Documentation for
Picnic -
Preview Release


Table of Contents


Preface

Picnic is a combined image processing and paint program. It enables you to paint pictures as well as doing image processing operations on the painted regions. This is a preview release. Lots of features are missing, and there are (probably) lots of bugs. Use it at your own risk.

Picnic supports datatypes loading, png-saving, unlimited Undo, magnified edit etc. All operations are performed by add-ons. There are currently three different types of add-ons:

Currently only some primitives and operators are implemented, no brushes.

Below you will find examples of what can be done with Picnic.


Original Image


Different operations performed on image.

All the source code for this program will be released as soon as it is cleaned up a bit.


Instructions

When you start Picnic, you will be presented with the tool window (shown below). To open a picture, either drop a file onto the tool window, or click for the popup menu in the big grey area of the tool window.


Tool window

Drawing

As soon as a picture is opened, or a new fresh painting is opened, you can start drawing into it. Drawing is done by selecting a primitive from the tool Window, and then drawing in a paint window. While drawing, the affected area will be negated. Since this is a preview release, the operation window looks like shit, but you will have to live with it for now. You can select a primitive in the upper combo-box. The primitives are described in the next section. To select the operator that will be used on the painted region, use the lower combo-box. The initial operator is "Paint", which is normal opaque painting. You can select the painting color in the color-control view.

Zooming

In the lower left corner of the window you select the zoom of the picture. Just click the widget to test it out.

Undo

Undo is possible for every operation. Just select Undo from the Edit menu. Currently there is a fixed limit on ten levels of undo, or five megabytes of undo memory, whichever comes first. This will of course be configurable in the future.

Resize

A picture can be resized by selecting Resize from the Edit menu. You will be presented with a resize window, which enables you to select a new width and height.


Primitives

I haven't got time to write documentations right now. You will just have to test them out for yourself.


Operators

Lots of cool operators available. Waves and Fisheye are ported from gimp. The rest have been programmed by Peder. Most operators will have a config window in the future.

Be aware that some of the operators are not intended to be stand alone operators. Displace, Filter and Offset are only meant to be used by other operators. Through our (powerful) add-on interface, operators can use other operators to perform operations. For instance: The Emboss operator uses three operators to create an embossed region (Grayscale, Negate and Offset).


Brushes

Currently there is no support for brushes. Expect Airbrush, Crayon and lots of other fancy brushes in the future.


Future work

Phew... Where should I start? Lots of GUI-stuff; more add-ons; brushes; better gimp-support to make gimp-plugin-porting easier, +++
The source code will soon be released to enable others to create add-ons.


License

Picnic is copyright © 1998 by Prodigal Software. All rights reserved. Prodigal software are:

Feel free to contact us for any reason.

Permission is granted to download, uncompress, untar, install, execute, move, rename, trash, and delete Picnic. No warranty is made for this software - all usage is done at ones own risk.

Postcard-ware

Picnic is postcard-ware. After the massive amounts of postcards received for the Prodigal VRML Viewer, we try this success again :-). Postcard-ware means that if you like what you see, send a postal card (an email would be way too easy) to
Peder Blekken
Selsbakk Øvre 5
N-7027 Trondheim
NORWAY
and/or
Lars Joergen Aas
Bjoernebyeveien 1
N-7026 Trondheim
NORWAY
with some greetings from your home town.


[Ugly documentation was mostly scribbled down by Peder]