Digital Models

Digital images are available for everything from an Iowa-class battleship to Denzel Washington. Seeing is no longer believing.

Jerry Pournelle

I've just come back from Siggraph, the graphics convention, where the big theme was "see what's possible." The short answer to that is "practically anything."

The key word there is practically. We're a lot closer to Robert Heinlein's Adam Selene -- a computer complex that became self-conscious and sentient when the networked hardware got complex enough in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress -- than I'd have predicted even five years ago, but we're not quite there.

They're pretty close with the graphics. The computer-generated humans at Siggraph look good from a moderate distance, but you can tell they're not "real" in close-ups. The expressions are good, but not quite good enough. Give it a few years, though, and I suspect you won't be able to tell whether you are looking at a live actor or a screen-generated person, even in love scenes. Is simulated sex and violence considered the real thing for ratings?

MIT's Media Lab booth featured a computer-generated dog who could interact on-screen with a human. That is, the human stands in an open area and is seen by a camera. The human and the dog then appear life-size on a projection screen. The dog tries to get the human to play with him and will react to being petted. He'll bring you his ball, and when he's done something vigorous, he gets a drink of water.

Dog, ball, and water bowl are all computer images. The computer tries to be aware of the human, and the dog will generally avoid being stepped on. It's up to the human not to step on the spot onstage occupied by the nonexistent water bowl.

The dog interacts well with the human. If you encourage him, he rubs up against your legs; if yo u reject his advances, he becomes visibly sad. It's a long way from Adam Selene, but it's quite impressive.

On a more practical level, Viewpoint DataLabs has the 3-D Model Library CD-ROM, containing 3000 3-D video models. These aren't models of the sort we used to build out of balsa wood and tissue paper, but full 3-D CAD descriptions that can be put into a program like Macromedia Director.

The models include civilian and military objects, creatures, a Godzilla -like movie set, and a partridge in a pear tree. These are very realistic -- a Viewpoint T-38 video model was used for the flyover scene in the movie Apollo 13 . (And if you haven't seen that film, go see it; it has some terrific computer-generated effects.) They also modeled Denzel Washington for Virtuosity .

Viewpoint DataLabs was giving away CD-ROMs of some of their models at Siggraph. Others are in the public domain and available for downloading. The best, of course, are for sale. Complexit ies range from relatively undetailed real-time models, such as a Los Angeles-class sub with 394 polygons, to an Iowa-class battleship with 30,113 polygons, to a model of what looks to me like the Bounty with 102,857 polygons. Viewpoint DataLabs' 3-D Model Library CD-ROM catalog is gorgeous. It's a lesson in the state of the art in image modeling.

For photo images, you aren't likely to do better than the Corel Stock Photo Library 2, which contains 200 CD-ROMs and 20,000 photographs on every imaginable subject, from the Grand Canyon to tall ships, bobcats and deer, highway signs and bobsledding, foliage and flowers, old master paintings -- the list is endless. Software is included to let you use the photos as screen savers. Resolutions can be altered in a range from 128 by 192 pixels to 2048 by 3072 pixels. The library comes with software to allow the images to be exported in TIF, BMP, EPS, PCX, or GIF for Windows, and TIFF and PICT for the Mac.

These are all in Kodak Photo CD format, so you can use them to build slide shows or paste them into documents. They're royalty-free. I'm using mine to illustrate lectures; it's quite easy to integrate them with pictures I took myself. For that matter, I can, with programs like Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Director, combine pictures and put myself into a better photo of me at the Leaning Tower of Pisa than I was able to take myself.

It's now possible to take pictures, have Kodak put them on a CD-ROM, read the digital image into a program like CorelDraw, alter it almost any way you like, put the image back on disc, and then print it. Want to see yourself shaking hands with President Clinton? Then add Newt Gingrich. Add angels, or trolls, as you prefer. Put clouds in the sky. It's all possible now. Seeing isn't believing anymore.

Even if all you want is eye candy, the Corel Stock Photo Library 2 is wonderful. Highly recommended.

Corel's box of 200 CD-ROMS cries for a good library program. I've got one, b ut first an aside.

