Scratch

SeptimusHeap wrote:

Post... Number... 708! NOEZ!!!

Huh?

Hey guys, a little update for you, we're releasing a competition with Panther, this is likely to be that competition, so if any of you fancy winning, here it is, start thinking about it, even if you can't start programming:

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||                                  COMPETITION TIME!                              ||
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The first Panther programming competition:

Thanks to many of Panthers new features, It is possible to convert images on the screen into text format,
effectively coding the image, this can then be decoded again by reversing the steps.

 ++++++++++++
|| THE TASK ||
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Create a project that can encode an image to a text file and decode any image stored in the same way.

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|| MARK SCHEME ||
 +++++++++++++++
 
 ________________________________________________________
 |max points |              Description                  |
 |¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|
 |     5     | Graphic quality of project                |
 |___________|___________________________________________|
 |           | Ease of use: how easy is it to find your  |
 |     5     | way around the project?                   |
 |___________|___________________________________________|
 |           | Download speed: how long does it take to  |
 |    10     | load the image?                           |
 |___________|___________________________________________|
 |           | loading speed: How long does it take to   |
 |    10     | redraw the coded image?                   |
 |___________|___________________________________________|
 |           | file size: how large is the file once it  |
 |    10     | has been coded to text?                   |
 |___________|___________________________________________|
 |           | Ingenuity: earn up to 5 marks for tackling|
 |     5     | the problem in a clever, well thought out |
 |           | method.                                   |
 |___________|___________________________________________|
 
 The competition entry projects will be marked by looking at the above catagories when loading a 300X200 full colour image, though your project
 should not be tailored to work most efficiantly at that image size, as we're likely to test performance for larger and smaller images too.
 
  +++++++++++++++++++++++++
 || THINGS TO THINK ABOUT ||
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  • Look at encoding techniques for popular image types such as the .JPG

  • If the final output file can be read when saved with an image file extention (so your coding method matches that used by a
    popular file type so that you can save and load in that format) then that is likely to impress us.

  • Think about how different approaches to coding match different sizes and quality and consider including quality options for coding.
  
  • Greyscale images are faster to process and use less space, so consider including that as an option in your project.
  
  • You are likely going to have to choose between speed, space and quality, find a good balance, or provide several options to suit all purposes.

What do you think? a little more advanced than scratch competitions, but you should be able to handle it. scanning an image with the colour and file blocks into hexadecimal is actually very easy, one of the first things I did with them, it's about getting it to work faster or more efficiently that's the challange.

markyparky56 wrote:

SeptimusHeap wrote:

Post... Number... 708! NOEZ!!!

Huh?

I missed 707 

sparks wrote:

Thanks to many of Panthers new features, It is possible to convert images on the screen into text format,

I think you have to clarify the word "text" above.  When I read that sentence, I took it to mean printable ASCII and/or Unicode characters, but later you suggest using an existing image standard, none of which afaik are what I'd want to call text.  (Well, except for that one that's intended to be inserted in a C program source file.)

Are you envisioning using a COLOR AT <position> block to find the image data pixel by pixel?  Because if you want a fast program it'd be much better to expose pointers to the user, as in C, and just do a block I/O transfer, so you get something like a BMP format, very fast.  I'm just imagining something like an ADDRESS SPACE AS LIST block!     Maybe along with a POINTER TO block, so you could say [POINTER TO [ITEM <n> OF [ADDRESS SPACE AS LIST]]] to cast a pointer to integer.

OTOH your comments about providing a quality-vs-size knob suggest that you're looking for something more like JPEG encoding. I'll be very impressed if Panther can run a JPEG encoder at reasonable speed!  That'd be a great selling point.

Oh, one more thing: You might want to say something about the nature of the images you'll be using.  If it's a cartoon or a diagram, then run-length encoding will probably be the best solution, but if it's a photograph, run-length encoding will just make the file bigger.

Looks like a fun contest.

markyparky56 wrote:

dav09 wrote:

ok since you didnt like the 2nd one that much i decided to make another http://dav09.webs.com/flashvortex5.swf

Thats cool!

thanks 

sparks wrote:

We have code your own block features, so it might be possible to go a lot faster using a custom block.

Oh yeah, good point -- that's going to be a problem, I think, in judging any contest, because Smalltalk programmers have a big advantage over Scratch-level-of-abstraction programmers and you have to decide whether to handicap Smalltalk code in the awarding of points.

sparks wrote:

... mouth hangs open... wasn't really expecting it to be picked apart that much

Rereading this I realize that I'm not sure whether you meant "gee, thanks for taking such interest in this idea" or "foo, stop picking on me"!  If the latter, sorry, of course that wasn't my intent.  (I figured that since you said "What do you think?" in the original post, you'd expect exegesis from everybody!    )

Where is it T.T

IT'S THE WEEKEND!!!! >

juststickman wrote:

Where is it T.T

IT'S THE WEEKEND!!!! >

If you talk to us like that we may delay the release. Don't spoil it for the rest.

very nice! I might adopt that as a sig once we release it    thanks m 

thanks,  I saw, though I don't know which ones you changed and which ones are the same without scrolling back and forth. I might not adopt all of them because some are just too long for a block, some will have to be shortened.

Danke, Ich habe die Änderungen gesehen, aber ich weiß nich welch dass du geendert hast und welch noch  gleich sind ohne immer wieder hin und här zu scrollen. Alle kann ich nich brauchen weil sie ein bischen Lang sind für ein block und mussen verkürzt sein.

thanks though, I'll look through them.

Is Panther Gonna Be Out Today Or Tommorow? PLEASE MAKE IT BE TODAY!!!!!!!!!

OFF TOPIC: Hey Sep! You're Online! 

Last edited by TheGameMaster1231 (2010-05-15 07:48:06)

er, tomorrow! I did say:

sparks wrote:

xpect it sunday afternoon/evening at the earliest.