zbmConvert (latest version: v0.4)

zbmConvert (latest version: v0.4)

Alpha version 0.4 here remember, this program is alpha, hasn't been -*test*-('")ed much, and could potentially damage your camcorder. Back up your .zbm files before using this program. Version 0.4: -It should now save .zbm files correctly (Fixed a bit shift bug) -Fixed bit depth field Version 0.3: -Removed Tiff file functionality, I don't think it was working quite right -Uses palettes stored in text files (I'll document it later...) -Very early version of the TFT emulator, I know it has problems. It should at least give you a rough idea of what the image will look like -Various other improvements Version 0.2: -now has the ability to Open/Save zbm, png, bmp, tiff -filters all files that come in for correct colors, if it sees a color that's not recognized it turns it transparent -colors are now done by Color.FromArgb() instead of specifying a color such as Color.Green... I also changed green so the green channel is 255 (this means any green in .pngs saved by v0.1 will show up as transparent. Use 0.1 to save these files to .zbm, then open that .zbm with 0.2) -various other improvements Version 0.1: It has a lot of limitations... right now it has a limited palette that's not always the true palette. It seems that the palette varies per file, check out CAMEMPTY.ZBM for instance; the background should be blue. This also doesn't allow you to edit the .zbm files, so you have to convert the file to a .png, edit that, then convert back to .zbm. This is kind of a pain but it should work for now. I'm working on adding other features, but at least now you have a basic program to mess around with. For now, the colors in an imported picture have to be the exact same shades of red, green, black, and white that the program uses, otherwise it will turn that pixel transparent. Any time you save a .zbm, open that saved file again to make sure it saved all the colors it should have. Then check to make sure the filesize is the exact same filesize as the .zbm you'll be replacing. I have not actually -*test*-('")ed putting the generated .zbm files back onto the camcorder yet, but they should work. (tried using ops but it didn't want to upload the file. I haven't gotten around to editing a full flash image yet) For now, all pixels that aren't 1, 2, 3, or 4 in a .zbm get set to 0xf. It doesn't handle the camera processed images correctly (at least on mine) but as far as I can tell, these are never used since a .jpg version is used.

really cool! Yes, thanks but it doesn't run for me, but gives error "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application."

it's a .NET app, you'll need the .Net framework, most likely version 1.1

v0.2 is up, hopefully it fixes some of the problems... there's still work to be done, but it should be more user friendly now (I hope)

Nice work - but I'm having a bit of a problem editing the .png files and getting the tool to reimport correctly. I've tried both Photoshop and Paintbrush. Photoshop causes the resultant import to only show black. Using Paintbrush results in red and green, but no black. Very odd. Also, the tiff option doesn't seem to work at all. I couldn't import an unmodified tiff that the program had just created! Still, a great start. Once the bugs are worked out, this will be a very cool tool. :) This is odd behavior, but I can't reproduce it at the moment because I don't have either program to -*test*-('") with... both paint and GIMP seem to work fine for me, in all three file formats When saving as .tiff, are you choosing .tiff in the dropdown? Right now the actual format the image is saved in is determined by the dropdown in the save dialog, regardless of the extension added to the actual filename.

Yep - I changed the filetype in the dropdown. I'm not surprised Photoshop messed up - since it loves adding a ton of metadata to everything, but I am a bit surprised that Paintbrush messed up. BTW - Paintbrush showed all transparent areas as blue - so I simply painted blue over the bits I wanted to erase.

Also, the tiff option doesn't seem to work at all. I couldn't import an unmodified tiff that the program had just created! That's weird. But I'll also point out that TIFF is a nightmare file format. It's been "extended" by so many people in so many non-standard ways. Unless you're in the printing business, I'm not sure why anyone would be using TIFFs today.

Nice work boodle! I made this topic an announcement and added zbmConvert to the links section.

New version 0.3 is out, I redid a lot of the code. It now uses palettes which are stored in the /data/palettes/ directory. GBRW is green, black, red, white and BBRW is blue, black, red, white. You can make your own palettes, but I'm not aware of any the camera is using other than these. The TFT code is pretty rough, I messed with that one night then didn't touch it after that.

Hmmmm.... I took the Ready.ZBM and comvertedit to PNG to edit in GIMP. All I did was delete Ready. I coverted it into a ZBM and now everything is deleted like the file isn't there. What am I doing wrong? Try saving it as a bitmap from zbmConvert then editing it. the background should be pink. Either that, or open up your modified png in the GIMP and save it to a bitmap with a color in the background that's not one of the four in the palette (pink works fine.) Open it back up with zbmConvert, and it should work. The problem is something about either not saving or not opening PNG files in .NET correctly. For some reason it appears that colors that should be, say, FFFFFF are ending up to be FEFEFE. I haven't looked into this problem yet, as it didn't appear that anyone was using the program any more. Another problem you may run into is how to get the zbm back onto the cam. I haven't used the newest version of OPS, but if it's the same as before, you'll need to download partition 4, open it with a program that can read .img files (such as winimage) then putting the file in through that program. Then use OPS to upload that image back to p4.

ZBM file header
Ok, This program doesnt save functional ZBMs. The only problem is that it doesnt create the file header correctly. It does a great job of saving the image data.. It messes up the bit-depth WORD in the file header though. So heres how I have had great success with this program. 1) load original ZBM 2) save as .BMP 3) edit with Winpaint (make sure and use eyedropper for color selection, so that exact same color values are used) 4) load .bmp back into ZbmConvert and save as .ZBM file. 5)load both the ORIGINAL .ZBM file, and the new .ZBM file into a hex editor and copy the first 32 bytes (file header) from the original .ZBM file, into the new one. If you dont correct the header in the .zbm files that ZbmCOnvert saves, not only will they not work in your camcorder, but ZbmConvert will not even reload them. This is a very minor bug, and Im sure that Boodle can fix it in the next release. Otherwise, this program is awesome, and a very well-designed, and useful tool.

Re: ZBM file header
Ok, This program doesnt save functional ZBMs. The only problem is that it doesnt create the file header correctly. It does a great job of saving the image data.. It messes up the bit-depth WORD in the file header though. So heres how I have had great success with this program. 1) load original ZBM 2) save as .BMP 3) edit with Winpaint (make sure and use eyedropper for color selection, so that exact same color values are used) 4) load .bmp back into ZbmConvert and save as .ZBM file. 5)load both the ORIGINAL .ZBM file, and the new .ZBM file into a hex editor and copy the first 32 bytes (file header) from the original .ZBM file, into the new one. If you dont correct the header in the .zbm files that ZbmCOnvert saves, not only will they not work in your camcorder, but ZbmConvert will not even reload them. This is a very minor bug, and Im sure that Boodle can fix it in the next release. Otherwise, this program is awesome, and a very well-designed, and useful tool. Thanks for the heads up - sorry it took so long to fix it. While saving the width value, I was shifting by 4 bits instead of 8 for some reason. This version should work. I'm not sure if there's still any interest in this program, but at least it can save them now. There probably won't be much more development on this program unless there are people interested in more features. Let me know if you do want some other feature added.

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