Re: Questions on FM

["Werner D. Streidt" <wstreidt@ngi.de>]

Hi Bill,

>I have one question:  Does FM allow multiple pass filters, where the first
>pass is used for gathering statistics of the image, and the second pass is
>used for the filtering?


%ffp

// Two pass filter demo
// Mirror horizontally first, then mirror vertically with the help of temp
buffer

ForEveryTile:
{

// Mirror horizontally and put mirrored image into temp buffer
for(x=0; x<X; x++)
for(y=0; y<Y; y++)
for(z=0; z<Z; z++)
        tset(x,y,z, src(X-x-1,y,z));

// Mirror the temp buffer vertically and put it in destination image
for(x=0; x<X; x++)
for(y=0; y<Y; y++)
for(z=0; z<Z; z++)
        pset(x,y,z, tget(x,Y-y-1,z));

return true;    // apply filter to image
}

Another example would be to read the info from the image, convolve it into
the temp buffer 1 (there are two temp buffers!), for example, do something
else with temp buffer and finally combine it with the original image data.

You could create a blurred shadow filter with this technique.

>that you get the idea.  When can we expect Book 3?
Good question. As you all know, the Getting Started manual (Book 1) is
finished. The User Guide (Book 2) is in the works. I have managed to finish
chapters 3 to 4 where the user interface design and the file i/o (save/load
filters and create standalone files) are explained. Appendix A is a
reference of all color names FM understands (e.g., DarkTurquoise, etc.),
Appendix B shows all Substrings and Escape Sequences that can be used in
text strings. Currently, I am working on chapter 2, which is the largest
chapter where the whole programming with FM is explained. I have just
started with it, so it's going to take a while. Alex will be informing you
about the newest User Guide versions.

The planned Reference Guide (Book 3) is not yet in the works (although it
maybe should've been the first manual). The User Guide is already kind of a
mixture between reference, a guide and tutorials in each chapter, which
should suffice for the moment.

There will be also a tutorial manual where different tutorials from
different authors (Alex, Alf and Ilya have written some tutorials, check out
FilterMeister's homepage) are included.

Greetings from Germany,

Wern