                Image & Less Menus
                ------------------

These menus contain a variety of functions for modifying
images.


                Image Menu
                ----------

Most of these functions have the ability to perform image 
processing operations on an entire image or only part of 
an image.

To apply to only part of an image:

        1. Pick the "Select" icon (rectangle of dashed
           lines) in the paint control box.
        2. Place the mouse pointer in the upper left
           corner of the region of interest.
        3. Press and hold down the left mouse button.
        4. Drag the mouse pointer to the lower right
           corner of the region of interest.
        5. Finally release the mouse button.
        6. Pick a function from the Image or Less menu.

Mirror          - Reverses left and right.
Invert          - Reverses top and bottom.
Rotate          - Rotates image by 90 degrees.
Smooth          - Applies a low pass filter which blurs the 
                  image slightly
nois redUc      - Random Noise Reduction.
nois reduc      - Another Random Noise Reduction technique.
Negative        - Reverses colors, much like a photographic
                  negative.
luminance       - Converts to B+W image using a weighted 
                  average of Red, Green, and Blue components.
Red to gray     - B+W image from Red component only.
Green to gray   - B+W image from Green component only.
Blue to gray    - B+W image from Blue component only.
Pseudo color    - Converts brightness to a color of the 
                  rainbow for an interesting effect.

Fix Scottie     - A couple people implementing the Scottie modes   
                  missed a subtle point about the order of the
                  sync and RGB color components.  You will 
                  notice two problems when receiving pictures
                  from these systems.

                  (1) The timing relationship between the 
                      vertical sync (VIS) and the horizontal
                      sync is way off.  This will result in
                      the gray scale header display being torn
                      up.  Several scan lines are required to
                      get back in step.

                  (2) The red component is not aligned with
                      the green and blue components.  If an
                      image contained a white object on a 
                      black background you would see

                                red shadow
                                white object
                                  :
                                white object
                                cyan shadow

                      This menu item shifts the red component
                      down to line up properly with the others.

                  Pasokon TV is fully compatible with the 
                  original (Robot 1200C) implementation.

A region of the image must be selected before using these three
functions:

Zoom            - The selected region is expanded to fill
                  the entire image.

Shrink          - The whole image is shrunk to fit inside the
                  selected region.

Graph RGB       - Plots the red, green, and blue components
                  of the selected lines.

The final two items are used to combine 4 or 2 separate images
into a single image.  Selecting a region first makes no
difference.

4 into 1        - Shrinks four different images to half size and
                  combines them into one.  
                  When you pick this menu item the mouse cursor
                  changes to a square with the upper left 
                  quadrant transparent.
                  Click on one of the thumbnail of the image you
                  want to appear in the upper left quadrant.
                  The cursor changes so the upper right quadrant
                  is transparent.  Click on the thumbnail of
                  the image you want in this quadrant.  
                  Repeat this for two more images.

L+R into 3D     - Combines left and right eye views into a 
                  single 3D image for viewing with Red/Blue
                  glasses.  
                  The cursor changes to a pair of glasses with
                  a transparent left lense.  Click on the 
                  thumbnail for the left eye view.
                  The cursor changes to a pair of glasses with
                  a transparent right lense.  Click on the 
                  thumbnail for the right eye view.
                  The resulting image has the red component from
                  the left eye view and the blue from the right 
                  eye view.

                  Use this procedure to compose a 3D picture with
                  a TV camera:
                    1. Click on thumbnail 1.
                    2. Digitize image for left eye view.
                    3. Click on thumbnail 2.
                    4. Shift TV camera to right for different angle.
                    5. Digitize image for right eye view.
                    6. Click on thumbnail 3 for result destination.
                    7. Pick "L+R into 3D" from Image menu.
                    8. Click on thumbnail 1 then thumbnail 2.

   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -

                Less Menu
                ---------

The Less menu items are used to reduce the resolution or number
of colors in an image.

Pasokon TV stores images with 24 bits per pixel which allows
about 16 million different colors.  

The red, green, and blue components each have 8 bits.  This 
allows 256 different intensities for each of red, green, and 
blue.  256 x 256 x 256 is about 16 million.

Some people say you can't tell the difference between
32,000 and 16,000,000 colors.  Others might say there is a
world of difference.  Judge for yourself if your VGA display
adapter displays 16 million colors.

Seven menu items allow you to reduce the number of colors in
the current image.  If part of the image is selected, only  
that part of the image will be affected and the rest is left
alone.  If there is not a region selected, the entire image
is affected.

        Bits for        Shades of    Total 
        each of R,G,B     each       colors
        -------------   ---------   --------
           7               128      about 2 million
           6                64      about 250,000
           5                32       32,768
           4                16        4,096
           3                 8          512
           2                 4           64
           1                 2            8
        
        
The remaining menu items allow you to reduce the resolution        
of an image.  This is accomplished by replacing groups of 
pixels with the average of that group.  For example, the 
Quarter menu item will divide the image into 4 x 4 groups
of pixels and replace all in each group with the average
of the 16 in that group.

                        Reduce by     Effective
        Menu item       Factor        Resolution
        ---------       ------        ----------
          Half            2            320 x 240
          Quarter         4            160 x 120
          Eigth           8             80 x 60
          Sixteenth      16             40 x 30

This can produce some interesting special effects when applied
to part of an image but not the rest.  For example, try
selecting a person's face and picking Eigth to protect his/her
identity.  
