The GIMP: the GNU Image Manipulation Program

The GIMP for Silicon Graphics is split up into three sections:

All three can be found at http://reality.sgi.com/winfred/gimp. The complete package (gtk, gimp and gimp_extra) can also be downloaded in one tardist [11.5MB] from this page. It has been compiled on an Indy running IRIX 6.3 (so sue me) and runs on machines with IRIX 6.2 or higher.

Note: The GIMP relies on libraries for certain plugins. These are: JPEG, TIFF, PNG and Xpm. Most of them can be found on the standard IRIX CD's. Please install the subsystems ifl_eoe.sw.c++ and ViewKit_eoe.sw.base. If you don't have these libraries installed certain plugins won't work, but the rest of The GIMP will.

You only need to install gimp.sw.libs if you don't have access to the above mentioned subsystems. Also, you can find these libs at Wessel de Roode's SGI software page.

Sources and/or include files are not included in this package. If you are a developer you probably want to take a look at the home of The GIMP: http://www.gimp.org. It is also a great place for documentation and tutorials.

Send comments and questions about this SGI version to Winfred van Kuijk <winfred@sgi.com>. Disclaimer: Silicon Graphics and myself are in no way responsible for the application itself. All I did was compile the sources and package it in inst format. The software in this package is considered unsupported by Silicon Graphics and/or myself. In other words: this document is about the only support you will get.

This is my first shot at distributing a pre-compiled version of the GIMP in tardist format. Let me know how it goes. If you don't like it, I advise you to visit Mike Sweet's GIMP page.

Below is -a slightly modified- README file that comes with the sources. It should be enough to get you started.

Enjoy,

-Winfred

This is version 0.99.14 of the GIMP. For the most part it contains all of the features that will be in version 1.0 of the GIMP. It does, however, lack a) documentation, b) robustness and c) some of the plug-ins found in the 0.54 version.

The main difference between v0.99.14 and much earlier versions is the use of a tile based memory management for images. This allows the GIMP to work with images much larger than physical memory in a usable fashion. Before such memory management, the GIMP was nearly unusable for large images. (Large being something on the order of 4000x3000). With the tile memory management, image size is effectively limited by disk space. It is due to the switch to a tile based memory management system that old plug-ins will not work with this version of the GIMP.

A new type of plug-in called an extension has been created. Extensions are similar to plug-ins in that they are external program, but they differ in when and how they are run. The essential difference is that plug-ins are associated with a particular image/drawable, while extensions are not.

A good example of a complex extension is Script-fu, which resides in the "plug-ins/script-fu" directory. Script-fu is a simple Scheme interpreter that provides bindings to the GIMP's procedural database. This way you can write useful scripts that call the GIMP's functions and plug-ins, thus allowing automatization of repetitive tasks. Many scripts are included for your enjoyment in the "plug-ins/script-fu/scripts" directory.

Another extension is the "dbbrowser" utility, which lets you interactively browse through the procedures installed in the procedural database. This will mainly be of use to Script-fu programmers. Dbbrowser is also nicely integrated in the interactive Script-fu console.

Lastly, there is new file format (xcf) designed specifically for saving GIMP images. It handles layers, channels and tiles as well as saving all of the state information about the image, such as the active channel, the selection, etc. The format needs testing to make sure that it really is portable (we think we did it right) as well as robust. It also will probably change sometime in (near) the future to implement some form of compression for the tiles.

The GIMP's new home page is at http://www.gimp.org.

There are two GIMP-related frequently-asked questions (FAQ) lists. The developer's and user's FAQs can be found here:

http://www.rru.com/~meo/gimp/faq-dev.html

There is some preliminary GIMP documentation prepared by Adrian Likins in this URL:

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~aklikins/gimp/docs

In the meantime, while the final documentation is finished, you can read the dozens of fine GIMP tutorials people have written. Most of these tutorials can be accessed from

http://abattoir.cc.ndsu.nodak.edu/~nem/gimp/tuts

We have several mailing lists dedicated to GIMP user and development discussion. To subscribe, send mail to

majordomo@scam.xcf.berkeley.edu

and in the body of the message put

subscribe <list-name> your@email.address

substituting <list-name> for "gimp-user" or "gimp-developer" (without the quotes, of course) depending on the list you want to subscribe to. The mailing list archives can be found at

http://kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu/~gimp

Gimp-user is a mailing list dedicated to user problems, hints and tips, discussion of cool effects, etc. Gimp-developer is oriented to GIMP core and plug-in developers. Most people will only want to be subscribed to gimp-user.

And finally, for the real junkies, there are two IRC channels devoted to the GIMP :-) On EFNET there is a small #gimp channel. On Byxnet (a private mostly-GIMP network) there is #gimp, too. The Byxnet servers are:

irc.mint.net:6666 irc.canweb.net:6667 rudolf.canberra.edu.au:6666 levien.com:6666

More information about Byxnet can be found at

http://rudolf.canberra.edu.au/gimp/byxnet.html

We sincerely hope you enjoy the program. Please report problems to gimp-developer@scam.xcf.berkeley.edu. Before reporting a problem, you may want to see if someone else has already did (check the mailing list archives for this).

Have fun,

Spencer Kimball <spencer@xcf.berkeley.edu> Peter Mattis <petm@xcf.berkeley.edu> Federico Mena <federico@nuclecu.unam.mx>