World: r3wp

yes .. taken from a database

I'm not certain if you can do that...

OO.o is capable of taking values from a database and put it in a 
document, but I'm not sure if those values can be transferred to 
a PDF form.

Starting with Rebol .. I can create a VID form using the scanned 
jpg as the background.

I can overlay some VID text boxes over the form areas.

I can then save the completed form as a PNG and print it ... sort 
of ..

yeah, there is something missing there...

if we had the possibility of using bitmaps in postscript or pdf-maker, 
then you could solve it in rebol

pdf-maker doesn't support pdf forms yet.

Gabriele doesn't have any current plans to do so either.

that wouldn't be necessary if you used a VID app to fill out the 
form, right?

so, VID => pdf using pdf-maker?

you could do that if pdf-maker supported bitmaps properly

and it doesn't ??

well I have not had any success with it

and it only supports uncompressed bitmaps

Oh, an alternative idea then.

Scan in as whatever .. turn it into an eps.

take the vid data and write it over the eps .... where you want the 
data ..and send to postscript printer.

that might work

Actually, what I am doing for infant growth charts is to take the 
pdf forms ... turn them into postscript ... add some growth data 
as postscript lines and then print them

I guess I can do the same for electronic forms.

Yes, that's what I can do .. it's the same thing.

But the end users won't be able to do this ...

So, it would be good to find a solution suitable for an enduser.

So, the eps idea might be the better way to do it.

quick question about images.

eg.

==
i1: load %image.jpg
i2: i1
i2/size: 300x300
save/png %a.png i2
===

why does the image comes out distorted?


what is the correct way to 'resize' an image and save it in a different 
format?

i1: load %image.jpg

save/png %a.png layout/tight [image 300x300 i1]

unfortunately you can only do nearest neighbor scaling

layout/tight?

is there such a refinement?

yes in rebol/view 1.3.x. not in 1.2.x

I am on /view 1.3.x ....but have an error..

===
** Script Error: Invalid argument: type: face
offset: 0x0
size: 300x300
span: none
pane: [make object! [
        type: 'face
        offs...
** Where: halt-view
** Near: save/png %a.png layout/tight [image 300x300 i1]
==

thought it could do that directly, but then:

save/png %a.png to image! layout/tight [image 300x300 i1]

yes..that works!

but it eats memory. beware of that :-)

original: %image.png  ; INPUT FILE
resized: %resized.png ; OUTPUT FILE
new-size: 300x300


save/png resized draw make image! new-size compose [image (load original) 
0x0 (new-size - 1x1)]

; examine results
view layout [image (load original) image (load resized)]

The above uses AGG scaling via the DRAW dialect. If you are converting 
many images, it should be faster than using LAYOUT all the time (and 
the code is shorter).

Henrik: PDF Maker 1 has been used extensively with images. And they'll 
be back in v2 very soon. The only drawback is lack of any compression, 
so the resulting PDF file is rather big (if the source image is big).

gabriele, that sounds good :-)

wow, where does the 'draw command come from !!! hehe am I the only 
one who didn't even know it was there?  I guess its there since draw 
was added to view!

is there a way to alter the sampling algorythms used in draw?

faster/better quality and up and down sizing all have optimised algorythms. 
 There is no universal algorythm for resizing, not even the slower 
ones.  Some have sweetspots in various conditions.

draw native has been added with AGG

I just miss being able to create proper thumbnails with draw AGG

Being able to save JPGs is my only outstanding image-related request, 
but I know that isn't likely to happen.

Gregg, why not? Is the code too large for Carl to include it, or 
is it something else?

licensing ?

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,389261,00.asp

graham, I think that was overthrown in 2004

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060526105754880