brochures with colour photos.
> 
> The pics are held as CMYK TIFFs, imported by reference, each pic is between
> 4Mb and 8Mb in size. This makes for cruelly slow screen updates (several
> orders of magnitude slower than opening the same pics in a Quark Xpress
> file, for instance).This in turn makes the 'cycle time' for checking
> WYSIWYG pages or doing small corrections very silly.
> 
> Any ideas, other than improving hardware, network and server performance?
> 
> I thought maybe using DCS-format pics might help, because they use a
> (smaller) preview file?
> 
> BTW: the screen redraw time problem is common on the platforms we use (Mac
> and Win95) and the versions of Frame (vanilla and +SGML).
> 
> And happy new year...
> 
> ____________
> Mark Barratt
> Text Matters
> 37 Upper Redlands Road,            Information design:
>   Reading RG1 5JE, UK              We help explain things using
> phone +44 (0)118 986 8313          .language
> fax   +44 (0)118 931 3743          .design
> email markb@textmatters.com        .systems
> web   http://www.textmatters.com   .process

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