lauckner-lintner.com -- The Community

		Continuum Bytes WEB Exercises << \| 1 \| 2 \| 3 \| 4 \| 5 \| 6 \| 7 \| 8 \| 9 \| 10 \| 11 \| 12 \| 13 \| 14 \| 15 \| 16 \| >> Click on a chapter number above to review additional Web references as they appear in the book. Chapter 10: Imagery on the WWW One of the great motivations for creating the World Wide Web (WWW) was to make it easy to send images over the Internet. The Web exercises in this section will examine three forms of imagery that are common on the WWW: Still images Animations Streaming Video 1. Still Images As we discussed in The Computer Continuum, there are many graphic formats for still images. In fact, the Graphics Converter is a shareware program for the Macintosh computer that has over 100 formats that it can convert. (The graphics converter can be found at http://www.lemkesoft.de/). The JPEG to GIF formats for images that appear on Web pages are common because Web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator have the ability to display these types of graphics. GIF and JPEG formats use compression techniques to make the files smaller, and thereby allow faster downloading. As you know, there is nothing worse than having to wait for images to download. Since high quality images are large, they are usually sent as separate files and use the TIFF format. These files can be downloaded using ftp over the Internet, or are commonly attached to email communications. Let's look at both types. Try it Out! To do these exercises you should have both your word processor and a WWW browser opened, as you will be moving information between them. Most likely your word processor has the capability of inserting both GIF and JPEG image formats. First, let's look for some GIF images. Consider the following: http://www.stsci.edu The Space Telescope Science Institute supported by NASA has public pictures from the Hubble space telescope. Place your cursor over the image and hold the mouse button down. A menu will pop up, and you should choose either Copy Image or Copy Image to Disk. In the former case just go back to your word processor and paste. In the latter case or Copy Image to Disk, you should have a copy on your disk that you can insert into your word processing document. This site also has some TIFF files. You may or may not want to try downloading these TIFF files, as they're usually very large and you need proper software (such as Photoshop) to view them. http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/96/01/HDF.html This site has images of the Hubble Deep Field view telescope. The images are of hundreds of galaxies in an area of sky that is as small as President Roosevelt's eye on a dime held at arms length. These incredible images are a part of the Space Telescope Science Institute and are owned by the Federal government. Try downloading both GIF and JPEG versions of some of the images. http://www.ismi.net/~dtmm/ddc An unoffical Website that has many Disney JPEG files of Walt Disney film characters. http://www.landimages.com Many photographs in GIF format are available at this Web site. The images are mountains, landscapes, people and structures from all over the world. As an exercise, choose both a GIF and a JPEG file from the Web sites above, then try copying/pasting or inserting them into a word processing document. Be aware that most word processors will need software called a filter to work with the GIF and JPEG files. If the filter software doesn't work, then try to create an HTML file that will display the images. Look at the HTML file used to show the animated GIF below to get the idea of how to do this. Then you can just open the file using a WWW browser, without even going to the WWW. 2. Animations through gif and Quicktime Movies Making a series of pictures move to give the impression of action started back when simple drawings on cards were flipped before your eyes to give the impression of a "moving picture." This same crude approach is used to create animations called animated GIFs. First, a drawing program is used to create a series of still images that are saved as GIF files. Then a program such as GifBuilder for the Macintosh and GifConstruction Set for Windows machines is used to play back the series of frames created with the drawing program. Try it Out! http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/gifcon.html This is a shareware GIF animation program called Gif Construction Set, and can be used on Windows 95, 98 and NT systems. The Web site also has some free samples. http://www.pascal.com/mirrors/gifbuilder GifBuilder is a freeware GIF animation program. It allows the animation of a series of images for the Macintosh computer that are GIF, PICT and TIFF formats among others. http://www.animationcity.net This Web site has many free GIF animations. A sample can be seen by clicking here: cat.htm http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/96/01/HDF.mpg Download the MPEG movie of zooming in on the Hubble Deep Field galaxy image. This MPEG movie simulates the zooming in on a point near the big dipper where the the Hubble Deep Field galaxy image was taken. http://www.credo-interactive.com Credo Interactive has human and animal forms that move with natural movements. They make use of an expensive program called Life Forms, however credo does have a demonstration copy at http://www.credo-interactive.com/products/lifeforms.html http://www.lionking.org/movies Many unofficial Web sites are on the WWW. In this particular case several clips from the Disney film the Lion King can be found. Create an HTML file that will make use of both a QuickTime movie and an animated GIF. Pick a topic and then relate the movie and animated GIF. You can also try inserting a QuickTime movie into a PowerPoint presentation. 3. Streaming video A very useful and innovative use of theWWW is to provide live video of important events such as Presidential speeches. Because of WWW limitations, the quality and size of the video image are not perfect. Also, the use of streaming video can either be live, or a video can be "fed" to your browser by some server that has recorded and archived an important event. Special plug-ins are needed for your Web browser to view these videos, but obtaining them is easy. In fact, if you try to access streaming videos, the server that is "feeding" you the video will check your browser and let you know what is needed. Look at the following sites and view the various video material available. Note that when viewing streaming video, a small amount of the video is temporarily on your computer, but it's just like TV: you don't have a copy of the video unless you're recording it in some way. http://www.broadcast.com/television Assuming you have a video player plug-in installed on your WWW browser, try viewing one of the 24-hour television broadcasts. Note how the video is not as smooth as it could be, however the audio part is reasonable. http://www.mediachannel.com/special/mlk.htm At this Web site you can view archived videos of Dr. Martin Luther King. His "I have a dream" speech is included in the collection of videos. http://videolinks.interspeed.net This Web site has many links to video programming. http://www.cnn.com/videoselect At this Web site you can view CNN news.
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