July 29, 1999 Web posted at: 11:28 a.m. EDT (1528 GMT) by Joe Barr

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(IDG) -- Image is everything. Or is it? If you're like me, you probably don't buy into that notion. Image is important, yes, but it's not everything. In any case, I'm a content kind of guy. Given the fact that I'm not only color blind, but I often have trouble distinguishing the forest from the trees, that's a good thing.

But as far as this article is concerned, that old saw is true: it's all about image. We'll take a quick look at two products nearing completion and a longer look at a popular, mature 3D modeling and animation application. All of which are available today, free, for Linux.

Graphics applications are as natural to Linux as is water to a duck. With its raw power, Linux is able to wring the most from whatever hardware you have, which means Linux just makes good sense as a graphics platform.

I've mentioned CompuPic before. The popular multimedia file manager and image processor from Photodex is currently being ported from the Mac and Windows-centric world to Linux. The beta is going well and it looks on-target for a 1.0 release in October. I've just downloaded build 1006 and it looks pretty spiffy.

The thing that impresses me most about CompuPic for Linux is its speed. If I use the Explorer-like file manager, with the listing option set to thumbnail, and open the subdirectory that contains all the images from my Web site, they begin to appear immediately.

And, if I change directories and then return to the previous directory, the images are displayed instantaneously. If I click on one of the thumbnails, a larger view appears in less than a second. No wonder Photodex is so proud of its code!

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CompuPic also shows off its speed as you zoom in or out of an image while viewing it. The Z key gives you an instant screenful. The plus and minus keys work just as you would expect them to, only faster.

It's a big advantage to be porting a mature application that already has a lot of polish, rather than starting from ground zero. You can see that advantage at work in the Linux version of CompuPic.

But you do still need to remember that this is beta software. It isn't yet feature-complete, and not everything that is currently included works correctly. But build 1006 gives you a good feel for how fast and versatile the final product will be.

And, speaking of beta, I got two e-mails this past week alerting me to the fact that gPhoto now has beta code for my digital camera, the Minolta Dimage. Keep in mind that the Minolta Dimage is one of my favorite toys. My dependence on Windows software to download images from it was one of the things that kept me dual-booting for so long. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard the news.

I've downloaded the code from the GNOME CVS site, but so far I haven't had any luck getting it to talk to my Minolta. That's OK -- life on the bleeding edge is like that. At least I know it's coming.

Now that those two thumbnails are out of the way, I can tell you about the big picture. When I suggested last year that the GIMP might be Linux's killer app, more than one reader told me I needed to take a look at Blender. Well, I finally have.

Blender is a powerful, mature, multifeatured 3D modeling, rendering, and animation tool that runs on Sun, SGI, FreeBSD, Linux x86 and Linux Alpha, BeOS x86, and Windows. It's available as both a freeware (as in price) and a commercial product. The commercial version contains additional functionality and printed documentation.

Printed documentation alone is also available for purchase. Unless you're a lot more knowledgeable about 3D imaging than I am, the documentation is probably a good idea. Of course, you can simply download an HTML version of the basic manual, and you'll also find a number of Blender tutorials online (see Related Links below).

Blender may be the choice of a lot of graphic artists, but its interface is the work of an evil genius bent on confounding and confusing the uninitiated! At startup, you're presented with 30 icons on two separate tool bars. Beneath these are more than 50 controls, many of which are labeled with cryptic glyphs, that do baud-only-knows what. It's enough to make you want to RTFM!

So I did. At least enough to learn to do a few cool things without staring at a page of instructions for 5 minutes prior to each step. I downloaded the HTML version of the basic manual so I would have it for quick reference.

I have to admit that the manual (and most of the tutorials I looked at) all seem to start from the premise that you already have a clue. In many ways, it was like reading in a foreign language. Words and phrases like orthonormal, IcoSphere, and specular component are not part of my everyday speech.

Here's one of my favorites -- a snippet from the basic manual:

Smoothing by normal interpolation is not a Material property. Actually, it is a Mesh property and can be indicated for each face separately.

Many of you won't have as much difficulty as I do picking up the language. My brain often rebels at what it considers unordered data. (Like its visual side, for example.) But with a little effort, I did manage to do simple object manipulation in the 3D window.

Holding down the middle mouse button (that I could recognize) and moving the mouse within the 3D window gives you a trackball effect. It allows you to rotate the entire scene in any direction. Do this with one of the Blender images that come with the standard tutorial and you'll get an eye-opening view of what makes Blender so popular with those who know how to use it.

Actually, loading and viewing existing 3D image files gave me insight into Blender that it would have taken days to gain by creating my own objects. And, it showed me parts of the application that are definitely not user hostile.

From the opening screen, the 3D window, I pressed the F1 key to load a file. Blessed design! An easy-to-use file navigation window appeared! Mouseover highlights items as you move the cursor on the screen. You can move up, down, or sideways, or open a file, with a single click.

I felt so much at home with Blender's navigation tool that I didn't want to leave. But after quickly locating the dot-blend files in the tutorial subdirectory I had been looking for, I did manage to tear myself away.

A few clicks more, and a drawing of a glass vase appeared in the 3D window, drawn with colored line art as if straight from an advanced class in mechanical drawing. Then I pressed F12 and the artwork was rendered. Nice! And I mean really nice, as if it were a photograph!

Don't take my failings as a graphic artist or my lack of skill with Blender as negatives. Blender is very, very popular with the graphic artists who use it. And actually, there is a very simple explanation for why its interface is difficult for neophytes: it began as an in-house tool for a working animation studio. Blender's users were already skilled graphic artists.

A quick look at the user links on the Blender Web site will convince you. There is some wonderful art and animation on display at those links.

Blender has its own channel on IRC as well: the #blender3d channel on EFNet. It also has its own news server (see Resources). And most assuredly, Blender has a loyal user base. And why not? It offers superb capabilities at a great price!

While Blender isn't free-as-in-speech software, its users obviously believe in the notion of giving back to the community. You might be hard-pressed to find a Blender user who will tell you Blender is easy and intuitive to learn, but quite a few of them have taken the time to create tutorials explaining how to accomplish specific tasks with Blender. An AltaVista search using the keywords +blender +tutorial gave me over 1,800 links.

Of those tutorials, I'll probably use the guide to creating a logo to learn more about Blender. The flat image that is the tutorial's starting point and the final 3D version were enough to convince me: I want to know how to do that!

Joe Barr is a software professional, writer, and self-proclaimed dweeb. He has been working in the industry since 1974 as a programmer, analyst, consultant, and manager. In 1994 he began writing a monthly column called Papa Joe's Dweebspeak Primer in Austin, TX's Tech Connected magazine. The column exists today as an e-zine and newsletter at www.pjprimer.com, which has run on Linux since its inception.