I never sell evaluation software, and I'm pretty careful whom I give it to; schools, mostly. I suppose that's not true of every writer, but even so, I am constantly amazed at the lengths publishers will go to to protect their stuff. As an example: Aldridge has for weeks been trying to get me to look at CD-Cabin (with Link'N'Logging). Their PR people had already persuaded me, and the Corel Stock Photo Library 2 package was the clincher; but when I went looking for a copy, I couldn't find it. This was probably because I took it to the beach house with the intent of trying it there, got involved with fiction writing, and left it when I came back to Chaos Manor. In any event, I asked Aldridge to send another copy.

As usual, there was an "Evaluation Copy: Not For Resale" sticker on the outside of the shrink-wrap. In addition, there was another one inside the shrink-wrap. So far, nothing unusual -- but inside the box, not only is the manual stamped in big red letters, but someone has written "EVAL" on the disk labels.

Of course, this makes me wonder whether what I have is really what my readers can buy. I presume it is, but fair warning, what I have is very prominently marked "EVAL."

Despite the terminally cute title, CD-Cabin with Link'N'Logging is a very useful program. Although it's a Windows 3.11 program, installation under Windows 95 (Win 95) was simple.

Using it is pretty intuitive: put a CD-ROM in your drive, click on new, and stand back. CD-Cabin scans the CD-ROM and builds a directory tree. Because Aldridge's Tree 86 was for a long time one of the best of the DOS directory shell programs, I expected this to work properly, and it does. While it's building the tree, it scans the program file extensions and builds a database of what's in there. Alas, there seems to be no way to cut and paste from it; CD-Cabin doesn't seem to be Windows-aware. I had to make notes by hand to tell you that it found 19 executable, no compressed, 141 graphics, 10 help, and five sound fi les on the Corel CD-ROM.

There's a nifty viewer that's quite fast for throwing visual images on the screen. It works with most popular image file formats. You can also use CD-Cabin to listen to sounds, including wave sounds. Fair warning, though: be sure you want to listen, because once CD-Cabin starts playing a sound, you have to either wait for it to end or turn off your computer.

The cataloging program has provisions for making volume (but not individual file) notes, as well as for creating program categories like OSes, utilities, games, accessories, and sounds. A CD-ROM can be associated with more than one category. You can also give each disc a Library ID and record not only when you got it, but where. All this stuff can be sorted in various ways. When it's all done, CD-Cabin builds a compressed database containing the catalog information and a directory tree with all the filenames.

Most of those filenames will not be useful. For example, Lightbinders' Darwin CD-ROM has such uninformati ve filenames as 000001.001, and a lot of CD-ROMs have a HELP.TXT file. The Library of the Future volumes, many of which contain the only copies of some works of literature, have no filename clues as to what their contents are, and thus neither does the CD-Cabin catalog (unless you make such a list as a comment). Still, this is about the best you can do without doing your own index.

CD-Cabin's data compression is pretty good, but the database can grow like anything if there are a lot of files on a disc. One Corel Art Show disc takes up nearly 100 KB for its catalog. I don't know how big a database I'll have after I put all 200 Corel Stock Photo Library 2 CD-ROMs through this wringer, but I expect it will be many megabytes.

Given the pile of CD-ROMs I have acquired, I desperately need some way to catalog them, and CD-Cabin is surely the easiest to use of any I have found. However, there's one major defect. The program only builds an on-line catalog; if there's any provision for printing a list of ca taloged CD-ROMs, I haven't found it. Given the information this program stores, you wouldn't want a printed copy of everything, but a simple listing of titles, Library ID, and comments would be a useful thing to have. It wouldn't be all that hard to add. Given time, I suspect I could crack their compression code and write a BASIC program to print my list, but maybe they'll provide that in an update.

Given the infinity of weird formats that CD-ROMs use for their tables of contents and databases, I don't suppose there will ever be a program that can automatically catalog everything contained on a CD-ROM, although I sure wish someone would figure out how to do that and let me print an indexed list. Until then, Aldridge's CD-Cabin with Link'N'Logging is at least as good as anything else I've seen, and I expect to use it. It is limited, but it's also fast and convenient, and I had no problems with it in Win 95. Recommended, with hope for improvements.

