PTG LOGO

[Bill Ballard]

On 9/4/97 10:50 AM, John R Fortiner <pianoserv440@juno.com> wrote:

> About the only way around this that I
>know of is to use what is called vector graphics - found in Corel Draw,
>or Adobe, and in Micrographics Designer.  My son-in-law took a scan of
>the logo that I use for my business and converted it to "vector".  It now
>prints as nicely as any font as the computer treats it as a font.  No
>more "fuzzy" edges. 

The dominant vector format is Adobe System's PostSciprt language, the 
lingua franca of computer graphics, although for fonts/typography there 
is also True Type. Bit maps are always dependent on the resolution 
(dots/in. or dpi) in which they were created. Vectored images are formed 
by defining their outlines as mathematical formulas . The interiors of 
these shapes are filled in, frequently by "post scripted" formulas as 
well. When a printer formulates the bit map with which its own dpi will 
render the graphic, that bitmap is created by  these formulas for outline 
and fill.   

>	Warning - converting the image into vector is
> very time consuming and involves a lot of hand drawing. 
  
Most vector draw programs have a trace function but you're right, the 
most faithful copying of the original; bitmap into vector is tweaked by 
hand and eye. However, Adobe Systems has a nifty utility "Streamline" 
which leaves most of us duffers and second computer graphics students far 
behind in the dust. 

Art least that's the view of things from the Mac platform.

Ever since the new logos came out, I've dreamed of buying the postscript 
version from the Home Office. But I can understand which they're hesitant 
to release these graphics in this purest of formats. There's not just the 
royalty issue facing any producer of computer graphics, you know, the 
sinking feeling that 50 people are using the 5 copies you've actually 
sold. They also have a minor issue in controlling the sorts of graphic 
design in which these logos are going to be used--the good bad and 
downright ugly. For a logo to be effective, ie. to be immediately 
recognizable, there should be very little variety in how it appears. 
Release it for general design purposes (even though just the PTG 
members), and the logo's recognizability looses its sharp focus. (Or at 
least that's what the design team producing it for the HO probably 
advised the.)

Finally there's the matter of the integrity of the logo. The fastest way 
to lose control of who is using it is to make it available for computer.

I'm hoping that I'm wrong in all this, and that the HO just hasn't gotten 
around to it. Could be similar to the situation with the 40 years of PTJs 
on CD-ROM that Susan Kline was pining for. Maybe it's another of the 
"emerging technologies" which PTG is way behind on. (No carping here, 
we're all manual laborers at a 19th century trade.) But I'll bet that  
should that CD-ROM archive come out, it'll be a viewer with no access to 
underlying text files. Which is the way I think it should be.

What does all this have to do with how to hold a tuning hammer? I was 
asking the same question about digitizing the PTG logo. Hope y'all like 
to read.....

Bill Ballard, RPT
New Hampshire Chapter, PTG

"Four Sicilian sisters forced forsythia  
  for Cynthia."
    said at our dinner table tonite.