TweetFollow Us on Twitter

Pictures
Volume Number:2
Issue Number:4
Column Tag:Toolbox Notes

On the nature of Pictures

By Chris Derossi, Chief Wizard, MacTutor Contributing Editor

A Quick Note on Pictures

This article has two puposes. The first is to more fully explain the information contained in Macintosh Technical Note #21; that is, the QuickDraw internal encoded picture format. The second bit of information concerns two problems which I have found relating to QuickDraw pictures.

To begin, let's go over the process of creating a picture. When you call OpenPicture, QuickDraw allocates a new handle, stores some initial data there, sets the picSave field for the current port, calls HidePen, and returns the new handle. The initial data consists of the length, rectangle, version, and clipping region of the picture.

When you then proceed to draw, calling QuickDraw with various artistic requests, QuickDraw notes that there is an open picture because of the valid picSave handle. Because of this, QuickDraw translates your request into its own picture shorthand, and appends this information to the picture data. The length information at the beginning of the picture data is increased to reflect the new data. Since HidePen had been called, none of this shows up on the screen. (Unless, of course, you have called ShowPen without a balancing call to HidePen.)

Finally, you call ClosePicture which calls ShowPen, places an end-of-picture marker in the picture data, and sets the picSave field to NIL.

Now, let's go through some picture data byte by byte. The first two bytes of information are the length, which represent the length of ALL of the data, including the length bytes themselves. Next are eight bytes (4 words/Integers) of rectangle information (top, left, bottom, right). This is the rectangle which was passed as the parameter to OpenPicture. Following this are the picture opcodes and their data.

A picture opcode is a single byte which tells QuickDraw to do something, or how to interpret some amount of additional data. The length and composition of the data following the opcode depends on the opcode itself. The first opcode in a picture is always $11 which represents "Version". This opcode has one byte of data which represents the version number. Whenever QuickDraw encounters $11, it knows to treat the next byte as the version number, and to skip over it to get to the next opcode. Opcodes and their data are packed together. That is, immediately following an opcode and its data is the next opcode.

After the version, there may be any number of QuickDraw opcodes. The last opcode in a picture is always $FF which stands for "End-of-Picture". Data after this opcode is ignored. (Under normal circumstances, there won't be any further data.)

If the picture was created in the usual manner (i.e. with OpenPicture instead of generating the picture data some other way) then the next opcode is $01 which is "ClipRgn". The data following this opcode is a region, the first word of which is the length of the region. Normally, it will look something like the data in Figure 1. When you call OpenPicture, the region is copied from the current port's clipping region.

Most of the opcodes are pretty straightforward. Some, however, could use a little explanation. Most of the verb-object calls have a corresponding verbSameobject call. The latter simply uses the last explicit data (be it a Rect, RRect, etc) from a prior call for its own argument. For example, if you wanted to do a paintRect (opcode $31) on a rectangle with coordinates (0, 0, 45, 45) and then invertRect the same rectangle, the resultant picture data would look like that in Figure 2.

Instead of passing the fill pattern as an argument each time as in the QuickDraw call, pictures use the concept of a 'current' fill pattern which the TechNote calls "thePat". (This is analagous to the current pen pattern.) To fill several Rects with the same pattern, there would be one opcode to set thePat ($0A), and then several fillRect opcodes and their respective rectangles. (Figure 3).

Because simple lines and text are so common, there are several versions of each so that QuickDraw can use the version that takes the least amount of space. Lines come in two sizes: regular and short. Short lines have vertical and horizontal lengths which can be represented by a single byte (-128 to 127). The horizontal and vertical lengths are then used instead of the line endpoint. Both line and short line (opcodes $20 and $22) also include the starting endpoint. The remaining two line opcodes ($21 and $23) start the line from the current pen location, which could have been set by previous line or text drawing.

If text is to be drawn only a short distance from the current pen location, QuickDraw uses opcodes $29, $2A, or $2B to move the pen horizontally, vertically, or both before drawing the text. If the starting location for the text is too distant to represent with single byte offsets, opcode $28 is used, and the actual point at which to draw the text is specified.

The last 'gotcha', and the first problem I'd like to discuss both concern the SetOrigin call, which is opcode $0C. This opcode takes four bytes (two words/Integers) as arguments. BUT, the two words do not represent the actual origin that you specified with the SetOrigin call; Instead, they are the offset from the current origin to the new one.

