PRS-500 RasterFarian 2.5 Beta

[tesseract420]

Since everyone seems to have such good luck with the install, I hate to report a problem, but...

First, I get a message saying "Xcopy" not a valid command or batch file.
Second, it tells me that .Net Framework 2.0 is not detected (nevertheless, the .Net Framework is installed, and I even reinstalled it to make sure). The install then opens a browser window to download the .Net Framework, but this is already installed. Installation proceeds, but then, while Rasterfarian shows up as a program group on the start menu, the program group is not populated.

Right-clicking does not show a Rasterfarian option.

Any suggestions?

[alex_d]

tesseract, are you trying to install on a work/public pc or as a limited user (or on vista or..)? It seems there are security restrictions preventing rasterfarian from accessing the registry, creating shortcuts, or even using xcopy (which comes standard with windows). I can't tell you any more than that, but hopefully I've given you some ideas. If you manage to figure it out, please come back and share the info.

You can also use RasterFarian without installing it just by double-clicking PDFRasterFarian.cmd

[tesseract420]

I solved the installation problem by copying "xcopy.exe" (which was elsewhere on my computer; I believe it resides in the system32 directory; in any case there was a stray copy in the windows\servicepack directory) into the same folder where install.bat resides.

[tesseract420]

Thanks; I'm running XP Home, Service Pack 2. There's only one user on the machine. I guess my solution is more in the nature of a work around; but it did solve the problem. I running a ridiculously difficult pdf through now; I'll let you know the results.

[alex_d]

ok, i'll bundle xcopy in the future. It won't be the first time i had to include a windows executable that should be on everyone's machines. I wonder how these things get lost... Windows File Protection should even kick in if it goes missing (I just tried deleting my copy and it comes back in a few seconds).

Let us know how the pdf turns out.

[alex_d]

2.5.1 is posted with some very minor bug fixes and wording changes.

[ashkulz]

Originally Posted by alex_d

thanks, curiouser. I think me or ashkultz can use py2exe to convert your function into something that can be inserted into rasterfarian. Can you make a quick stand-alone py script that takes in a range of overlap 0-to-whatever and input from the pipe and outputs to the pipe in a netpbm format? If that's that at all complicated, any sort of input/output would be fine.

I've tried curiouser's function, but I didn't find results to be as good that they would be with unpaper. Also, it works exclusively on PGM images, so it'd be easy to integrate in both RasterFarian and PDFRead. I'm already incorporating it in my next release, I'd advise you to do the same.

Attached a sample of running unpaper. The tricky thing is knowing what options to provide as default to the user....

[jgs]

A few questions:

1. What are the different "parts" in the download for? Do they all have to be extracted?
2. I just extracted Part 1 and the application seemed to work. Am I missing something by not extracting the other parts?
3. When the conversion was complete on my test, Connect opened and then hung. What happened here?

Thanks for helping a real newbe

Jim

[alex_d]

ok. I think i'll default to pnmcrop for plain autocropping and have an unpaper option for scanned/noisy pdfs. We'll see what options have to be included, but with the preview feature it shouldn't be difficult for the user to figure out the right settings.

jgs, the "parts" is how WinRAR splits up a single archive into multiple pieces (there's a filesize limit on attachments). You have to download all of them, but telling winrar to unzip one will unzip all automatically (it's all one archive, not multiple archives). When conversion completes, connect should not launch automatically unless you double-click the lrf. You don't need to preview the file in Connect anyway. Keep in mind that what looks good on an LCD is precisely what looks bad on eInk, and vice versa. As for connect hanging... i don't know. It does that sometimes.

[jgs]

I am using WINZip to extract. Can I assume that it works the same as WinRAR (e.g. if I extract Part 1 then they all extract).

You are right, Connect did not automatically open. Connect still does hang sometimes.

[tesseract420]

Hi Alex,

OK, my computer was up all night processing this monster. The text has all sorts of odd formattting, similar to a three column blog. In Connect the text looks great, but on the Reader the text is a little light. If I could darken the text it would be great.

If the program is running properly is there any reason to upgrade to 2.5.1?

Best,

[alex_d]

Tesseract, that's why there's all those settings for controlling Dilate and Edge Enhancement. The Dilate factor is the one you'd want to turn up (or rather down). Also, I hope you have your modes all straight now. If you convert in "halfs-of-a-page" but set the Reader to "portrait", you'll see the whole page but the text will be broken. Similar things happen vice versa.

Come to think of it... if halfs-of-a-page is the default mode for RasterFarian, and portrait mode is the default for the Sony Reader.... GODDAMIT. there must have been tons of people who tried it and thought "bah, what crap." you know what, i think i've just decided i hate users >=(

[jimmyzou]

I tried it, and after running, showed "...expired, please contact ...@pdf-tools.com"?
and nothing converted out...

[astra]

I think I miss something.
I installed 2.5.0 version but could not find any GUI....where is it?

[kurt_roy]

I had problems with autocrap. If I enable this option , the output pdf is always blank without errors.
It worked only without autocrapping...very slowly.

thanks!