Err, this is getting confusing!
I posted a message before without a subject (by accident) and now
it's disappeared.  Then I reposted without the text.  Then I posted
again without the subject.

Anyhow, I was using Mike Houghs patched version of MegaPOV
(the one he used for his flower image) and I got a message telling
me that GIF images will no longer be supported because of
legal issues.  This hasn't happened with my regular version of
MegaPOV 0.5.  Does anyone know anything about this?  Is
this for sure about no GIF support?



--
- Doug Eichenberg
  http://www.getinfo.net/douge
  dou### [at] nlsnet

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Doug Eichenberg wrote:

> Anyhow, I was using Mike Houghs patched version of MegaPOV
> (the one he used for his flower image) and I got a message telling
> me that GIF images will no longer be supported because of
> legal issues.  This hasn't happened with my regular version of
> MegaPOV 0.5.  Does anyone know anything about this?  Is
> this for sure about no GIF support?

MegaPOV 0.5a removed gif support & there were several threads discussing
this in p.g, p.o-t & p.u.p
Nathan explained the reasons at the time but basically (as I understand
it) he (as a hobbyist) cannot afford the $5K the patent owners of the
LWZ compression algorithm are demanding for its use whether or not the
en/decoding algorithm is part of free software or not.  The fee also
seems to apply to people having gifs on their web sites.
GIF is an old format that (in many peoples opinions) has been
superseeded by png
Most people don't like software patents and cripplingly expensive
software & so a GIF boycot has been started - see
http://burnallgifs.org/

--
Bye
Pabs
goto http://www.s11.org

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change your images to png (without optimized palette in order to keep
your current palette) and then do a search/replace to find all gif
references in your pov files and change them.

Doug Eichenberg wrote:
> 
> Err, this is getting confusing!
> I posted a message before without a subject (by accident) and now
> it's disappeared.  Then I reposted without the text.  Then I posted
> again without the subject.
> 
> Anyhow, I was using Mike Houghs patched version of MegaPOV
> (the one he used for his flower image) and I got a message telling
> me that GIF images will no longer be supported because of
> legal issues.  This hasn't happened with my regular version of
> MegaPOV 0.5.  Does anyone know anything about this?  Is
> this for sure about no GIF support?
> 
> --
> - Doug Eichenberg
>   http://www.getinfo.net/douge
>   dou### [at] nlsnet

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>MegaPOV 0.5a removed gif support & there were several threads discussing
>this in p.g, p.o-t & p.u.p
>Nathan explained the reasons at the time but basically (as I understand
>it) he (as a hobbyist) cannot afford the $5K the patent owners of the
>LWZ compression algorithm are demanding for its use whether or not the
>en/decoding algorithm is part of free software or not.  The fee also
>seems to apply to people having gifs on their web sites.
>GIF is an old format that (in many peoples opinions) has been
>superseeded by png
>Most people don't like software patents and cripplingly expensive
>software & so a GIF boycot has been started - see
>http://burnallgifs.org/

Believe it or not, this is the first I've heard of it.  If that's the
way they're gonna be then good riddance, who needs GIFs!

Doug Eichenberg
dou### [at] nlsnet
www.getinfo.net/douge

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Doug Eichenberg wrote:

> Believe it or not, this is the first I've heard of it.  If that's the
> way they're gonna be then good riddance, who needs GIFs!

I love that lossy grainy compression and unnecessarily big file sizes! I love
GIF!

--
David Fontaine   <dav### [at] faricynet>   ICQ 55354965
Please visit my website:  http://davidf.faricy.net/

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Doug Eichenberg wrote:

> Believe it or not, this is the first I've heard of it.

Seriously how did you miss it? - have U never tried to use gifs in MP0.5a
before now?

>  If that's the way they're gonna be then good riddance, who needs GIFs!

Absolutely no-one png is better anyway
Hey U have gifs on your pages
http://www.getinfo.net/douge/portfolio.htm
http://www.getinfo.net/douge/miscart.htm
http://www.getinfo.net/douge/linkpage.htm

Care to convert them to pngs using gif2png?
win console version at http://pegasus.uni-paderborn.de/enno/burnallgifs/
more (newer) versions at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/gif2png/
or  http://exe2bin.com/gif2png-win32/


--
Bye
Pabs

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PS see http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/Gif/Gif.html for a better discussion of
the issue

--
Bye
Pabs

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Okay, here's where it gets weird then.  I just ran the code in my regular
version of MegaPOV 0.5 with a GIF image for my heightfield and
it worked.  Import the same code into Mikes patch and I get the
error.  Am I missing something?

--
- Doug Eichenberg
  http://www.getinfo.net/douge
  dou### [at] nlsnet

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"Doug Eichenberg" <dou### [at] nlsnet> wrote in message
news:39beeb2e@news.povray.org...
> Okay, here's where it gets weird then.  I just ran the code in my regular
> version of MegaPOV 0.5 with a GIF image for my heightfield and
> it worked.  Import the same code into Mikes patch and I get the
> error.  Am I missing something?

At a guess and iirc, you're using mp 0.5 (which afaik supports gifs). It is
mp 0.5a that doesn't support gifs. Mike's patch is presumably based on mp
0.5a.

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In article <39BEB06E.2516AF32@faricy.net>, David Fontaine 
<dav### [at] faricynet> wrote:
>I love that lossy grainy compression and unnecessarily big file sizes! I 
>love GIF!

GIF, used correctly, is not a lossy format, nor does it have 
unnecessarily big file sizes. If the image has less than 256 colors, GIF 
preserves the colors completely; as the number of colors drops, the 
likelihood that GIF will be much smaller than JPEG increases.

See http://cerebus.acusd.edu/GIFJPG/ for an example of an image that is 
either 10 times as big as a JPEG than as a GIF, or is only 3 times as 
big but much lower quality.

PNG is even better, but PNG support in web browsers is still lacking, 
especially when it comes to transparency and simple animations.

(Also please note that I support the authors of software such as MegaPOV 
and GD removing GIF support from their creations.)

Jerry

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