For example, if you were at origin (0,0) and you made a SetOrigin(15,10) call, the picture data would be $0C $00 $0F $00 $0A. More importantly, if you were in a situation where the origin was unknown, you might be inclined to call SetOrigin(0, 0) before performing any drawing. This can have some unexpected side effects. Consider the following scenario:

Your code does not know where the origin is, so it calls SetOrigin(0, 0). Let us say that the origin was in fact at (15, 10). QuickDraw would record an origin change of -15, -10 ($0C $FF $F1 $FF $F6). Then you do your drawing and close the picture.

Now, since you didn't make any more SetOrigin calls, you know that the origin is at (0, 0), which is where you want it to be. So you call DrawPicture. QuickDraw would then come across the $0C opcode and changes the origin to (-15, -10), and your drawing would be in the wrong place! The way to avoid this problem is to call SetOrigin before you open the picture, and again before you draw the picture.

The technique of changing picture origins has a use, for example, in printing, when you want to draw a very large picture. You can simply originate different areas of the picture over the 'printer paper' port and draw the picture. In this way, you can print your large picture on several pieces of paper. Moving pictures around is also a nice way to show different parts of a picture in response to a scroll bar; You only have to generate the display once, and just draw the picture with offsets based on the scroll bar values.

But a common occurrance while doing this is to have the picture vanish when it is drawn at any location other than the one where it was created. The reason for this is simple but elusive.

Recall that when you call OpenPicture, QuickDraw copies the clipping region of the port into the picture data. Well, a newly created port has a very large clipping region, specifically, a rectangle with coordinates (-32767, -32767, 32767, 32767). In hexadecimal, those coordinates translate to ($8001, $8001, $7FFF, $7FFF).

If you offset the picture rectangle just one pixel to the right, QuickDraw re-calculates all of the coordinates in the picture data, including those of the clipping region. But, if you add 1 to $8001, you get $8002 (which is -32766) and 1 + $7FFF is $8000 (decimal -32768). This leaves you with coordinates of (-32767, -32766, 32767, -32768) for the clipping rectangle. This is an empty rectangle because the right side is less than the left side. The whole picture gets clipped!

The solution to this problem is as easy as the solution to the last one: Set your clipping region before you open your picture. You can keep the clipping region very large, but stay away from the values that come close to hex $8000. Such is life with finite mathematics.

I hope this has helped to shed some light on your use of pictures. Used intelligently, they can save you from redrawing the same things again and again. As a side note, if you are interested in pictures and the LaserWriter, you should see TechNote #27: The MacDraw Picture Format.

Ciao.

________________________________________________________________________________

Macintosh Technical Notes

#21: Quickdraw's Internal Picture Definition

See also: QuickDraw

Programming in Assembly Language

Written by: Ginger Jernigan April 24, 1985

__________________________________________________________________________________

This technote describes the internal format of the QuickDraw picture data structure.

__________________________________________________________________________________

This technote describes the long awaited internal definition of the QuickDraw picture. The information given here is meant for DEBUGGING PURPOSES ONLY. It is NOT useful in writing your own picture bottleneck procedures. The reason is that if we add new objects to the picture definition, your program will not be able to operate on pictures created using standard QuickDraw. Your program will not know the size of the new objects and will, therefore, not be able to proceed past the new objects. (What this ultimately means is that pictures will not be downward compatible; you can't process a new picture with a old bottleneck proc.)

Before listing the opcodes a little information is in order. An "opcode" is a number that DrawPicture, for example, uses to determine how to draw that particular object in the picture, and how much data is associated with it. The following list gives the opcode, the name of the object, the associated data, and the total size, in bytes, of the opcode and associated data. To better interpret the sizes, please refer to page 4 in Programming in Assembly Language. For types not described there, here is a quick list:

opcode 1 byte

point long

0..255 1 byte

-128..127 1 byte

rect 8 bytes

poly 11+ bytes

region 10+ bytes

fixed point number long

pattern 8 bytes

Each picture definition begins with a picsize (word), then a picframe (rect), and then the picture definition, which consists of a combination of the following opcodes:

Opcode Name Additional Data Total Size (bytes)

