EquilibriumDebabelizer
Volume Number: 16
Issue Number: 7
Column Tag: Tools of the Trade
Equilibrium's Debabelizer
by Bill von Hagen
Automating graphics processing, conversion, and
manipulation
The Tower of Babel is the biblical root of multiple languages on the planet earth.
DeBabelizer's name suggests that its goal is to cut through the confusion of multiple
graphics formats. This would be a pretentious product name (which has never really
affected product naming before) if it wasn't essentially true. Simply put, DeBabelizer
is the best graphics manipulation software I've ever used on a computer that I could
actually afford to own and fit in my house.
DeBabelizer provides an impressive number of powerful graphics file manipulation,
transformation, and conversion commands. To simplify performing the same
transformations on large numbers of files, DeBabelizer enables you to store sets of
transformations and apply them across user-defined sets of graphics files. Though
batch processing is something of a anachronism in today's GUI-based personal
computer software, sometimes it's exactly the right thing. I've used earlier versions
of DeBabelizer for years to refine screen captures from Windows and UNIX systems
for use in help files and printed documentation. My goal is usually to convert them
into another graphics format, resizing them without sacrificing image quality, and
reducing the number of colors used. In this sort of situation, you need to make sure
that you apply exactly the same set of transformations to the entire set of files so that
you don't subsequently encounter any color or size surprises when using the converted
files. DeBabelizer shines at this sort of task.
Any modern graphics tool ignores the needs of the World Wide Web (and, to a lesser
extent, those of other graphics packages) at its peril and to the detriment of its sales.
DeBabelizer can quickly transform any input graphic into the GIF, JPEG, or PNG
graphics formats used on the Web. DeBabelizer's other output graphics formats range
from the file formats used by specific graphic packages such as PhotoShop, Degas, and
Pixar's graphics tools, to basically every "standard" graphics format that anyone has
ever proposed. (In fact, there are so many of them, that you will wonder if standard is
the right word, but as the old saying goes, "You are in a maze of conflicting standards,
all different.") Users of Apple ][ graphics packages will rejoice that classic output
formats for the GS, ][e, ][c, and ][+ are available, and users of high end systems like
SGI boxes and the Sony PlayStation will be similarly pleased to know that their
graphics format needs haven't been overlooked.
Using DeBabelizer
There are three basic ways of using DeBabelizer. First, you can use the tool
interactively, performing specific transformations on a single file. Used in this way,
you explicitly open a file, do the transformations, and then save the file with any name
you want. Second, you can create a DeBabelizer script consisting of a set of
transformations onto which you drag and drop specific images to manipulate them. This
type of script generally includes a command to save the file, using some clever
mechanisms provided by DeBabelizer for giving your output files unique and different
names. Finally, you can create DeBabelizer scripts that only consist of a set of
graphical transformations. The list of input files and the naming rules to use for your
output files are specified in either the Batch List or Batch Automation dialogs. The
Batch List dialog lets you define a fixed set of files that you want to transform in the
same way. The Batch Automation dialog lets you define a temporary set of files that you
want to process using a specific script. Complex? At first. The right thing? Yes, but it
takes a bit of getting used to.
DeBabelizer provides complete online help in its own format. Many Macintosh
applications provide help as balloon help, which is always cute but often useless, or
external DocMaker or HTML files, which are better than nothing but can be
inconvenient to use while you're actually running an application. DeBabelizer
provides complete online help in its own format. All DeBabelizer dialogs contain a Help
icon (a question mark) that automatically jumps to the relevant section of the help file
for that dialog. You will definitely find this useful.
Creating DeBabelizer Scripts
Creating a script to process one or more images is easy. You first open an image that is
characteristic of the set, then open DeBabelizer's Script window by selecting the
Window menu's Script command or by clicking on the Script Window icon in the
toolbar (the fifth icon from the left). The Script window, shown in Figure 1, enables
you to define the sequence of transformations that you want to apply to a set of graphics
files.
When creating a script, you will usually want to open a sample image from the set that
you want to process with the script that you're creating. Why open a graphics file
first? Because, as mentioned previously, scripts define a sequence of transformations
that you will apply in batch mode to some number of different files. You therefore don't
want your script to explicitly open a single file, but rather to be able to transform any
file that you drag or drop onto the script or feed to the script as part of a batch list.
Specifying the list of files to apply the script to is done using DeBabelizer's Batch
Automation and Batch List dialogs, which are discussed later in this review.
Figure 1. DeBabelizer's Script Window.