How can I draw stuff on bitmaps and convert them to gifs?

[Reddawn]

Hi all!

I want to use smth like the t-bitmap thing in Delphi within VB. I will recieve some information from a form, I'll use the values to create parameters for an exe file to run on server side. Exe will use the parameters to draw some graphix (lines, arcs, circles, etc) on a bitmap. And convert it to gif. The gif will be shown on the web page and be e-mailed to the client..

What shall I do, folks?

[Chris H]

I think you need to have a license for this or you can be sued by CompuServe. No Joke!

The .gif format is patented by Compuserve.

They mainly go after businesses though, more money.

[Reddawn]

What is wrong with using a smth.gif picture file within a web site !?!?

[PaulLewis]

To convert something means that you must render it into a specifc format. To do this, you must use patented knowledge and thus, it is possible to be sued.

I don't think you will get into hot water though. Not unless you are selling software including gif conversion capability and happen to make money from it

If you think it's silly to patent a bitmap format...what about all of the patents that are being filed for gene sequences? No word of a lie. Companies are allowed to patent gene sequences that they have mapped and identified as performing a specific job.

I know the world is crazy when it's possible to patent part of what makes me me or you you... As far as I'm concerned it's all ludicrous...

Cheers

[gravyboy]

The Wang Image Edit Control is installed when Win95 & NT are installed with the Imaging elements - it's called the Kodak Image Edit Control in Win98SE.

ANYWAY...

This allows you to open an image, annotate it (text, line, freehand etc.) and then save if as BMP,TIFF, or JPeg but not GIF - this as Paul said is proprietary technology owned by Compuserve.

Chances are there is a DLL in the wild that will convert your now annotated image to GIF from JPG etc. Let me know if you find it.

[Reddawn]

"Kodak Image Edit Control" does seem to solve my problems. Would be possible to create a so-called "Kodak Object" and draw stuff into a bitmap through VBScript? If so how can I call the DLL which includes this object?

Otherwise, if I intend to make this through a dll how should I sort it out?

[Reddawn]

What I wanna do is to create a picture object than through some methods and/or properties I wanna be able to draw circles, ellipses, rectangles and etc. on that picture. The picture is a raster image object.

My first ? is : How can I overcome this problem?
second ? is : How can I overcome this problem on the Internet?

[Reddawn]

code:

Option Explicit

Private Sub Form_Click()
' Declare variables.
Dim CX, CY, Limit, Radius As Integer, Msg As String
ScaleMode = vbPixels ' Set scale to pixels.
AutoRedraw = True ' Turn on AutoRedraw.
Width = Height ' Change width to match height.
CX = ScaleWidth / 2 ' Set X position.
CY = ScaleHeight / 2 ' Set Y position.
Limit = CX ' Limit size of circles.
For Radius = 0 To Limit ' Set radius.
Picture1.Circle (CX, CY), Radius, _
RGB(Rnd * 255, Rnd * 255, Rnd * 255)
DoEvents ' Yield for other processing.
Next Radius
Msg = "Choose OK to save the graphics from this form "
Msg = Msg & "to a bitmap file."
MsgBox Msg
SavePicture Picture1.Image, _
"TEST.BMP" ' Save picture to file.
End Sub

This works for good if the circles are assigned to the picture prop of the form, however when assigned to the image of the picture test.bmp returns empty. Why and how does that happen?