I'd hoped to get through this column withou t logging yet another problem with Win 95, but that was not to be. In attempting to catalog my CD-ROMs, I inserted Strategic Simulation's The Definitive Wargame Collection CD-ROM. This is one of the better CD-ROM game collections.

Alas, they've included a batch file for running the installation program, and Win 95 finds that and tries to run it -- and you can't eject the silly CD-ROM until you run the installation program. I had to use a paper clip to release the CD-ROM carrier and pliers to pull it out of the drive; nothing I could do short of turning the machine off would make Win 95 release that disc.

Understand, these are mostly DOS games, and Strategic Simulations didn't try to make it one of the famous Win 95 plug-and-play CD-ROMs; it just works out that they used a format that Win 95 recognizes that way. It sure was frustrating to try to catalog a disc and end up using a bent paper clip and pliers to get it out of the machine.

On the other hand, the game collection i s excellent, and any two of the games are worth the price of the whole thing.

Models and Photo CDs, and images drawn with programs like CorelDraw, Macromedia Freehand, and AutoCAD are pretty standard for games and movies now. Some of the models are dynamic: Jurassic Park showed the way, and now a great many movies use computer animation scenes. Most of the space scenes in Apollo 13 are computer-generated; the actual filmed footage looks like newsreels, not as realistic as what the computer can do. While a lot of Waterworld was filmed on an ultraexpensive location, the supertanker deck was on dry land, with the wide water vistas added by computer.

In its time, the state of the art for movies was Star Wars . Physical, not computer, models with stop-action camera work produced most of those marvels. Today, much of that would be done by computer, but for those interested in how things used to be, Ballantine Del Rey Books has a series called The A rt of Star Wars , with photographs of the models, early sketches and paintings, portions of the scripts, cartoons, and spin-off art. They're good history, but what's striking is just how much of that can now be done with computers.

On that subject, LucasArts Entertainment has its LucasArts Archives Vol. I CD-ROM, which features a number of adventure and simulation games. These are all fancier games than those in Strategic Simulations' collection; if you like great graphics with lots of action sequences and sound, this is a pretty good collection. As games, I prefer Strategic Simulations' group, but there's no doubt at all that the LucasArts collection, which comes on six CD-ROMs, has better graphics. Like all Lucas games, these are clean fun, with no sex, and the violence is fairly muted.

Depending on the machine, some of my modems are faster than my serial ports. That is, with one machine, I can never connect faster than 9600 bps regardless of the modem or what service it's c onnected to. Doubtless this is a defective chip in the serial port. On the other hand, serial ports are inherently slower than parallel, and we're rapidly running up against their limits as modems get faster and faster.

Microcom has a remedy for this: use a parallel-port modem. Parallel ports are inherently faster than serial ports. Many communications programs assume serial connections, but that's no problem either. The Microcom DeskPorte Fast 28.8 modem (which also comes with a serial-port connection) comes with software that will fool your system into thinking it's communicating through serial ports. Of course, you can't have this attached to your LPT1 port and still print through that; but around here, all printing is done through LPT2, which is a network connection to the ValuePoint Pentium running OS/2 Warp as the print server. That works just fine.

Microcom's modem works pretty well. By the time you read this, they'll have drivers for OS/2 Warp and a way to fool Windows NT into believing th at it's a serial communications device. Parallel communications is just new enough to have a few kinks. For most users, though, installation is simple, the modem locks on even to noisy lines, and you'll get true 28.8-Kbps communications if your telephone lines are clean enough. Most aren't, but the Microcom DeskPorte Fast 28.8 modem will get as much out of them as possible. I suspect that parallel-port modems are the wave of the future.

The gadget of the month is CoStar's LabelWriter SE200 Plus. It consists of a triangular box 8 inches at the base, 6 inches high, and 4 inches thick. It has its own power source and connects to the computer through a serial port. You load it with labels of whatever size you like -- wide or narrow -- install the printer drivers, and print labels.

I've had units that came with software to capture addresses or other printable data off the screen, but this is a kind of do-it-yourself kit: you get the unit, BASIC source code for all kinds of printer comm ands, some drivers, a programmer's guide, and the good wishes of the manufacturer. Doing label programs isn't difficult. The LabelWriter accepts escape codes that let you control margins, characters per line, and everything else you need. It will do bar codes and Proprinter XL graphics. It's pretty easy to connect this up with a database program.

