DR100OS Scribble Format?

[thomega]

BTW: here's what I know about the format so far (the short integers are store low byte before high byte):

scribble =
    { header : header;
      strokes : stroke list }

header =
    { b01_36 :      36bytes;
      (* 0x010000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000004000000050000 *)
      num_strokes :  2bytes; (* more likely 16bit short than byte *)
      b38_39 :       2bytes  (* Always 0x0000? *) }

stroke =
    { stroke_header : stroke_header;
      points : point list }

stroke_header =
    { b01      	 : 1byte;    (* Always 0x00? *)
      b02_03   	 : 2bytes;   (* Always 3?  16bit short or byte?*)
      b04_05   	 : 2bytes;   (* Always 0x0000? *)
      b06_09   	 : 4bytes;   (* Always 0xB4276842 or 0x5A5A3143? *)
      b10_17   	 : 8bytes;   (* Always 0x0000000000000000? *)
      width      : 2bytes;   (* 16bit short or byte? (the latter would suffice) *)
      b20_21     : 2bytes;   (* Always 0x0000? *)
      num_points : 2bytes;   (* more likely 16bit short than byte *)
      b24        : 1byte     (* Always 0x00? *) }

point =
    { b01    : 1byte;        (* Always 0x00? *)
      y      : 2bytes;
      b04_05 : 2bytes;       (* Always 0x00? *)
      x      : 2bytes;
      b08_09 : 2bytes;       (* Always 0x00? *)
      b10_12 : 4bytes        (* Always 0x000000 for the first point,
             	                0x88D32F or 0xE8021B for the middle points and
                                0xF0B115 or 0xB8A215 for the final point? *) }

[allovertheglobe]

Originally Posted by thomega

That's no excuse: the software could always draw on a bitmap of the image (cf. The Gimp, ImageMagick or Photoshop). It's not completely trivial to make joints and diagonal strokes look nice, but it's not rocket science either.

I agree, but you may have noticed that most things DR1000 that Irex has provided so far are very slightly rough around the edges
So I think they will get this sorted out... eventually. Maybe you can beat them to it!

(BTW ImageMagick is one great tool)

[Savonarola]

Originally Posted by pthwaite

OH and the DR1000s draws the line at opening a 36Mb pdf, it just decided enough was enough. Shame. up to 25Mb was okay.

Howard

Seriously?? Well curse. I've been opening pdfs on my iliad that are 40Mb, easy enough - takes a while to load the first time, then just gets on with it.
My DR1000s is due to arrive tomorrow and judging from information like this, let alone the battery-life revelations and scribble-merge issues (does anyone know how to do this on a Mac OS X - the homebrew someone put together for the iliad worked beautifully) it's looking like I may have spent several hundred bucks pointlessly.
All I want is a big-screen iliad! That would do me fine.

[pthwaite]

Well it might just be that one pdf, however it definitely doesn't want to open on my DR1000s (35.5Mb) It just sits there thinking about it and then crashes back to the menu.
All my other pdfs work, but they are smaller. I'd like to know if your 40Mb pdf does open. If so I'll try re-creating this problem one again.

regards, Howard

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Savonarola

I've been opening pdfs on my iliad that are 40Mb, easy enough - takes a while to load the first time, then just gets on with it.

Did you add swap to your iLiad (see Swap on iLiad)? The DR1000S has 128 MB of RAM (vs the iLiad's 64 MB), which should allow larger PDF files. If we get shell access on the DR1000S, then adding swap on the SD card should be straight forward.

[allovertheglobe]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

Did you add swap to your iLiad (see Swap on iLiad)? The DR1000S has 128 MB of RAM (vs the iLiad's 64 MB), which should allow larger PDF files. If we get shell access on the DR1000S, then adding swap on the SD card should be straight forward.

Just a suggestion: Maybe this discussion about large PDFs should move into its own top-level thread instead of being buried inside this one about scribbles? I'm sure other people would be interested in this issue too.

[Savonarola]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

Did you add swap to your iLiad (see Swap on iLiad)? The DR1000S has 128 MB of RAM (vs the iLiad's 64 MB), which should allow larger PDF files. If we get shell access on the DR1000S, then adding swap on the SD card should be straight forward.

