Welcome to the PPT Home Page

Current PPT Release: 6.18 ("Descartes-2")

Last updated 22-Oct-2002

The purpose of this page is to function as a fixed point (not a floating point, hee hee) in netspace for the development of the PPT Image Processing Package. You are welcome to try it out, but remember:

THIS IS FREE SOFTWARE. BY DOWNLOADING IT YOU AGREE THAT I CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE IN ANY WAY OF ANY POSSIBLE DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER. THERE IS NO WARRANTY, IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE.

There. I feel much better now.

What's new?

[09-Aug-16] PPT source code is now on Github. If you enjoy seeing really old code, please enjoy :-). I also fixed a 15-year old layouting bug on this page. Better late...

[22-Oct-02] Changed the actual archive files to an another computer. Unless you're referring to them directly, this should have no effect on you. It will, however, give me a better idea on who actually uses PPT these days =).

Introduction. What's it all about?
Requirements. What do you need?
Installation. How do I install it?
Bugs and Workarounds. See what's wrong and how to fix it!
Files.Here is it!
Links.A small collection of relevant links.

Introduction

PPT is an (yet another) image processing program for the Amiga microcomputers and compatibles.

Oh, BTW: Please always refer to this page as http://www.iki.fi/~jalkanen/PPT.html even if your browser claims differently. This is because IKI provides me with permanent HTTP redirection and a permanent e-mail address and should I ever have to resign this HUT address (being a student and all) you may have difficulty in refinding this place unless you use the IKI address.

Features

The niftiest feature of PPT is a multithreaded core, which means that you can continue working on other images, while the previous one is being processed. You can even do work while there is a batch processor chewing away in the background!

Other, cool features are:

Modular construction - the main program is quite small and everything else comes from external libraries. There are over thirty effects!
Built-in Virtual Memory - for those really big files.
All processing is done in 32, 24 or 8 bit.
PPT imposes no limit on the number of image buffers you can have. Your machine will run out of memory before PPT chokes ;-)
TRUE transparency info. Yes, you can make cool PNG images with transparency settings for Web graphics!
One of the coolest features of the Amiga: AREXX. 'nuff said.
CyberGFX support
Progressive JPEG support, both loading and saving.

I have some screen shots for you right here.

See the readme for more information!

Requirements

PPT is a modest program, it does not require much (however, it'll be very happy, if you have lots of resources):

An Amiga microcomputer or compatible.
Workbench 2.04 or later (asl.library V38 is required for some features). V39 (Workbench 3.0) is supported and utilized wherever applicable. PPT also uses CyberGFX for accelerated graphics performance, if available.
A hard drive (theoretically you could work with a floppy, but I haven't tried. If someone has, I'd like to know the results.)
Enough memory. (Image processing can consume huge amounts of memory. Even if PPT does have its own virtual memory system, more is always better.) You can probably do much in 2 megabytes, but it's gonna be sloooowwwwww...
BGUI.library v41.10 or better. You should download it from here.

Installation

Installation is handled by the standard AT Installer. If you do not have the latest version, go check your nearest Aminet site for a package called "Installer_43.lha" or something similar.

Other than that, just de-archive the contents of the distribution archive onto your ramdisk, floppy, or hard drive and click on "Install".

NOTEZ-BIEN: The format of PPT modules may change until the API has been frozen. Always make sure you've deleted all of the old versions before updating to a new version.

Known bugs and workarounds

Here's a small list of bugs that have not been mentioned in the docs (i.e. I have just found them or someone has notified me of them):

Text.effect won't start!: Get a fix here.
Dragging and dropping an image on each other hangs the machine!: This is a known bug in BGUI 41.8 and will be fixed. Either use BGUI 41.10 (download here) or just use Cut/Copy/Paste. Though it is possible that the 41.10 release may crash also (I've seen it!), it is also possible that it is slightly better on your system.

Files

The following files are available in this area (shift click or do something else to your browser so that it understands that these files are not to be shown, but downloaded. Some browsers have difficulty understanding the lha format):

The README file, containing more detailed information about the capabilities and limitations of the program. (7kB)
PPT Release notes (~1kB) and HISTORY for those who want to know exactly what has been happening lately. (16 kB)
The most recent PPT beta release (PPT_Dist.lha, 968 kB)
Text.effect v3.2, fixing a problem in the current release.
The previous PPT release.
The security addition to the most recent PPT release. (PPT_security.lha, 12 kB). Note that if your country has made it illegal to own strong cryptographic software, you will commit a felony by downloading this archive. Also, it is illegal to export this file from the United States, if this somehow winds up on a US site. Complain to your local congress member, if you find this stupid.
The developer archive, for the bold and curious. This is currently BETA, so treat it with care... But if you want to write your own modules, check it out! Rudimentary PowerPC support is included, and I'd like to welcome people who can compile and run PPC program to try it out.(74 kB)

The README and ReleaseNotes are of course available in the main archive, as well.