A small business could use this to generate disk and shipping labels complete with bar codes and serial numbers. This is one of those gadgets that not everyone needs, but if you need it, you need it bad.

I've just had another lesson, although I'm not sure what it means. I now have the final "gold" Win 95; I also have the "gold" Norton Utilities for Win 95. Both are on CD-ROMs.

Back in earlier builds of Win 95, I had an earlier version of Norton Utilities installed, and I liked it; there are a number of useful features, including Norton Unerase and Disk Doctor. However, the early beta version did something odd to my local network; re moving Norton Utilities cured the difficulties. Since it was all beta-test software, it wasn't worth recording details.

About the time I had the final Win 95 running and all was stable, Symantec sent the final Norton Utilities. The installation seemed to go well, but to finish I had to restart the machine -- and it would not restart. First, it said it couldn't open Explorer, then something else, then it offered to open Win 95 in "safe" mode, and then it crashed utterly and completely. I was dead.

When I installed Win 95, I made a start-up disk, so I tried it; nothing happened. Finally, I found an MS-DOS 6 boot-up disk, installed enough CONFIG.SYS that the system would recognize my CD-ROM drive, and reinstalled Win 95 from scratch. It took a long time. First, Win 95 Setup ran a DOS SCANDISK program, and it found about 25 MB of what it thought were corrupted files; it also said there were "long filename" problems, but I'd have to run Windows SCANDISK to fix those.

Eventually, DOS SCANDISK was done and Win 95 began to install. When it came up, it was in generic 640- by 480-pixel VGA mode and the network wouldn't work -- but Norton Utilities was running. I had to reinstall all the network software. I also had to tell Control Panel I have a ViewSonic 17GA Monitor and reset my fonts. After each correction, I had to restart the computer, and I sure got sick of watching the Win 95 start-up screen.

Then Norton Utilities found all kinds of problems with my disk. Eventually it got done correcting them. I'm now back where I was 3 hours ago, except that I have Norton Utilities for Win 95 installed.

Installed but not running. I'm writing this in Q&A Write. That's a DOS program with a character-based text editor, and it's the editor I use for text creation. There's only one problem. It's jerky. That is, with Norton Utilities running, I can from time to time type most of a word before the first letters of the word appear on-screen. If I backspace, it may take a moment before the cursor moves.

It took about 3 minutes of that before I turned off Norton Utilities. That seems to have cured the jerkiness.

There are a lot of things I like about Win 95, but none of them is so great that I'll put up with a jerky text editor. I'd rather go back to Zeke under CP/M and an S-100-bus system! I make my living doing creative writing, and I don't need my computer adding distractions.

I suppose all's well that ends well. Win 95 with Norton Utilities turned off seems to be running smoothly. Moreover, the new build has fixed the problem I had with pasting into DOS Q&A under Win 95. The release version seems pretty clean. I do worry that a simple background process can make a DOS character-based editor jerky; what happens when we have a dozen threads running at once?

Win 95 uses a new system called the registry for keeping track of what Win 95-compliant programs do to your system, and its "remove programs" feature works fine. However, Win 95 does not do well at uninstalling older Wi ndows programs. For that, you need Quarterdeck's new CleanSweep.

I've been using a test version, and it's useful, not only for uninstalling old stuff, but also for finding duplicate files. It's also safe, which is important. When you delete files, CleanSweep bundles them into a package, compresses them, and archives them where it can find them again.

For example, CleanSweep tries to find DLLs that are never called by any program. It then offers you a chance to delete them. In my case, the test version got rid of a few system DLLs that Win 95 needs. There was no harm done. CleanSweep keeps a log of everything it has done and will restore all or any of the archived files. I told it to restore my DLLs, and everything works again.

They're still working on CleanSweep, and they're implementing several suggestions I made. More when it comes out, but this looks to be, like Norton Utilities, one of the must-have Win 95 supplementary programs.

