The 2068 Video Digitizer

Last month tried to show what can be done with the Digitizer circuit and two sources of software to run it. Every software program, (among all else in this world), has limitations, and the writer also had limitations to work with when developing the software, so we as the end user must make the most of what we get and maybe improve on it ourselves.

Both the 2068 and dot matrix printers define the smallest single dark or light image attainable as a pixel. In digitizing with the 2068 it is the problem of the software to simulate using only pixels to represent a scanned video image. The original scanned image is not usually a pattern of dots, but a series of stacked tones of various shades of light or dark and most likely containing a color or hue. To simulate this shading requires a group of pixels forming a pattern, that when viewed at a distance, appear to blend into a shade of gray or if the dots are of different colors blend into a certain hue and density of color. Some groups of pixels, produced by the program, actually form patterns that require extra effort by the viewer to blend. The patterns formed often look like the weave and warp of cloth. Any repeated pattern can easily be viewed by the human eye. Therefore a good program must generate the viewed gray scale by grouping the pixel dots to avoid a visible pattern. This can be done by selecting dark pixels along the edge of the group to only coincide with light pixels. If two or more dots are placed together, then the eye will see the cluster as a larger dot.

I just received a letter and enclosed from from William J. Pedersen, “which prints out to any EPSON compatible printer”, a much more improved graphic display using the 752068. The WIDJUP Co. has a program to generate 14 shades of gray using a grouping of 16 pixels called, “GIXELS”, by Mr. Pedersen. I have not been able to run the DEMO yet, but will do so before next month and let you know what it is like.