00 NOP none 1

01 clipRgn rgn 1+rgn

02 bkPat pattern 9

03 txFont font (word) 3

04 txFace face (byte) 2

05 txMode mode (word) 3

06 spExtra extra (fixed point) 5

07 pnSize pnSize (point) 5

08 pnMode mode (word) 3

09 pnPat pattern 9

0A thePat pattern 9

0B ovSize point 5

0C origin dh, dv (word) 5

0D txSize size (word) 3

0E fgColor color (long) 5

0F bkColor color (long) 5

10 txRatio numer (point), denom (point) 9

11 picVersion version (byte) 2

20 line pnLoc ( point ), newPt ( point ) 9

21 line from newPt ( point ) 5

22 short line pnLoc ( point ), dh, dv (-128..127) 7

23 short line from dh, dv (-128..127) 3

28 long text txLoc ( point ), count (0..255), text 6+text

29 DH text dh (0..255), count (0..255), text 3+text

2A DV text dv (0..255), count (0..255), text 3+text

2B DHDV text dh, dv (0..255), count (0..255), text 4+text

30 frameRect rect 9

31 paintRect rect 9

32 eraseRect rect 9

33 invertRect rect 9

34 fillRect rect 9

38 frameSameRect rect 1

39 paintSameRect rect 1

3A eraseSameRect rect 1

3B invertSameRect rect 1

3C fillSameRect rect 1

40 frameRRect rect 9

41 paintRRect rect 9

42 eraseRRect rect 9

43 invertRRect rect 9

44 fillRRect rect 9

48 frameSameRRect rect 1

49 paintSameRRect rect 1

4A eraseSameRRect rect 1

4B invertSameRRect rect 1

4C fillSameRRect rect 1

50 frameOval rect 9

51 paintOval rect 9

52 eraseOval rect 9

53 invertOval rect 9

54 fillOval rect 9

58 frameSameOval rect 1

59 paintSameOval rect 1

5A eraseSameOval rect 1

5B invertSameOval rect 1

5C fillSameOval rect 1

60 frameArc rect 9

61 paintArc rect 9

62 eraseArc rect 9

63 invertArc rect 9

64 fillArc rect 9

68 frameSameArc rect 1

69 paintSameArc rect 1

6A eraseSameArc rect 1

6B invertSameArc rect 1

6C fillSameArc rect 1

70 framePoly poly 1+poly

71 paintPoly poly 1+poly

72 erasePoly poly 1+poly

73 invertPoly poly 1+poly

74 fillPoly poly 1+poly

78 frameSamePoly (not yet implemented) 1

79 paintSamePoly (not yet implemented) 1

7A eraseSamePoly (not yet implemented) 1

7B invertSamePoly (not yet implemented) 1

7C fillSamePoly (not yet implemented) 1

80 frameRgn rgn 1+rgn

81 paintRgn rgn 1+rgn

82 eraseRgn rgn 1+rgn

83 invertRgn rgn 1+rgn

84 fillRgn rgn 1+rgn

88 frameSameRgn (not yet implemented) 1

89 paintSameRgn (not yet implemented) 1

8A eraseSameRgn (not yet implemented) 1

8B invertSameRgn (not yet implemented) 1

8C fillSameRgn (not yet implemented) 1

90 BitsRect rowBytes, bounds, srcRect, dstRect, mode, 30+unpacked

byteCount, unpacked bitData bitData

91 BitsRgn rowBytes, bounds, srcRect, dstRect, mode, 30+rgn+

maskRgn, byteCount, unpacked bitData bitData

98 PackBitsRect rowBytes, bounds, srcRect, dstRect, mode, 30+packed

byteCount, packed bitData bitData

99 PackBitsRgn rowBytes, bounds, srcRect, dstRect, mode, 30+rgn+

maskRgn, byteCount, packed bitData packed bitData

A0 shortComment kind(word) 3

A1 longComment kind(word), size(word), data 5+data

FF EndOfPicture none 1

 

Community Search:
MacTech Search:

