Re: archiving GIF files on the GS

[hal@budapest.math.macalstr.edu (Harold Byron Bouma)]

Jimmy Shaw writes
> 
> I was wondering if anyone's figured out a way to archive GIF files on
> the GS.  As far as I know, GIF files can't really be compressed,
> in terms of saving space.  GSHK was no help at all.  Five files
> totalling 1604K compressed down to 1599K (woooo, I saved 5K!) with
> GSHK 2.0. And the demo version of AutoArk (noticed how they changed
> the _c_ to a _k_, AutoArc must be someone else's trademark, etc.)
> was no help at all.  I understand (or believe I understood) that graphics
> can't really be compressed to save space, unless we want to have a
> Jpeg compressor for the GS (which we don't.)

	The reason why GIF files cannot be compressed any further is that
they are already compressed using the LZW method (or versions of it). This is  
the same type of algorithm used by Shrinkit (and maybe AutoArk too, but that I  
do not know) which is why no additional compression can be done. Jpeg uses  
another compression algorithm and thats why they become smaller, however jpeg  
viewers on the GS are too slow to make converting them to that format  
worthwhile. If anyone takes the time to do a faster ASM version this might  
change.

| Hal Bouma                            | Send mail to: HBouma@Macalstr.edu    |
| Macalester College, St. Paul, MN.    | and           HBouma@Macalstr.Bitnet |
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