Um... Sorry... this is going to sound really pathetic but I don't know if I did or not. I'm very un-techy - when I got the iLiad, I got the 'developer's package' and carefully followed other mobileread members' instructions to install a bunch of extras to optimize it, but that was months ago and I cannot for the life of me remember what I did and didn't do. And I never knew what it was I was doing! I'll be throwing myself on the mercy of those less incompetent than me to do the same to the DR1000s if the chance comes up.

[pthwaite]

allovertheglobe
New thread started

Now, back to scribbles. I still cannot get a merge to work. (It did work once & very well too, on a writepad document I had created but never since on anything) I'm smacking the teddy bear as I type I've reinstalled the directory structure on 2 SD cards & tried 3 different PCs.

It is frustrating as I really like the scribble functionality & if Thomega can do anything to help Mac users he has my vote

I have also raised it as an issue with iRex, though I suspect if yourself and others can get it to work, I'm missing something obvious.

[ross]

Attached is a little python program I cobbled together to do merging on the Mac. Don't have a device to test with at the moment, but it seems to work with the examples posted earlier in this thread. Just run and hit file->merge pdf, then select a PDF. The metadata.db needs to be in the same dir as the PDF. It should generate a <input filename>_merged.pdf

It's very rough around the edges, and will quite likely only work on 10.5 (it may also just fail to work for unexplained reasons ). The source is available in the .app if anyone's interested.

If a merge doesn't work right, I can try look into it if I have the pdf and db.

Cheers,
Ross

[allovertheglobe]

Hmm, I'm using it in Windows XP on a bootcamp partition on my Mac. I have done it both by running the app straight from the card in a cardreader as well as from the DR1000. Both in the WritePads folder and in my own folders.

It only works with PDFs as far as I can tell, but even when I tried with a PNG image, it saw there was scribble and made the Merge icon active (even though it didn't do anything)

You have certainly gone out of the way trying various things for something that should be straight forward. I'm stumped. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps the matadata.db is corrupted and not read correctly. Did you try deleting it and start over with a fresh scribble (maybe restarting the reader to be extra careful)?

[pthwaite]

ross,
Many thanks. It works after a fashion. However as you can see, Page 2 of the enclosed doc, for some reason it has rotated the scribble by 90deg.

I've enclosed the metadata, the merged output and the original pdf. (Change the txt to db for the metadata)

(It's 90deg i other scribbled pdfs too) but thanks

allovertheglobe, I have hit the reset button, I've tried in the reader, on the PC on the Mac.

I haven't tried scribbling on any images as I haven't got any on the device but pdfs and scribbling is failing at the merge on mine. I did try deleting all the metadata.db files & doing a card reset from the system menu, still no merge.

If Ross, can get my 90deg tilt fixed , I'll be happy as I could then at least merge from home, even if not at the office.

[ross]

Originally Posted by pthwaite

I've enclosed the metadata, the merged output and the original pdf. (Change the txt to db for the metadata)

(It's 90deg i other scribbled pdfs too) but thanks

Ah, turns out I wasn't handling rotation or scaling of the scribbles That PDF is also a bit strange, so the scaling doesn't work quite right yet.
I've attached an update version of the app that should work a bit better (at least it gets orientation right).

If someone has the time, I'd appreciate more examples of scribbled PDFs so I can check if I'm doing the scaling and rotating right. A PDF of a grid with scribbled crosses on the grid-intersections would be really helpful. Any other non-working merged scribbles would be useful.

Cheers,
Ross

[allovertheglobe]

People can use the ones from my thread:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30729

I'll post one myself later if I get around to it. (And try your script)

[pthwaite]

Ross, you are rapidly becoming my hero The pdf is a "non-standard" size as it is an instruction leaflet and yes the writing has slipped down a bit in your DR Merge.

As you request, here is a quadranted page with crosses, numbers and some text on it. It is the Quad template from grumpyoldman. Now, as it is a writepad, I can actually merge this in the PC software but pdfs elsewhere, are not seen in the companion software I have.

I enclose the original metadata & Quad template.
The result of the PC merge & the result of your DR Merge.

thank you, Howard

[ross]

The grid seems to line up now, and the drenalin manual text looks right-ish (I need what seems to be an arbitrary scaling factor - oh well). Also added a progress indicator during merging. Now to figure out how to make the merged PDFs not so ridiculously huge.

Cheers,
Ross