Software Updates via MacUpdate

Latest Forum Discussions

See All

Top Mobile Game Discounts
Every day, we pick out a curated list of the best mobile discounts on the App Store and post them here. This list won't be comprehensive, but it every game on it is recommended. Feel free to check out the coverage we did on them in the links... | Read more »
Price of Glory unleashes its 1.4 Alpha u...
As much as we all probably dislike Maths as a subject, we do have to hand it to geometry for giving us the good old Hexgrid, home of some of the best strategy games. One such example, Price of Glory, has dropped its 1.4 Alpha update, stocked full... | Read more »
The SLC 2025 kicks off this month to cro...
Ever since the Solo Leveling: Arise Championship 2025 was announced, I have been looking forward to it. The promotional clip they released a month or two back showed crowds going absolutely nuts for the previous competitions, so imagine the... | Read more »
Dive into some early Magicpunk fun as Cr...
Excellent news for fans of steampunk and magic; the Precursor Test for Magicpunk MMORPG Crystal of Atlan opens today. This rather fancy way of saying beta test will remain open until March 5th and is available for PC - boo - and Android devices -... | Read more »
Prepare to get your mind melted as Evang...
If you are a fan of sci-fi shooters and incredibly weird, mind-bending anime series, then you are in for a treat, as Goddess of Victory: Nikke is gearing up for its second collaboration with Evangelion. We were also treated to an upcoming... | Read more »
Square Enix gives with one hand and slap...
We have something of a mixed bag coming over from Square Enix HQ today. Two of their mobile games are revelling in life with new events keeping them alive, whilst another has been thrown onto the ever-growing discard pile Square is building. I... | Read more »
Let the world burn as you have some fest...
It is time to leave the world burning once again as you take a much-needed break from that whole “hero” lark and enjoy some celebrations in Genshin Impact. Version 5.4, Moonlight Amidst Dreams, will see you in Inazuma to attend the Mikawa Flower... | Read more »
Full Moon Over the Abyssal Sea lands on...
Aether Gazer has announced its latest major update, and it is one of the loveliest event names I have ever heard. Full Moon Over the Abyssal Sea is an amazing name, and it comes loaded with two side stories, a new S-grade Modifier, and some fancy... | Read more »
Open your own eatery for all the forest...
Very important question; when you read the title Zoo Restaurant, do you also immediately think of running a restaurant in which you cook Zoo animals as the course? I will just assume yes. Anyway, come June 23rd we will all be able to start up our... | Read more »
Crystal of Atlan opens registration for...
Nuverse was prominently featured in the last month for all the wrong reasons with the USA TikTok debacle, but now it is putting all that behind it and preparing for the Crystal of Atlan beta test. Taking place between February 18th and March 5th,... | Read more »

Price Scanner via MacPrices.net

AT&T is offering a 65% discount on the ne...
AT&T is offering the new iPhone 16e for up to 65% off their monthly finance fee with 36-months of service. No trade-in is required. Discount is applied via monthly bill credits over the 36 month... Read more
Use this code to get a free iPhone 13 at Visi...
For a limited time, use code SWEETDEAL to get a free 128GB iPhone 13 Visible, Verizon’s low-cost wireless cell service, Visible. Deal is valid when you purchase the Visible+ annual plan. Free... Read more
M4 Mac minis on sale for $50-$80 off MSRP at...
B&H Photo has M4 Mac minis in stock and on sale right now for $50 to $80 off Apple’s MSRP, each including free 1-2 day shipping to most US addresses: – M4 Mac mini (16GB/256GB): $549, $50 off... Read more
Buy an iPhone 16 at Boost Mobile and get one...
Boost Mobile, an MVNO using AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks, is offering one year of free Unlimited service with the purchase of any iPhone 16. Purchase the iPhone at standard MSRP, and then choose... Read more
Get an iPhone 15 for only $299 at Boost Mobil...
Boost Mobile, an MVNO using AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks, is offering the 128GB iPhone 15 for $299.99 including service with their Unlimited Premium plan (50GB of premium data, $60/month), or $20... Read more
Unreal Mobile is offering $100 off any new iP...
Unreal Mobile, an MVNO using AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks, is offering a $100 discount on any new iPhone with service. This includes new iPhone 16 models as well as iPhone 15, 14, 13, and SE... Read more
Apple drops prices on clearance iPhone 14 mod...
With today’s introduction of the new iPhone 16e, Apple has discontinued the iPhone 14, 14 Pro, and SE. In response, Apple has dropped prices on unlocked, Certified Refurbished, iPhone 14 models to a... Read more
B&H has 16-inch M4 Max MacBook Pros on sa...
B&H Photo is offering a $360-$410 discount on new 16-inch MacBook Pros with M4 Max CPUs right now. B&H offers free 1-2 day shipping to most US addresses: – 16″ M4 Max MacBook Pro (36GB/1TB/... Read more
Amazon is offering a $100 discount on the M4...
Amazon has the M4 Pro Mac mini discounted $100 off MSRP right now. Shipping is free. Their price is the lowest currently available for this popular mini: – Mac mini M4 Pro (24GB/512GB): $1299, $100... Read more
B&H continues to offer $150-$220 discount...
B&H Photo has 14-inch M4 MacBook Pros on sale for $150-$220 off MSRP. B&H offers free 1-2 day shipping to most US addresses: – 14″ M4 MacBook Pro (16GB/512GB): $1449, $150 off MSRP – 14″ M4... Read more

Jobs Board

All contents are Copyright 1984-2011 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.