BMP2DAT News

Excuses...

I know the interface of BMP2DAT sucks, but I made minimal effort to make it look fancy. The same stands for this page.
The code was just rushed together with some stuff from a five years old never finished experiment called BMPin, because I just couldn't wait 'til someone else made a better one. It was never ment to be understood by anyone else but me.

Downloading

I don't think there will be so many "new versions" of this most temporary solution. I guess Steve Bliss has something much better going on, right? Anyway, here it is, BMP2DAT.ZIP

Commands

W Toggle between Windows palette and standard ega/vga palette. Sorry, no other palettes will work.

Z Set 'z' value:
-10 for bricks with one row of studs,
-20 for those with two rows,
zZz to be replaced later,
0 for stickers(maybe...?)

M for colour mode:
background -> 16
no background
all colours (must be at least one unused colour that the program can use to mark "scanned" areas)

0-9,A-F to select background colour AND to start convertion

ESC to quit program

How to create bitmaps of right size and palette

Try these templates in TEMPLTS1.ZIP:
templat1.bmp: 1x1 brick
templat2.bmp: 2x1 brick
templat3.bmp: 3x1 brick
templat4.bmp: 4x1 brick
templat6.bmp: 6x1 brick
templat8.bmp: 8x1 brick
t_slope2: slope on 2x2
(sorry, still 96dpi...)
Seems like a good idea to keep the ZIP file in case you forget to rename your work before you save.

FAQs

How to attach converted picture to brick

How the program works

Second thoughs...

Jeff Findley wrote this under the subject Re: Roadsigns thoughts:
In my limited experience using 3D CAD software to create a minifig, it was far easier to create the original image in a vector based drawing program (I used a 2D CAD software) to create a very nice looking display which I then captured into a bitmap image for use as a texture map in the 3D CAD model of a minifig. The vector based image had the advantage of being very easy to edit the image to a high level of accuracy. Unfortunately, the 3D CAD software could only apply bitmaps as surface textures.

However, in this case, we've already got a tool which understands vectors (L-draw), so for simple graphics, you might get better results for simple graphics by creating it by hand in an L-draw .dat file than you would by creating a bitmap image that will be converted into a bunch of square pseudo-pixels by running it through bmp2dat.

For scanned images or very large bitmaps (i.e. backgrounds), the bmp2dat route will be far faster than creating images by hand in L-draw's .dat format. The complexity in most scanned image isn't likely to be very easy to convert into a vector based .dat file.

I suppose this is a case of trying to select the right tool for the job. Hopefully this message is clear.

Tore: Yes, at least to me it's clear. (Since I have had thoughts in the same direction) There are advantages and drawbacks in either way we choose. As for the roadsigns, I think a synthesis may be the best compromise. But that's my opinion, and I may be proven wrong.

Email Address: tore.eriksson@mbox325.swipnet.se