I previously recommended Internet in a Box. It has now ceased working, giving me the message "A2S4LWP.DLL The library is too old to use with this application." I don't know if the program has somehow expired or if it can't handle Win 95 upgrades. Attempts to contact Spry's technical support for the last three weeks via E-mail have been frustrating and useless. You have been warned.

The CD-ROM of the month is Voyage to the Outer Planets from NRSpace. NASA/JPL have accumulated a lot of data, but the formats make it hard to look at their pictures. NRSpace provides a viewer. You get two CD-ROMs of data and pictures of the planets, 2000 photos, and half an hour of video.

Grolier has come out with The 1995 Guinness Multimedia Disc of Records. It's more fun than just looking things up in the book. Want to see a picture of a woman with hair 14 feet long?

I mostly played old games this month. One thing I had fun with was Interactive Image Technologies' Electronic Workbench 4; this is an update of a program I've review ed previously. When I was a kid, my dream was to have a box full of electronics components and a bucket of solder. This gives you the same thing, except that if you let the blue smoke out of a component, you can fix it on-screen. Build and test electronic circuits of amazing complexity. I wish I'd had this in high school, or college, or when I was at Boeing, for that matter.

The book of the month is Peter Magid and Ira Schneider's OS/2 Warp Uncensored (IDG Books, 1995). The title is meaningless, but the book is very complete. If you use or contemplate using OS/2, you'll find this valuable.

Now I'm off to Korea to be keynote speaker at a conference on the unity of the sciences, while Mrs. Pournelle gives a paper on the future of education.

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PRODUCT INFORMATION

CD-Cabin with Link'N'Logging ($99.95) is at least as good as anything else I've seen, and I expect to use it. Contact The Aldr idge Co., Houston, TX, (800) 548-5019 or (713) 953-1940; 75462,2340@compuserve.com.

Even if all you want is eye candy, the Corel Stock Photo Library 2 ($995) is wonderful. Contact Corel Corp., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, (800) 772-6735 or (613) 728-3733; http://www.corel.com .

The Definitive Wargame Collection (estimated street price, $34) is excellent, and any two of the games are worth the price of the whole thing. Contact Strategic Simulations, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, (800) 245-4525 or (408) 737-6800.

The DeskPorte Fast 28.8 Modem ($519) works pretty well. Contact Microcom, Inc., Norwood, MA, (800) 822-8224 or (617) 551-1000; http://www.microcom.com .

Electronics Workbench 4 ($299) lets you build and test electronic circuits of amazing complexity. Contact Intera ctive Image Technologies, Ltd., North Tonawanda, NY, (800) 263-5552 or (416) 977-5550; http://www.interactiv.com .

The LabelWriter SE200 Plus ($499) is one of those gadgets that not everyone needs, but if you need it, you need it bad. Contact CoStar Corp., Greenwich, CT, (800) 426-7827 or (203) 661-9700.

If you like great graphics with lots of action sequences and sound, the LucasArts Archives Vol. I (estimated street price, $29.95) is a pretty good collection. Contact LucasArts Entertainment Co., San Rafael, CA, (800) 782-7927 or (415) 472-3400; http://www.lucasarts.com .

The 1995 Guinness Multimedia Disc of Records ($49.95) is more fun than just looking things up in the book. Contact Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc., Danbury, CT, (800) 285-4534 or (203) 797-3530; http://www.grolier.com .

The 3-D Model Library CD-ROM ($19.95) is gorgeous. It's a lesson in just what is the state of the art in image modeling. Contact Viewpoint DataLabs International, Orem, UT, (800) 328-2738 or (801) 229-3000; http://www.viewpoint.com .

The CD-ROM of the Month is Voyage to the Outer Planets ($49.95). Contact NRSpace, Seattle, WA, (800) 548-7766 or (206) 783-2707.

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Jerry Pournelle holds a doctorate in psychology and is a science fiction writer who also earns a comfortable living writing about computers present and future. Jerry welcomes readers' comments and opinions. Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Jerry Pournelle, c/o BYTE, One Phoenix Mill Lane, Peterborough, NH 03458. Please put your address on the letter as well as on the envelope. Due to the hi gh volume of letters, Jerry cannot guarantee a personal reply. You can also contact him on the Internet or BIX at jerryp@bix.com .